18 Resource students

Many students highlighted a desire for more transparent and abundant accommodation options. In other words, cookie cutter accommodations don’t cut it. Many interviewees also emphasized that institutions must go beyond a single-issue disability framework to meet multiply marginalized and under-served students’ access and basic security needs (e.g., housing and food security, transportation, health care, affordable education, etc.).

“We did the best we could while we’re trying to do our own actual work for the university that we’re supposed to be doing.” – (Student E)  Additionally, student groups need to be supported with resources for their advocacy work and peer support. Multiply marginalized students engaged in self-advocacy and/or peer support are burnt out and struggling to meet their own access and basic security needs, often at the expense of their academic progress. Students must be resourced with information, decision-making power, and material compensation to engage in self-advocacy, peer support, community-building, and other forms of access labor.

When resourced in these ways, students can expand the transformative work they are already doing to foster awareness about access and (anti)ableism, develop community care, and support collective access in post-secondary settings. This resourcing also allows students to carry out this work more accessibly — for instance, through funding for captioners, interpreters, transportation, and more — another desire frequently expressed by student access leaders.