Community & Service: Disability, Access, and Care
From 2023 to 2025 I served as Faculty Representative for Students with Disabilities in the Faculty of Humanities and Letters at Bilkent University.
Disability is not a marginal issue but a fundamental part of human diversity — visible and invisible, temporary and lifelong, physical, cognitive, sensory, psychological and chronic. What I learned in the role is that accommodations are the smallest part of the picture. Access is mostly a matter of design: how a course is structured, how time is managed, how assessment works, how clearly expectations are communicated, and whether support persists across semesters rather than restarting each term.
I think of access as a condition of shared intellectual life rather than a special provision. That is also why it is not separable from my teaching or my research: the question of what has to be in place before someone can participate in knowing is the question I work on.
Selected Reading & Resources
The following books offer thoughtful, humane, and intellectually rigorous perspectives on disability, care, and interdependence. They may be useful to students, faculty, and anyone interested in thinking more deeply about access and inclusion.
Foundational Works in Disability Studies
- Rosemarie Garland-Thomson, Staring: How We Look
A powerful exploration of visibility, difference, and how bodies are socially perceived. - Lennard J. Davis, The End of Normal
A clear and accessible critique of “normality” as a social and statistical construct. - Tom Shakespeare, Disability Rights and Wrongs Revisited
A balanced and widely respected introduction to disability theory and policy.
Care, Dependency, and Interdependence
- Joan Tronto, Caring Democracy
Explores care as a central political and social value, not a private burden. - The Care Collective, The Care Manifesto: The Politics of Interdependence
Neurodiversity, Mental Health, Higher Education
- Judy Singer, NeuroDiversity: The Birth of an Idea
- Kay Redfield Jamison, An Unquiet Mind
- Jay T. Dolmage, Academic Ableism: Disability and Higher Education
- Alice Wong, Disability Visibility: First-Person Stories from the Twenty-First Century
A Note on Community
Disability support works best when it is proactive, relational, and sustained. I see this role not only as administrative service, but as part of a broader commitment to building an academic community grounded in respect, attentiveness, and care. Access is not a favor; it is a condition of shared intellectual life.
If you would like to speak, suggest improvements, or share concerns—whether as a student, colleague, or ally—you are very welcome to do so.
Monica Solomon 