12/01/2025

Aligning Career and Disability Services: An Accessible Path to Partnership 

By Allison Pirpich and Kelly Morgan

Higher education is faced with the challenge of making the most of limited staff and budget. Career Centers often meet this expectation by producing everything in-house. Staff find themself switching from coach to event manager to recruiter to data analyst. However, this often leaves little time to consider how welcomed students might feel, particularly those with unique needs. Reducing barriers, creating inclusive environments and supporting the career development of students with unique needs can be challenging.

Florida Polytechnic University is a small STEM-only university located in central Florida. Students find an environment that allows small classroom interactions and student-centered services. Florida Poly also requires undergraduates to complete two experiential learning opportunities: an internship and a senior capstone project. This career-focused curriculum enables students to acquire the technical and soft skills necessary to remain competitive in a global economy (Gary, 2024). 

When career services professionals began supporting students seeking internships to fulfill the institution’s requirements, they noticed that individuals with documented disabilities faced barriers in accessing opportunities. Staff aspired to increase their outreach to students with disabilities to proactively support them in their internship search and educate employers on accessible hiring practices (U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division, 2020). They also recognized that some students with disabilities experienced low self-efficacy or did not understand how to request accommodations (Fabian & Morris, 2020). 

In response, Florida Poly staff partnered with the Disability Services to redesign their resources, educate employers, and teach students self-advocacy skills. This campus partnership aimed to reduce barriers, create inclusive environments, and support students’ career development. Other career service professionals can replicate a partnership with Disability Services by following the steps highlighted below.

Generate Buy-In from Senior Leadership

As they prepared to redesign their services and invest time in new initiatives, career services staff sought the support of school officials. Understanding the realities of budget constraints and small staff sizes, Career Services strategically emphasized that they would achieve career education through collaboration. They did not request additional dollars or more staff, but instead recognized that they would leverage existing disability services to meet students’ needs. Career Services staff also stressed that this partnership would advance access and the university’s student-centered culture by breaking barriers to campus resources, ultimately benefiting all students. Senior leadership endorsed the initiative because of the emphasis on universal design (Lynch, 2025) and resource optimization.

Identify Barriers 

Working closely with the Office of Disability Services (ODS), Career Services focused on identifying barriers in existing career service practices or procedures and gathering student feedback. Both offices aspired to build inclusive mindsets, events, and resources. 

Inclusive Mindset

Career Services evaluated existing structures to see how they could better serve students and eliminate barriers. They considered a wide range of student preferences, abilities, knowledge, language skills, and familiarity with career development (Centre for Excellence in Universal Design, 2024). This led staff to explore how to adjust existing services and take small steps to encourage students to be self-advocates. Career services staff also added disability resources to their internship course and included an accommodation statement on all department flyers to encourage students to use these services. Lastly, closed captioning was included in all Career Services PowerPoint presentations.   

Inclusive Events

The inclusive mindset also led Career Services to review and revamp the department’s events. During the career fair, disability staff set up a student breakroom area where students could escape the hustle and bustle of the event with noise-canceling headphones, stress balls, and prep resources. Employers were provided with an accessibility sheet, which included information on how to interact with students who use interpreters and how to be mindful when setting up booths for students with mobility devices or scooters. Lastly, Disability Services hosted a career fair debrief with students to gather their feedback on their experiences and identify potential improvements. 

Career Services and Disability Services co-sponsored events during Disability Awareness Month that focused on teaching students how to request accommodations in the workforce. Additionally, Career Services hosted drop-in coaching appointments at Disability Services to reach both existing and new students.

Inclusive Resources

Finally, the partnership focused on building inclusive resources. ODS staff adapted existing career fair preparation resources into an accessible guide, modeled after “Social Stories” (ABA Educational Resources, 2021). This accessible guide increased student preparedness by providing clear expectations of what students could expect from attending a career fair, including noise levels, room setup, social interactions, and guidance on entering or exiting conversations.  The focus on resources also included communication lines between offices. An interdepartmental Teams Chat was created to communicate about upcoming events, resources, and flyers across offices. Disability staff also added Career Services information to their intake process and discussed upcoming career events or fairs with students.

This partnership had a positive impact on the university and enhanced students’ ability to self-advocate. Students were excited to see the closed captions at workshops. The partnership inspired other departments to take similar steps, such as adding an accommodation statement to their flyers and hosting drop-ins at Disability Services to reach more students. Employers at the career fair said the accessibility sheet provided them with key information that they would share with their teams and help them interact with students at future fairs. Students who used an interpreter shared that they did not have to explain why the interpreter was there and could instead introduce themselves immediately. Career Services removed delays and enhanced employer-student relations through proactive communication.  

Actualizing and Advancing Success

Other career service professionals considering this type of partnership should consult with senior leadership and the disability services staff to identify and remove barriers, thereby enhancing access to their career services. They can start small by sharing resources, engaging in ideation, and creating a plan for new initiatives. It will benefit all students. Working together, cross-campus staff can actualize higher education’s most esteemed values and advance student success.

 References

ABA Educational Resources. (2021). Social stories. https://abaresources.com/social-stories/  

Centre for Excellence in Universal Design. (2024). The 7 principles. https://universaldesign.ie/about-universal-design/the-7-principles  

Fabian, E. S., & Morris, T. R. (2020). The career development of youth and young adults with disabilities. In S. D. Brown & R. W. Lent (Eds.), Career development and counseling: Putting theory and research to work (pp. 405–436). John Wiley & Sons.

Gray, K. (2024, January 16). The key attributes employers are looking for on graduates’ resumes. NACE: National Association of Colleges and Employers. https://www.naceweb.org/talent-acquisition/candidate-selection/the-key-attributes-employers-are-looking-for-on-graduates-resumes  

Lynch, N. (2025). Beyond accommodations: Universal design for everyday career practices. Career Convergence. https://www.ncda.org/aws/NCDA/pt/sd/news_article/603183/_PARENT/CC_layout_details/false 

U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division. (2020, February 28). Guide to disability rights laws. ADA.gov. https://www.ada.gov/resources/disability-rights-guide/#top       
 

Allison Pirpich Director of Career Services, builds career education programs that meet students where they are and move them forward — with confidence. She believes the best career development work is collaborative, innovative, and rooted in real-world impact. Her approach blends strategic thinking with human-centered design to help students gain clarity, build confidence, and take meaningful next steps. With over a decade of experience across higher education, she’s created scalable, student-first initiatives at institutions like University of Central Florida COM, Florida Polytechnic University, Cornell Tech, Weill Cornell Medicine, and NYU. She’s shared this work at national conferences, including NCDA, Florida ACE, Florida AHEAD, NASPA, and NASPA’s Leadership Educators Institute. At Florida Poly, the team’s work was honored with a NASPA Excellence Award (Silver), recognizing a commitment to student-centered, high-impact programming. She may be reached at allison.pirpich@ucf.edu.

Kelly Morgan joined Florida Polytechnic University in May 2020 as Coordinator of the Office of Disability Services and now serves as Director of Student Success. In this role, she leads key student success initiatives, including the Student Success Center, Testing Services, and Disability Services. Kelly began her career in K–12 education as an accessible education teacher and staffing specialist. She holds an M.A. in Disability Studies and a B.A. in Elementary Education, Special Education, and American Studies. Kelly currently serves as President of Florida Association on Higher Education and Disability. She has presented on her work at NCDA, Florida AHEAD, and FACRAO. She may be reached at kmorgan@floridapoly.edu.