Executive Director | National Disability Center for Student Success
Millions of disabled students have such a different experience of college that it threatens their lifelong success — a crisis Dr. Stephanie W. Cawthon seeks to address by establishing a new national research center with a potentially far-reaching impact on students, researchers, and educators.
In August 2023, Dr. Cawthon launched the National Disability Center for Student Success with a $5 million federal grant awarded by the Institute for Education Sciences (IES), a division of the U.S. Department of Education focused on rigorous research.
Dr. Cawthon is the National Disability Center’s Executive Director and principal investigator of the grant.
A Mission That Impacts Millions
The National Disability Center’s mission: Provide the first actionable research foundation to support disabled student experiences and achievement after high school.
“My career is devoted to empowering disabled students to thrive in classrooms and succeed in life,” said Dr. Cawthon. “With the formation of the National Disability Center, we can lead a disabled-centered effort to address the gaps in research and practices.”
The research center is housed at the Texas Center for Equity Promotion at The University of Texas at Austin, where Dr. Cawthon, who is deaf, is a professor in the Department of Educational Psychology with a courtesy appointment in Special Education.
Dr. Cawthon’s award is the second-largest IES grant in UT Austin’s history. Her research has been funded by over $50 million in federal and other grants.
A Collaborative Research Model
The National Disability Center uses a collaborative, student-centered, asset-based approach to promote a greater understanding of disabled people’s experiences and obstacles.
It is an innovative model focused on access and equity successfully piloted by Dr. Cawthon in 2022 and can be replicated on campuses nationwide.
Centering the lived experience of disabled people is another cornerstone of the National Disability Center. Its interdisciplinary leadership team, student fellows, and faculty cadre are people with disabilities or people deeply connected with the disability community.
The first research priority for the National Disability Center is to create a new measure of perceived campus accessibility — an essential step to help determine demographic predictors and the relationship to disabled student outcomes — by focusing on the core issues of accessibility, disclosure, student supports, institutional culture, and student outcomes.