“Turning the University Inside Out” : A Look Inside UCLA’s Disability Studies Program

By Jacob Witt

Brooke Wilkinson and Pia Palomo both describe their entrance to the University of California, Los Angeles’s Disability Studies program as having “stumbled” or been “pulled” into it; both starting at the university’s Academic Advising office. Wilkinson began working specifically as an Academic Advisor for Disability Studies (DS) students, as well as some in other programs, whilst Palomo first engaged with the program when they were called in to help plan UCLA’s 2017 Disability Studies Conference, and stayed thereafter. 

Now Wilkinson is the Director for Academic Initiatives, tasked with myriad responsibilities regarding supporting faculty and academic programming, ranging from helping to secure budget for a class to supporting faculty as they develop interdisciplinary programs, such as the Disability Studies Interdepartmental Degree Program. Palomo is the Assistant Director for Curricular Initiatives, similarly tasked with supporting faculty in planning programming, and navigating the university's structures. Both discuss their ongoing work with the Disability Studies program fondly. 

“Disability touches everybody in so many different ways, and now I have family with disability,” Brooke Wilkinson said. “And it's been a ride to experience it [Disability Studies], first sort of feeling as an outsider and, now, in a different kind of perspective. I feel very fortunate to have really, as I said, stumbled into it.” 

Disability Studies is an interdisciplinary field of inquiry that draws from the social sciences, the humanities, and the medical, rehabilitative, and educational professions. It focuses on challenging and ultimately changing society’s attitudes toward individuals with disabilities - moving away from a perception of Disability, solely, as a medical problem requiring intervention (a perception of Disability known as the “Medical Model” within Disability Studies), and towards a perception of Disability as a social issue, social construction, and cultural identity. 

Whilst numerous universities offer Disability Studies curricula, UCLA’s Disability Studies program is still the first of its kind in some regards, being the first Disability Studies major to be provided at a public university in the state of California since 2023. It is the sole major housed within the Division of Undergraduate Education with direct support by Undergraduate Education Initiatives, a unit of the university that collaborates with faculty to design, implement, and promote interdisciplinary educational programs for UCLA’s student body. 

“The Division of Undergraduate Education has never housed a major before, but it makes perfect sense, because our division is so focused on undergraduate education and we work with departments and divisions and the professional schools and everybody across campus,” Wilkinson said. “So in this way, it's really allowed DS to continue to kind of function in the way that it has been, and grow really nicely.” 

While UCLA first provided Disability Studies as a minor at UCLA in 2007, that was preceded by numerous milestones in the history of Disability at UCLA, going as far back as the 1970s. At this time, Douglas Martin founded the Union of Disabled Students and, by 1983, returned to his alma mater to co-found the Chancellor’s Advisory Committee on Disability - later renamed the University Committee on Disability. By 1989, he became UCLA’s first compliance officer, increasing ADA compliance on campus and, in doing so, the rate of enrollment by students with disabilities. 

Whilst conversations about a Disability Studies program at UCLA began in the 1990s, it was a member of that committee, Jane Spencer, who wrote a 2002 report to the chancellor discussing the need for a Disability Studies Program. Jane worked with Jessie Alpaugh – an art history major from UC Berkeley and the namesake of UCLA’s annual Jessie Alpaugh Senior Prize in Disability Studies – to prepare the curriculum and see what courses could apply toward a Disability Studies program. In 2007, the Disability Studies minor was established at UCLA as an interdisciplinary program, spanning only 16 academic units rather than the 30 it does today. 

Palomo stated that, alongside this history, UCLA students have engaged in their own history of activist work, with Martin’s Union of Disabled Students, the contemporary Disabled Students Union, and its predecessors all examples of this. “Students have definitely been organizing and building community on their own, and as part of UCLA’s engagement with disability in general, as well,” Pia Palomo said.

In the wake of UCLA establishing a Disability Studies minor, it was a 2017 conference by the Disability Studies department which, in Wilkinson’s words, “really put UCLA on the map” and led to conversations about establishing a major for the department, with conversations about where the Disability Studies major would be housed- eventually determining that the Division of Undergraduate Education would be best suited. 

Alongside offering 57 courses across academic disciplines, the Disability Studies program also runs Disability Studies Inclusion labs, which provide spaces for scholars, community members, researchers, educators, and academics to engage with disability as a social, political, and cultural identity. 

Inaugural labs included the Autism Media Lab, which explored barriers to inclusion for Autistic people through undergraduates producing documentary films in partnership with Individuals with non-speaking, minimally-speaking and unreliably-speaking Autism, and the Dancing Disability Lab, which maintained a week-long residency for experienced and emerging disabled dance artists to workshop with one another, engage in discussions, and ultimately produce dance and performance work that called into question ability paradigms. 

Palomo discusses the Disability Studies Inclusion Labs as being established in the wake of the 2017 international Disability Studies conference, Disability as Spectacle, which was hosted by the University. 

“After the conference, there was just a lot of energy for maintaining connection with a lot of the community partners who came to campus, but also the faculty from other universities and our faculty on campus, like, ‘how do we keep this momentum going?’” Palomo said. “And the labs were a way for us to keep that energy and creativity going and pulling in our partners, including students, offering different curricular opportunities, and really, as our chair might say, turning the university inside out and disrupting how knowledge is produced and shared at a university, but also in the community.”

Discussing what it is like for students to take courses in the Disability Studies program, Wilkinson and Palomo described the experience as overwhelmingly positive. 

“From our current disability studies student ambassador, they recently shared with me and the chair that from the survey of our current students, that students are reporting that they believe the program is a very skills-forward program, and they're able to analyze systems, communicate, communicate ideas, and engage ethically in the world,” Palomo said. “They believe that they're developing strong, transferable skills, and some of the skills that they cited were empathy, critical thinking, written and oral communication, global perspectives, creativity, and career readiness.”

This remained the case with students who were themselves disabled. 

“When I was an academic advisor and meeting with students with various disabilities, who did identify as someone with a lived experience, there was at least a joy in having a disability studies class,” Palomo said. “And even for our students who may not pursue the minor or the major, just having access to the courses has also just been one good thing really, in terms of exposure to the academic field, but also elevating a particular community and experience.” 

Discussing what they would want to see in the future of UCLA’s Disability Studies program, Wilkinson expressed hope for continued growth within the department and for the department's continued ability to produce disability advocates. Palomo agreed, adding that the newly introduced Disability Studies major introduces additional responsibilities into the program and opens up more possibilities for faculty engagement and investment. 

“By virtue of students going through this program, like Pia said, our graduates, they go into so many different areas, they are becoming teachers and lawyers and doctors and CPAs, they’re accountants, they’re everywhere, and they're taking with them all this knowledge and experience and advocacy,” Wilkinson said. “We do hear how they feel they're contributing in their current fields, using the skills and the things that they've learned with disability studies. So I hope that we continue to grow so that more students can have access to this really, really important field and coursework.”

“I agree. I think now as a major it's a different level of responsibility when students are earning degrees but it also opens more possibilities in terms of faculty engagement and investment,” Palomo added. “And then down the line, who knows, like growing further and pulling in graduate students in other ways too.” 

Discussing what they would, more broadly, want to see change in the lives of Disabled peoples and how society engages with Disability, Wilkinson and Palomo were in agreement. “I'll just say if I consider the Disability Studies program, like, simply, I think equality for everyone.” Palomo said. 

Wilkinson agreed, adding that she’d love to see more people invest in their communities and stronger policies and awareness, which could lower stigma and reorient society’s interactions with disability toward greater support. “Equality would be great,” Wilkinson added.