Despite their significant influence on the experiences of disabled college students, disability resource professionals are provided limited guidance on how to carry out the functions of their role. As a result, during the accommodations process, disability resource professionals generally rely on their instincts and "gut" reactions when responding to accommodation requests after quickly processing information from a student's self-report and relevant medical documentation. However, hidden within these quick decisions are disability resource professionals' positionalitiesor frameworks for considering the world-that have an innate influence on the outcome of accommodation decisions and, ultimately, disabled students' access to higher education. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to explore disability resource professionals' views on positionality in the context of higher education disability resources and its relationship to accommodation decision-making. After a review of findings from interviews with 13 disability resource professionals, the authors conclude with recommendations for higher education disability resources and directions for future research. Practical Implications:• It is important for disability resource professionals to cyclically examine their positionalities (e.g., identities, experiences) before, during, and following theThis is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Despite the availability of disability resource centers and reasonable accommodations to facilitate access among teacher candidates with disabilities, research has shown that access alone may not be conducive to equitable educational experiences that promote program retention and completion. The purpose of this systematic review of the literature was to synthesize existing research on the experiences of teacher candidates with disabilities in teacher preparation programs and present implications and future directions for research, policy, and practice in higher education disability resources and special education teacher preparation to advance both access and equity in these settings. Results from five total articles showed that teacher candidates with disabilities experienced several barriers to access in their teacher preparation programs that negatively impacted their personal and professional outcomes. The authors conclude with a discussion of future directions for research, policy, and practice in both special education teacher preparation and higher education disability resources.

To effectively diversify the special education profession, the field must recognize disability as an aspect of diversity and critically examine how disabled teacher candidates experience higher education. Research has shown, for example, that during their time in teacher preparation programs, teacher candidates with disabilities encounter numerous barriers and a general sense of unpreparedness for their disability-related needs among several stakeholders (e.g., faculty, staff, disability resource professionals). The purpose of this article, therefore, is to describe an approach for disability resource professionals to apply socially-just disability resources—an emergent professional paradigm in the field of higher education disability resources—to enhance both access and equity in special edu- cation teacher preparation programs.

Course syllabi are an important point of visibility for higher education disability services offices, lending importance to the presence and accuracy of disability and accommodations statements within them. The present study is a content analysis of course syllabi from a large Northern Virginia university from the Fall 2020 semester. Researchers collected syllabi from publicly available webpages—including department websites—resulting in a sample size of 61 syllabi with 58 disability/accommodation statements available for analysis. Researchers analyzed and coded syllabi for the presence of an accurate name and contact information for the institution’s disability services office, the accuracy of procedures for establishing accommodations, and the usage of the office’s pre-written disability/accommodation syllabus statement. Of the 58 syllabus statements, only 39.7% included completely accurate information related to disability services and accommodation-related procedures. Further, none of the syllabi in the sample used the syllabus statement(s) made publicly available by the university’s disability services office. The authors outline action items for disability services professionals and other campus stakeholders to leverage syllabi as a key point of visibility for disability services and ensure that students are provided with clear, concise, and accurate information necessary to establish accommodations entitled to them under federal law.

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