Twenty years ago, Ontario passed the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA), which aimed to make the province fully accessible by 2025. The act applies to any organization with at least one worker and thereby covers many educational institutions including the university, requiring them to follow standards around customer service, information access, design of public spaces, transportation, and employment. 

UW’s own policy 58 commits the university to “achieving accessibility and its requirements established under the [AODA].” In the Waterloo 2021 Equity Study, 12 per cent of respondents reported having one or more disabilities. Being less than six months away from 2025, the question is: are we on the right track? And what does that track really look like?

Physical accessibility

Chris Barclay, a master’s student in public health who is blind and uses a guide dog, said his experience with accessibility on campus has been “really positive” thus far, having also completed his undergraduate degree in public health at UW. He highlighted his experience sitting on AccessAbility Services’ former Student Advisory Committee with other students with disabilities, which provided feedback from students and acted “sort of [as] a consulting service as well,” helping community members like professors and university clubs ensure that the materials and events they were providing were accessible. 

According to Barclay, the committee was also involved in the SLC expansion completed in 2021, making recommendations to include tactile markers and braille buttons in relevant spaces. Though he wished they had addressed the lack of accessibility in older buildings on campus, he expressed that it was “nice” to be able to help make events like the Clubs and Societies Fair more accessible. 

Another accessibility feature he appreciated was the shuttle service that used to be facilitated by AccessAbility Services, which made getting across campus easier for him and his service dog Sherwood, especially during bad weather. However, the program was modified during the COVID-19 pandemic, and is now being outsourced to a local taxi service. In a written statement to Imprint, Geoffrey Shifflett, interim director of AccessAbility Services, explained that the service was changed to accommodate increased demand and provide greater scalability, though Barclay felt the outsourcing made the service “less flexible” than it used to be.

But the closure of the advisory committee was especially impactful because the committee allowed students with disabilities to provide feedback. Although the university currently has an Accessibility Committee with representatives from each of the school’s departments, Barclay felt that these services aren’t “quite what they used to be… but in general they seem to do a good job, still providing the basics, which is good to see.” He added that although it is fairly easy for him to provide feedback by knowing who to talk to, having navigated AccessAbility Services for so long, the advisory committee’s closure makes things harder particularly for new students who are less familiar with AccessAbility Services. 

Shifflett stated that the university is looking to expand disability community networks beyond what the previous Accessibility Advisory Panel could offer, another feedback group that was shut down. They added that UW encourages community members to complete the university’s survey on exploring interest in future disability networks to “offer their insights on the development of new programs that will build engaged community spaces and feedback pathways.” Feedback regarding accessibility can be sent to aoda@uwaterloo.ca. 

As it turns out, a dedicated body like the Student Advisory Committee is just one way that campus could’ve been made far more accessible for Sydney Whitwell, a former global business and digital arts (GBDA) student who left in 2021 after just one semester due to how inaccessible UW felt for her.

Whitwell, who at the time was using a manual wheelchair and relying on a service dog, left her hometown of Victoria, B.C. to attend UW because she believed that accessibility legislation in Ontario, like the AODA, created “more of somewhat of a standard” than the “vague” pointers in B.C.’s Human Rights Code. B.C. has since passed the Accessible British Columbia Act which became law in June 2021, whose stipulations were allowed to be enforced starting this year.

Whitwell said that they’d heard good things about the accessibility at the university, and had meetings with members of AccessAbility Services ahead of time to confirm the accessibility of the classrooms and dorms. But once she arrived, it was a different story. 

She felt that several minor issues at her assigned accessible dorm in CMH could’ve been addressed ahead of time, such as the door being far too heavy for a manual wheelchair user. Additionally, the bed (even at its lowest height), command hooks, and cabinets in her accessible dorm were all too tall for her to utilize with ease. “I assumed that when I said ‘I’m a full time wheelchair user, are the dorms accessible,’ and they were like, ‘oh yes,’ they would know that I — especially because at the time I was using a manual wheelchair — they would know that that makes you much shorter than a standing person.” 

“I also didn’t really bring up some of that because it was also kind of embarrassing, like how much I felt I needed [to be] changed,” they said. Despite the effectiveness and clear amount of work that had gone into the accessible bathrooms, Whitwell remarked, “A lot of things made me feel I stuck out more than I would have if the dorms were better configured for [disabled students].” 

Peter Cai, who graduated from UW in 2023 with a master’s in computer science, pointed out several issues for wheelchair users that campus still has, though he described his experience as fairly accessible. He singled out older buildings like the Mathematics and Computer Building or B.C. Matthews Hall, as well as the third floor of the Davis Centre Library, frequented by graduate students. Carpeted floors and a lack of door opener buttons were “impossible” for a manual wheelchair user like himself, leading him to begin using a powered wheelchair full-time in order to navigate campus freely. Cai said that the carpet issue was something he thought was an obvious fix.

The last straw for Whitwell came when she was taken on a tour of UW’s satellite Stratford campus, which GBDA students are expected to regularly attend after their first year. She couldn’t shake the feeling of being a “guinea pig” for improving the campus’ accessibility, stating that it felt as if she was giving an “unpaid accessible consultation.” 

“And so again, I was just very aware that there’s not really a lot of people who look like me at Waterloo… all of these things big and small made me feel super unwelcome and like this wasn’t prepared for someone like me,” they said, stating that they wished “work like that” had been done in advance.

To Barclay, whether the university has reached the culture of accessibility the AODA aims to achieve depends on where you look, varying between programs, faculties, and even buildings. “I’m very proud to say that the health faculty has been, for the most part, extremely accommodating,” he said, adding that his professors’ willingness to work with AccessAbility Services to accommodate his needs was extremely helpful. “But [from] what I’ve heard about in other faculties is… that may not be the case.”

A subpar culture

In an August 2023 interview, when asked if the university was adequately equipped to handle the changes needed to be made to campus to improve its overall accessibility, Joyce Barlow, associate director of Disability Inclusion, said that she viewed accessibility as more about a cultural change, less simply fulfilling a checklist of accommodations. 

“Accessibility is about cultural change, and not about a technical checklist of how many [powered door] buttons do you have? How many ramps do you have? It’s about how individuals with disabilities are experiencing the campus and the university the way that they choose to engage with us,” Barlow said.

Barclay agrees, describing a project he did in high school on the AODA, where he spoke to one of the lawyers that created it who expressed that part of the idea behind the act was to foster a culture of accessibility. “You see everywhere now, inclusivity, diversity, equity being major buzzwords… that people want to [uphold] and so… I think the AODA is sort of part of that larger cultural shift.”

One of the nine categories of barriers to accessibility defined by the Postsecondary Education Standards Development Committee is attitudes, behaviours, perceptions, and assumptions. It notes that the stereotypes present as a result of the latter category can lead to “inaccurate assessments of students’ personal characteristics,” causing internalized ableism and for students with disabilities to feel unwelcome in class or during social activities. 

In addition to physical accessibility barriers, Whitwell noted a seeming lack of disability etiquette in community members, describing a culture of being looked at and a lack of awareness around the nature of disability that made them feel isolated. Constant stares and whispers made it “exhausting to go out anywhere, because I couldn’t go to the library and try to get work done in public without hearing people talking about me as if they thought I couldn’t hear them,” she said. 

She added that she wished the university did more to educate students on disability etiquette, as it was “very draining” to give constant reminders to students not to touch their service dog or to make space on the sidewalk. Students on Whitwell’s floor would also linger around the accessible bathrooms without any apparent need for the facilities, and one time, others in the same elevator joked about how easy it would be to steal her service dog because Whitwell can’t run. When bringing up the latter incident to CMH personnel, they said nothing could be done about it. The reaction cemented her belief that having some form of a disabled students’ association would have made her feel like she had more of a voice.

Even arrangements that were physically accessible could add to the feeling of isolation. Whitwell’s Latin class was in an auditorium-style lecture hall, so to accommodate her wheelchair, a folding table was placed at the back of the hall. Though the placement was technically accessible, it created a different sort of challenge. “Because I was sitting by myself and I was the only person sitting by myself, it really points out to you that this building was initially not made for you and didn’t expect you to be there.”

In response to whether campus had overcome the barrier of attitudes and perceptions, Cai said, “I guess the best thing you can ask for [regarding] perception is for them to not care about the disability… I’m saying that as a positive thing because as someone disabled, other than [having] the things that I really need, all I want is to have people treat me the same way.” 

Noa Runnalls, a first-year student in honours math, also felt that she experienced a lack of disability awareness when discussing her accommodations with one of her professors, which has since changed her outlook on professors’ understanding of accessibility. Runnalls has ADHD and takes daily medication for chronic migraines, and is registered with AccessAbility Services. Up till that conversation, she felt “very accommodated” on campus, especially within the math faculty, as her accessibility advisor and her math professors had all been very understanding and helpful. 

So it was a jarring experience when one professor reacted to Runnalls’ ADHD in a relatively less accommodating way. When she failed the class’s second midterm, he offered to let her retake the midterm, which is when he asked what her disability was. Runnalls wasn’t yet aware that students with disabilities are not required to disclose them to anyone outside of AccessAbility Services. 

“And he responded, ‘oh, so you just have trouble focusing,’” Runnalls recalled, suspecting that he was looking for something to blame her marks on, which were lower than the class average. She posted about the incident on UW’s subreddit r/uwaterloo, eventually taking the issue to AccessAbility Services, who she says really “fought on [her] behalf” to make sure she was provided with the accommodations needed when retaking the exam. 

“I don’t think I would have been able to make it through this class without accessibility,” she said, stating that they not only helped with her accommodations, but also checked up on her overall mental well-being throughout the process. According to Runnalls, this isn’t new behaviour for the professor, as friends registered with AccessAbility Services described similarly negative experiences with him.

The incident has changed how she views university professors’ understandings of disabilities, especially a mental disability like ADHD. In the 2022 Canadian Campus Wellbeing Survey, 15.9 per cent of UW’s over 4,000 participants said they had a mental illness that affects their everyday functioning. According to the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, as of 2017, one in 20 young Ontarians are diagnosed with ADHD.

“I thought all professors understood, at least, that [ADHD]… is not just having trouble focusing, and there’s more to it than that,” Runnalls said. “I thought the university did more with educating their professors about it but I guess not… or maybe this particular prof didn’t listen… which either way is just upsetting to me.” 

UW community members with disabilities have worked themselves to make campus more accessible in various ways. STEM with Disabilities, a group formed by UW alumni Emma Collington and Samantha Fowler, was created to provide a space for those in STEM with disabilities, something they didn’t have as undergraduates in STEM with disabilities with few or no role models. Collington said that she has been very impressed with the support the organization has received from UW, and that they have worked alongside other groups on campus who are working not just to meet the 2025 deadline but to implement accessibility recommendations for postsecondary institutions. Dale Martin, an able-bodied associate professor in biology, has also worked to make UW more accessible by modifying his lab for that purpose. The changes included bringing in an accessible bench whose height can be changed to accommodate the user’s needs, and adding an automatic lab sink at a lower height than standard sinks. 

Whitwell believes that the university can make campus more accessible, especially given its reputation of innovation. In addition to having the support of a student body comprised of those with disabilities, she suggests that UW hire people with various disabilities to evaluate the physical accessibility of campus. 

“I feel like they could totally do it, and I hope they do. That’s why I wanted to [speak to Imprint]: cause even though I don’t feel super warmly about the school, I want people after me and people currently there to have better experiences,” she said. 

Jay Dolmage, chair of the English department and founding editor of the Canadian Journal of Disability Studies, says that the AODA, as a rhetorical document, only has as much power as is enforced. So to what extent the act is enforced, and who does that enforcing, are left up for question.

To Dolmage, the AODA is “a floor and a ceiling.” 

“Legislation like that, it shows where the floor should be, right? But it also strongly insinuates that we might not do anything more than what it’s asking… what I think it’s being interpreted [across universities] as, is we shouldn’t do any more than what they’re going to choose to enforce.”

So, what is being done?

In the 2022 Canadian Campus Wellbeing Survey, 73.4 per cent of UW students with one or more disabilities or medical conditions said they did not receive accommodations, something Dolmage says demonstrates a systemic issue of inaccessibility at the school, which persists despite the individual efforts of those working at AccessAbility Services. “It requires leadership… [but] I wouldn’t fault the leadership right now because they’ve got to look around at the atmosphere and say there’s no funding for us for anything,” he said, citing a lack of funding from the provincial government and “a feeling as though the provincial government is not going to prioritize enforcement of the AODA.” 

The province’s recommendations to address the barrier of attitudes, behaviours, perceptions, and assumptions about disabilities include transformational leadership, accountability metrics in the form of performance measures, and awareness.

The university’s 2023-2025 Multi-Year Accessibility Plan (MYAP) demonstrates the university’s progress towards an accessible campus through several MYAP themes: policy and procedure, information and communication, design of public spaces, employment, and education. Each section lists specific plans or accomplishments, each with varying levels of progress. Notably, the progress of work in policy and procedure, information and communication, and employment are either “behind schedule” or “at risk,” with the MYAP noting that the COVID-19 pandemic and its “corresponding changes slowed some of our plans as we focused on broader initiatives and responses.”

Barlow listed the creation of an inclusive physical space framework as one example of work the university has done in relation to accessibility. It falls under the theme of design of public spaces, and aims to help designers create inclusive physical spaces that take into account accessibility, environmental sustainability, and the wellbeing of those in the space. 

Part of the policy and procedure work listed includes the policy 57 drafting committee, on which Dolmage currently sits. The policy will “outline the provisions and processes for employee workplace accommodations,” clarity on which is a requirement under the AODA. In comparison to accommodations guidelines, a policy would be more enforceable and require employee input and approval. 

The recommendation to create such a policy came in 2017, seven years ago. Although Dolmage doesn’t blame the administration, acknowledging there are multiple factors at play, he noted that it should not have taken the policy drafting committee seven years, stating, “you’d think with the AODA that would be the push you’d need.”

His hope is for policy 57 to help expand the potential of the AODA. Making a similar push for students would show that the act is “not just about [the] classroom. It’s about recreation. It’s about the full life on campus… Outside of the classroom is where we can make a lot of gains on access.”

“Students and staff and faculty, everyone who lives and works here, I think we’re constantly waiting to see the university’s heart… and I think the university does care about [the AODA]. They’re just trying to find the right way to show it,” Dolmage said.

According to the federal government, as of 2022, 27 per cent of those aged 15 and over have a disability, an increase from 22 per cent in 2017. The Government of Ontario predicts the number of those with disabilities to increase as the population ages over the next 25 years. “It’s actually a piece of legislation that is designed for all of us,” Dolmage said. “You don’t need it right now, but you will. And that sounds scary to people… and that’s part of the issue. It’s scary only because we haven’t made the changes we need to make for a more accessible society.”

 

With files from Andie Kaiser.