The UW-Whitewater Disability Justice Collective (DJC)

In the early 2022, three University of Wisconsin-Whitewater undergraduate students (McKenna Meyer, Ashley Peterson, and Maggie Tienor) began an action research collective aimed at improving disability services and supports on their campus through exploring the experiences of college students with disabilities. Drs. Matthew Wolfgram, educational researcher at UW Madison, and Courtney Wilt, assistant professor of special education at UWW, served as mentors supporting the collective’s work, which resulted in an exploratory study of the experiences of college students with disabilities at UWW. The original cohort presented this work to the UWW Chancellor, and in Summer 2023, led to the formation of the Disability Justice Collective (DJC)—a continuation of the work by a new cohort of students—all who identify as disabled/having a disability. The DJC has since collaboratively developed research questions targeting ableism across key aspects of college live: Academic success, belonging, and career planning. Through refining an interview protocol and gathering the perspectives of more peers with disabilities, an ongoing analysis will be incorporated into a pilot survey for universities and their disability service entities to better understand student experiences and disrupt ableism in college life. As more is learned through the DJC about supporting and sustaining collaborative research with students with disabilities, the more we hope to broaden the capacity for universities to meet their ideals of inclusion and student success with actionable strategies.