CAL is difficult to deal with and doesn’t advocate for its students
Graphic by the Martlet.
It’s not easy navigating the Centre for Accessible Learning’s (CAL) system, and once you’re registered, it’s also not easy gaining access to accommodations for each course.
As a full-time student, I don’t have a lot of wiggle room when it comes to finances. One of my accommodations is to have a peer notetaker: another student in the class who shares their notes anonymously. But, like many students with CAL, I can’t afford a paid notetaker.
According to the Accessible Learning page on the UVic website, “the full-serve note taking program costs $250 per term and per course.”
In a written statement to the Martlet, a UVic spokesperson said that the cost of this program “is covered by grant funding for the majority of students.” Although this funding exists, that is further work for the CAL student that they shouldn’t have to do.
I have also been told by some of my professors that they can’t provide certain accommodations because of their own class rules.
In cases like these, a UVic spokesperson says,“If a student feels their accommodations are not being met, we encourage them to reach out to CAL for support.”
In my workshops, my professors don’t record their lectures. Audio recordings of lectures are one of my accommodations, and yet I can’t access them because my professors simply don’t provide recordings of their lectures. To get around this, I pay a subscription to an online note-taking program that provides me with both the recording as well as a transcript.
Lacking these resources inhibits my learning, especially when some seminar-style courses require my full attention and engagement for three hours.
In some classes, including both workshops and seminars, professors have a no-laptop rule, which requires students to handwrite their notes. I have an accommodation that allows me to use a laptop in class, but students who don’t have the same access to accommodations are forced to attempt to keep up with the lecture while taking notes by hand.
When communicating with my CAL advisor, I was told that I could apply for financial aid to gain access to paid resources. This is an issue for both me, and people I know who are also registered with CAL. Often, if not always, when attempting to gain access to accommodations or other resources, it’s made even more complicated for me. Just living life day-to-day as a disabled person is hard enough, let alone having to advocate for myself to get access to resources that are supposed to accommodate me, not the other way around.
Because I can’t afford a psychologist and a specialist’s diagnosis, I don’t get access to all of the accommodations that someone with my diagnoses needs, such as attendance accommodations and assignment extensions.
If you’re also tired of jumping through hoops and cutting through red tape to get accommodations that should be your right to access, you’re not alone.
