KPU instructor works towards achieving disability justice and removing barriers in education

For Fiona Whittington-Walsh, disability justice is more than ensuring people receive equal access to opportunities. It’s about recognizing that disability is just another state of being and not something to be feared. 

This outlook is part of critical disability pedagogy, which opens educational doors for all by shifting academic course environments so every student can participate and succeed without needing to request accommodations. 

As lead advisor on disability, accessibility, and inclusion for Kwantlen Polytechnic University’s provost’s office, Whittington-Walsh has worked to implement this pedagogy at the university by creating the Including All Citizens Pathway (IACP), which launched in 2016. 

The pathway started off with five students who had intellectual developmental disabilities. They were able to graduate with a Faculty of Arts certificate by taking courses with embedded supports to assist not only their learning, but everyone’s in the class. Every fall since 2022, a cohort of at least five IACP students begin their courses.

“There’s no ‘special people’ here,” Whittington-Walsh says. “It’s a fully inclusive classroom.” 

A large part of adapting courses so they fall within the critical disability pedagogy is shifting the way instructors teach, something Whittington-Walsh has been working to support. She has created several guides for KPU instructors to follow that adhere to IACP principles, including guides on relationships and belonging, accessible and inclusive classrooms, and low/reduced sensory spaces. 

Most recently, Whittington-Walsh launched a guide for instructors on how to use KPU’s braille printer, a new addition to the university’s Surrey campus library that embosses braille into paper and is accessible to the public for self-serve use. 

Having taught two students who read braille, Whittington-Walsh says it is important instructors provide these students with the same resources that everyone else in the class receives, including the course syllabus, PowerPoint slides, and any other visual materials. 

“Having that access is so important,” Whittington-Walsh says. “So I really wanted to make sure that other instructors can also provide these resources and understand why it’s important.” 

Whittington-Walsh added it is important instructors have a conversation with their students who read with braille to learn how they would like to have their resources organized for braille printing as preferences can be individual. 

The guide to braille printing for instructors is available to read on www.bit.ly/brailleguide. 

Whittington-Walsh’s work towards disability justice goes beyond KPU’s IACP. 

In 2022, she launched the research project “Transforming Post-Secondary Education for Indigenous and Non-Indigenous Students with Disabilities and Deaf Students,” which documents the experiences of Indigenous and non-Indigenous disabled and deaf post-secondary students across B.C. She shared a survey with student unions across the province, collecting results from 11 institutions. 

To share the survey results, Whittington-Walsh took to an unconventional method suggested by KPU employment and community studies instructor Simon Driver — theatre. With a class of students as the actors and KPU music instructor Gordon Cobb as the camera operator, Whittington-Walsh created five videos that work to dismantle ableism by showing how systemic barriers affect students with disabilities’ access to education. The videos also depict the lived experiences and stories shared by student survey respondents. 

Whittington-Walsh is working on a website that will host these videos along with the research project so anyone can access the materials. 

“We want to make sure that folks use it, that you can use it in classrooms,” she says. “The goal is to get institutions starting to think about the many barriers that exist and hopefully wanting to transform the system so that we can eliminate those barriers.” 

An important piece of Whittington-Walsh’s work is recognizing how societal value is currently placed on being non-disabled and changing this ableist outlook, she says. 

“Disability justice means that people with disabilities are there, they’re part of the creation of solutions, and they’re at the table …. [It’s] recognizing that we’re all temporarily able-bodied, in a sense, and able-minded,” she says. “People with disabilities contribute and are valuable members of society.” 

To learn more about Whittington-Walsh’s work and disability justice, visit wordpress.kpu.ca/iacp.