By: Noeka Nimmervoll, Staff Writer
Between Burnaby Mountain’s poor transportation and the daily Stairmaster challenge, it’s no wonder the majority of students, staff, and alums think the needs of people with disabilities aren’t met at SFU. This includes those with invisible disabilities, which are any chronic ailments not visible to the naked eye, which limit or otherwise impair someone’s physical or cognitive daily function. There is a considerably wide range of conditions that fall under this umbrella term, such as mental health conditions (depression), and physical conditions (chronic pain and digestive disorders). The current support system for students with invisible disabilities reflects a deeper truth: SFU’s current approach to accessibility is performative, placing emotional and physical burdens on disabled students instead of building truly inclusive systems.
A reality for individuals living with invisible disabilities is the constant self-advocacy they must perform. At SFU, all students with an ongoing disability must register through the Centre for Accessible Learning (CAL). For this process, you must adhere to many procedures and deadlines to request accommodations. CAL explicitly outlines the many responsibilities of disabled students, while including a disclaimer that the requested accommodations might not be granted. This sends a clear message: support is conditional. How inviting. This means if you have a disability, you have to continuously advocate for yourself to get your needs met.
It is incredibly challenging to reach out to a faceless department to ask for support for an invisible disability. The skill of self-advocacy requires confidence, clarity, and self-compassion, all of which are radical virtues within systems that treat accessibility like an inconvenience. How I see it, many more students are struggling than the university knows because of this emotionally exhausting barrier that CAL sets up.
The skill of self-advocacy requires confidence, clarity, and self-compassion, which are all radical virtues within systems that treat accessibility like an inconvenience.
Students are all aware of how, when school gets going, it just keeps going. Accommodations in the middle of the semester are challenging to acquire. Even if you are registered with CAL, there are situations where you’re required to obtain a doctor’s note to get your accommodations — this is both expensive and time-consuming. Wait times are a considerable challenge for seeing a doctor in BC, and it can be challenging or even impossible to get the medical attention you require in a timely fashion. It doesn’t make sense to require a doctor’s note when registration with CAL already means that a doctor has informed the university of your condition.
As for students not registered with CAL, well, they simply don’t get access to their resources or accommodations. For those students, falling ill (again) or experiencing a flare-up, will not only lead to personal pain but to missing lectures and deadlines. In those cases, they’re required to reach out to multiple instructors as soon as possible, to share — often deeply personal and intrusive — information about their lives. Even with documentation, the responses vary from professor to professor, with the possibility they may not understand or empathize with students’ unique situations. This inconsistent and unpredictable treatment is not just frustrating — it’s unfair.
SFU should make lecture recordings mandatory for full access to course material on days when it is difficult or impossible for students to get to school. Easily allowing extra time to be allotted on exams via student request with no questions asked may provide a necessary sense of ease and safety for those who require more time. Moreover, providing on-deck support to students filling out required CAL documents online, and providing accessible therapy to individuals who are struggling with invisible disabilities are some additional ways to foster a sense of communal support — without overrelying on students’ advocacy of self.
While CAL has many resources, its programs at large miss the point: The rigidity of SFU’s policies in assignments, tests, and lectures is inherently ableist. SFU’s systems are built in a way that leaves many students behind. Not because of their lack of integrity or dedication, but because of the compounding issues that disadvantage them, making SFU an institution that centers able bodies. SFU’s inflexibility reinforces inequality — it’s not just a flaw; it’s a failure of inclusivity. To move towards accessibility, SFU must reform its ideology not just to accommodate people living with disabilities, but to include them from the start!
