DON'T WRITE A DISSERTATION, EARN A SPECIAL EDUCATION CERTIFICATE.

I used that title previously, opening with "I have long maintained  that higher education has a retention and completion problem because high schools don't properly prepare students, and I've proposed a way of obtaining accountability from those high schools that some states are moving toward."

I've also long maintained that the faculty, as stewards of the university, have a responsibility to say no to developments that lower the academic mission.  Perhaps when the burden of admitting unprepared students and calling it access becomes great enough, they will say no to doing special education: The Student Accommodation Problem No Professor Wants to Talk About.

There's supposed to be an office with specialists who come up with the various accommodations for students diagnosed with disabilities.  That's generally satisfactory, until the problem of extended deadlines arises.

At most U.S. institutions, students with disabilities can work together with their institutions’ accessibility offices to obtain what are called accommodation letters, sent to faculty on students’ behalf (usually at the start of term). These letters officially request adjustments intended to diminish students’ barriers to learning without overly disrupting the learning goals of the course (remember: Logistical rigor ≠ intellectual rigor). For students who are vision impaired, that might include accompanying every image in online classroom materials with alternative text for screen readers. For students with conditions such as ADHD, autism, depression, anxiety, PTSD, or dyslexia, common accommodations include providing extended or separate examination time, or posting course materials online. Most instructors are happy to do these things—except, I’ve found, when it comes to one request: flexible deadlines.

The most transparent way to provide that relief is to be precise about how much extended time students eligible for extended time get. Often that doesn't happen.

The problem arises with the maddening vagueness of the word flexible. “The letters never say how late is OK,” one mathematics professor at a large state university told me. “So, it’s always up to me to be the bad guy, which I hate.” This professor says that the letter is often the final (or only!) communication about the student’s needs, and it contains nothing to specify exactly how many extra days the instructor is supposed to offer each assignment. “It seems like the [university disability office] has made it their job to be Good Cop.” Grading is the most onerous part of college instruction on the best of days—and losing any modicum of control over when assignments come in is chaotic and deeply disrespectful of an instructor’s already-crunched time. Arguably, it’s also not terribly helpful to the student to not know exactly what is expected of them.

It's on the professor to get clarity from the case workers in the disability office, then establish what those extended deadlines for work are and communicate those to the student.  Some case workers do, some case workers don't, and they must be prodded to do so.  And yes, there are students who will abuse the privilege.  Thus, “Flexibility without accountability is not a possibility.”

Unfortunately, the capture of higher education by the coalition of the oppressed is so complete that faculty fear for their reputation, or being invited to the next wine and cheese reception, for being responsible.  No.  seriously.

If poorly communicated flexible deadline accommodation requests are disturbing someone’s ability to teach well (which it sounds like they are!), then why won’t anyone talk about it? Is everyone really so scared to be branded as ableist to just push back a tiny bit and go: Wait, how many days are we talking here? My labor isn’t something you should take for granted!

Definitions of rigor are, indeed, allowed to change with the times; college faculty should, indeed, continue to accommodate students with disabilities to every reasonable extent. But there has to be some room in the discussion for a reasonable amount of pushback without anyone being labeled an ableist, be-monocled dinosaur—and, apparently, fearing for their job.

Indeed so, but higher education selects for careerists and conformists.  The consequences, though, fall on the students.  "[T]he nonaggression pact between professors and students is not working in the students' favor."  Let's see how those requests for extended time work on this software development or that mill start-up.

Cold Spring Shops headquarters is on land that was in Wisconsin Territory before Illinois became a state. We recognize the labor applied by those settlers marking the trails that contemporary Illinoisans use to visit Lake Geneva, the Dells, and Door County, and to watch their teams get owned in Green Bay.