A Conversation with Jocelyn Vargas and Chris Barragan, Caltech Accessibility Specialists

What are your histories at Caltech?

Chris: So I was brought on as the Student Affairs case manager, and when I started and the scope of my role was specifically case management for students of concern. Over the course of the last two years, that’s shifted and developed into my role now as the Director of the Center, where I continue to provide leadership to the CARE team, and also develop Accessibility Services while casting a vision for the future of student support at Caltech.

Jocelyn: Similar. I was brought on to be the Neurodiversity Specialist within the existing CASS structure, so my case load was seeing students who are neurodivergent, students who identify with learning disabilities, autism, dyscalculia, dyslexia, but within the neurodiversity umbrella. And with the current transition with just one person as you know, following staff transitions, now I oversee all of the streamlined processes with CASS. That includes facilities, consultation with faculty members, database management to really growing all of the processes of Accessibility Services and it’s very new exciting things that interact with the CARE team and the growth of the center.

About that name change…

Chris: Most people are familiar with “CASS”. However, part of the rebranding with the CSS is getting used to just saying Accessibility Services. Our hope is that students are encouraged to connect with the Center as a homebase for student support services, which would of course include accessibility services.

Acronyms and initialisms can be tricky here!

Chris: It doesn’t help that this building is CSS, for the Center of Student Services, but also the Center for Student Success. Caltech loves their acronyms.

What were the beginnings of accessibility at Caltech?

Chris: You’re going to have a lot more to say here I’m sure, Jocelyn, but it’s important to note that when Accessibility Services began here, what it looked like then and what it looks like now is quite different. Now it’s a more comprehensive, much more holistic approach to student support.

Jocelyn: The history that I was aware of was that it’s very much like this: You go to the Dean’s Office, you apply for accommodations, and way back in the early 2000s, you’d fill out a form, they process you, put you in a file, and then someone from the Dean’s Office—or the dean themselves—would help with accessibility support. The changes are on par with the national trends in the increase of students with disabilities enrolled in higher education, so the institute acknowledged the need to invest in this area of the institute because we are also experiencing that growth at Caltech.

While that process is my responsibility, now that it’s no longer pen-and-paper in the Dean’s Office, but a whole dedicated office with the database, the workflow, a case management system, I’d say we’re very much supporting students holistically in all types of the student experience, even informally, so we have knowledge of people we can connect them to if we can’t directly support. It’s become an almost advisorship sort of structure.

And to me it feels less sterile, less transactional, in the way I do Accessibility Services. I make an effort to feel approachable, like it’s humanized, and that it’s just another part of the student experience that should be respected, intentional and supportive.

Chris: Other folks in the Institute will now come to us for consultation about ways to make the student experience more accessible across the board. We don’t just do the case management of students, but we’re part of the folks who are thinking more broadly about how to help students thrive here. There’s something called universal design that is really driving us: How can we make accessibility at Caltech not just something for those who need the accommodation, but for everyone?

The example Jocelyn uses is the curb on a sidewalk—how it indents down, while people who have mobility issues use that as well as able-bodied folks. So our hope is to build a Caltech where every class, assignment, building, etc, is built in such a way that you don’t even technically need an accommodation because it’s designed in such a way that it is accessible for everyone, regardless of accessibility need.

Jocelyn: I’ll add, too, that when I started at Caltech twoyears ago, it seemed siloed in the way you’re mentioning. The curiosity was there from people all over campus that now we can easily directly connect to people with accessibility concerns, you have a facilities concern, you know you can go to Todd or Jasmine in CTLO [the Center for Teaching, Learning, & Outreach] rather than trying to build that structure when we first started. There’s been a lot of progress in the two years that we’ve existed.

Where does Caltech struggle, and where does it excel?

Chris: This is the part where an answer can get us in trouble…!

Jocelyn: I think all of higher education right now is in a space where most students with more complex needs are coming in. It’s not just one individual thing that students may experience, complex needs where they’re really pushing the boundaries of where accessibility even was 10 years ago. I’d say all universities are probably subpar and in need of continuous growth. Caltech excels in some categories, but falls short in others.

Chris: Let’s highlight some areas we excel in before talking about the old buildings.

Jocelyn: I think we excel in faculty communication and intervention. If a student has a specific concern in the classroom I have the confidence to go to a faculty member and go, “Here’s the concern the student brought up. How can the three of us mediate a solution?”

Can we talk about those old buildings?

Chris: We do need help—our buildings are old. And sometimes we as an institute can be reactive to the student’s needs as opposed to proactive. And so, sometimes, we wait until the need presents itself and then the Institute will absolutely do what they need to do to meet that need. But our buildings weren’t always designed with accessibility in mind.

Jocelyn: And then you can add the budget constraints in all of higher education, even at Caltech, which does not help in that regard.

Chris: I have often heard that when the Institute was established, there were people who believed that the students who needed the services we have now wouldn’t—shouldn’t—show up in our student population. I think that plays a part somewhere deep down our roots. There was a time when students with accessibility needs were seen as less than.

Jocelyn: That’s definitely not just not Caltech; it’s also higher education in general!

What improvements would you like to see in the near future?

Jocelyn: I immediately, urgently, would love to get more on the student perspective on how accommodations exist in their everyday Caltech experience. I can give them accommodations in the classroom, but unless a student comes to me and says, “This is not happening,” I wouldn’t know. I’d love for students and faculty not to feel any shame or worries about coming back and saying, “Hey, I had this experience in the classroom and want to talk about it.”

I want to create a culture where we can engage in dialogue around accessibility concerns to increase accessibility for everyone who comes afterward. I’ve seen students come in, and express a concern that opens the door for so many other students that come afterwards.

Chris: We deeply believe that support is not a sign of weakness, but a strategy for excellence. We find very often that students here are sometimes extremely resistant to receiving any type of support because they see it as a type of weakness as opposed to an opportunity to, honestly, be excellent. But that’s a big shift internally for some students. Sometimes we won’t be aware of something unless it’s really catastrophic and I wish students could see that the catastrophe is avoidable with some support along the way.

Jocelyn: I’ve definitely seen that.

Chris: To come to Caltech, and to be here, you have by every measurement, excelled academically. You’ve reached this point where you were at the top of your class your entire academic career, and you come here, and you realize, “Oh my god. I’m kind of mediocre when you look at the pool.” It’s a shock to some students who are just as brilliant as they are, and sometimes I think that that even presses in a lot more on people’s unwillingness to ask for support because they already feel at a deficit because they look at their peers and perceive them to be thriving, and excelling.

But, they don’t know that every day we’re sitting in our offices with students who think they are the only ones who are struggling. Our students will often think they are the only ones facing the challenges they encounter, but they are really not. The reality is virtually every student needs support at some point in their journey here.

Jocelyn: I have an anecdote about this: I’ve been a staff adviser/mentor for two years. This year, each first year student wrote a letter to their faculty and staff advisors saying what they’re worried about, and the most common comment is, “I’m worried I don’t have the knowledge to succeed in my classes.” That’s literally everyone! Nine out of nine, in one group. They wouldn’t admit that to one another. And I’m like, you all share those feelings! I will highlight it! Like, folks, you’re all saying the same thing!

Chris: This is a hard place academically, that’s just the reality. And as a staff advisor, I saw the same things as Jocelyn and the other faculty.

Could you speak more to the evolution from CASS to CSS?

Chris: That honestly might be a little harder to verbalize. The non-polished way of saying that is that Accessibility Services was floating without structure, and so I was tasked with doing just that. Now what we’re doing is giving it shape, and mission, and vision. We are now one team, trying to deeply influence the Institute. Which feels a little overwhelming, just with the two of us.

Jocelyn: Yeah. Accessibility connects everyone.

I really like this universal design paradigm.

Chris: Yeah, it’s deep in our hope and there are faculty who’ve essentially already designed their courses in such a way.

Jocelyn: Universal design, which stems from architecture, so the impetus of that was actually through architecture and physical design and physically creating accessible spaces. It has now shifted through the disability space into Universal Design for Learning, where we create curriculum and tests and learning that are also accessible. For faculty members who’ve created universal design in their curriculum. [For more information on UDL at Caltech, please refer to this page linked by the QR code below.]

Chris: Currently we have a small handful of faculty that have designed their courses in such a way that they don’t need accommodations due to how they’ve structured their course. I think if I were a student it would just be a morale boost as a student not to feel like your professor is doing anything special for you, but that the course was designed with you in mind.

Any closing comments, between the two of you?

Chris: We love our jobs!

Jocelyn: We’re two really cool people. I think we’re two of the more relatable members in Student Affairs—not to say there aren’t lots of cool people! But we’re some of the most approachable in how we deal with something that seems so scary and so transactional. You think of accessibility services, you think of crisis management, you think sterile, but we’re not sterile people.

Chris: No, we’re the opposite of sterile. The scope of my work is so broad: a day can go from a crisis to one-on-one student connections creating meetings and belonging. (And we really are trying to cultivate a sense of belonging on our campus.) But I think when some people think of the CARE Team, or Accessibility Services, to Jocelyn’s point, it sounds really clinical or sterile—procedural—but the truth is that there are portions of that to our work. Yet, we add a human element to it that I hope allows students to feel like they can be entirely who they are at Caltech.

Thanks again for agreeing to this. We’re happy to feature you two in the Tech!

Chris: This is our debut!

Jocelyn: We’re going to be in the Caltech Archives. FOREVER.

Chris: I honestly feel so special. Thank you so much for taking the time to do this for us.

Chris and Jocelyn would like all readers to know that, for any concern, discomfort, or challenge, be it formal or informal, you are more than welcome to contact them at cbarragan@caltech.edu and jocelynv@caltech.edu, respectively. I would like to thank them again for their time.