From Veterans to Caregivers—The Importance of Expanding Remote Education for Women Worldwide

Centuries of innovation show that flexible, remote learning can open doors for women navigating disability, caregiving and systemic barriers to education.

In the 1970s, two decades before the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act, Maureen Ann Nolan, whose physical disability precluded her participation in traditional education, fought to attend college remotely. Having matriculated through radio education programs growing up, she imagined that a similar model could allow her access to higher education. 

Her dreams were stymied, however, when administrators told her that she was not welcome on their campus–specifically, that it would be too burdensome for faculty members to remember the keys to the technology closet where her adaptive equipment would be housed, and that for that reason, she would not have the opportunity to partake in their learning community. 

Nolan did not take “no” for an answer. Her efforts to rally for increased remote access to education garnered her a platform through public media, galvanizing change; not only did she find two schools willing to allow her to call into classes—Queensborough Community College, where she received her associate degree and Barnard College, where she earned her bachelor’s—she also went on to earn graduate degrees in English from Columbia University.

Despite the passing of the Americans with Disability Act in the time since Nolan went through a similar struggle, this language served as a loophole, as the ADA notes that schools and employers need not accommodate those with disabilities if accommodations unduly burden them. 

But lasting change takes time.

Nearly 50 years later, at the age of 19, I found myself living with a disability, enthralled in battles with the college where I’d completed two years with high honors prior to becoming ill. In a pre-COVID era, I too was told that teleconferencing into classes, or transferring online learning credits, or attending part-time or taking increased independent studies, would all pose undue hardship on the institution. Despite the passing of the Americans with Disability Act in the time since Nolan went through a similar struggle, this language served as a loophole, as the ADA notes that schools and employers need not accommodate those with disabilities if accommodations unduly burden them. 

It was then that I encountered, and eventually matriculated through, a University Without Walls program and unearthed its rich history—and the history of online learning not only a disability rights issue, but an intersectional feminist issue. 

It is a history that we should continue to learn from and build upon today, particularly as marginalized peoples of all kinds weigh their safety on college campuses amid increased political encroachments upon them—and amid an economic landscape that renders traditional, full-time attendance impossible for many.

The History of Nontraditional Learning as a Tool for Access

In the early 1800s, “correspondence programs” sought to make education more accessible. The University of Chicago was one of the first well-known higher educational institutions to offer an affiliated correspondence program, allowing remote students to converse with professors asynchronously, through the mail. Doing so laid a foundation for those unable to travel to campus—those with physical limitations, veterans, housewives—to pursue their right to an education.

In the early 1900s, Schools of the Air utilized radio broadcasts to similarly “bring isolated children out of the silence and give them a sense of belonging.” Though this quote describes School of the Air programs in Australia, the radio model, and its objective, also took hold in the United States, particularly for children with medical conditions that barred their attendance at elementary or secondary schools (note that, as Nolan’s story reveals, higher education was not yet seen as an equal priority for people with disabilities, and thus offered less flexibility). 

UWW programs created spaces where nontraditional and marginalized learners were not only included in education—as in prior programs that patched them into traditional classrooms—but centered and celebrated.

In the 1970s, a national movement to democratize higher education galvanized the creation of University Without Walls (UWW) programs that provided nontraditional students–again, housewives, veterans, incarcerated individuals and people with disabilities—a remote, and more robust, higher education. “In the beginning, students attended on-campus classes, and when they could not get to the university, UMass UWW professors went to them, teaching classes in workplaces, prisons and in the community. In the 1990s UMass UWW professors were even known to haul their own office computers to community sites week after week so those without computer access could complete assignments,” write UWW representatives from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. 

UWW programs created spaces where nontraditional and marginalized learners were not only included in education—as in prior programs that patched them into traditional classrooms—but centered and celebrated. They provided a pedagogy designed specifically to recognize these learners’ unique identities and life circumstances, to not only accommodate them but leverage their perspectives for learning. 

Navigating Stigma and Threats to Higher Education

Despite the groundbreaking nature of these historical remote and hybrid learning structures, online learning in the 21st century faced significant stigma, especially before the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Some employers expressed hesitation regarding online degree holders, leaving students weighing whether to disclose their alma maters on their resumes—or whether to share sensitive personal information during interviews so as to validate their educational choices and assuage potential concern. 

While the pandemic shifted public perceptions of, and reliance upon, remote options, we’ve seen an additional pull away from these modalities in the years following lockdown. For instance, recent federal mandates that require remote workers to return to the office set a tone that reverberates into education. 

This regression comes at a time when millions would benefit from continued flexibility in how and where they learn. Consider, for instance, that “According to a 2020 study conducted by AARP, there are five million college students caring for adults, and over half of them report feeling their caregiving duties take away from their ability to be academically successful.” 

We know that female individuals are more likely to shoulder caregiving responsibilities for children and aging relatives, and that this care work can position them to have a harder time completing traditional, in-person coursework. We also know that women are disproportionately impacted by chronic illness, comprising the majority of individuals living with autoimmunity, and thus may face greater physical barriers to attending college. This gendered disease burden is rising amid climate change, illuminating the intersecting nature of educational, environmental and medical policies—individual students’ limitations mere microcosms of the systemic issues we face at scale.

The proportion of women, and all people, comprising the market of prospective online learners is therefore substantial. And the act of education—of honing critical thinking skills, social impact and innovation across disciplines—is more essential than ever if we are to counter these central, urgent issues of our time. As students face threats to their safety across the nation, from gun violence to ICE raids across K-12 and postsecondary sectors, the number of students weighing their willingness to return to campus is also increasing. 

We cannot let their willingness to learn pale simultaneously.

The Need to Improve and Expand Online Learning for All

Taking the above into consideration, we need to continue normalizing and destigmatizing nontraditional remote learning opportunities as valid, accessible pathways toward women’s realization of their right to an education. 

This means expanding the number of hybrid and remote learning options available through well-established colleges and universities. It means rethinking the types of technological adaptations deemed as “undue hardships” in the context of student disability. It means investing in longitudinal research regarding best pedagogical practices—the impacts of evidence-based instructional interventions in the remote learning milieu—and in the professional development of online instructors in synchronous and asynchronous online programs to ensure impact. 

Too, it means prioritizing rigor, mentoring, inquiry and opportunities for multimodal engagement so that the online classroom is equally vibrant and effective as that of traditional programming. And it means that private colleges long resistant to swerve from the residential model need to reconsider the good that flexible modalities will do in an ever-changing higher educational environment—amid a rapidly shifting undergraduate market. Prestige, in other words, should not be defined so tightly by tradition but by innovation, by students’ readiness for postgraduate impact.

To do so is to ensure that those who fight to pursue their education in nontraditional ways are not shortchanged, but rather equipped with the social and intellectual capital needed to work against the existential threats of our time. Equipped, too, with recognition of their adaptability, itself a skill in high demand, and exposed to the perspectives of peers navigating nontraditional circumstances.

Of course, remote learning is not the right fit for everyone. But for the many who rely on it to better their minds and futures, we need to ensure continued and expanded access to quality opportunities, to widen the world for learners in stark contrast to this age of constriction—of polarization and isolation—that we find ourselves immersed in.

Ms. Classroom wants to hear from educators and students being impacted by legislation attacking public education, higher education, gender, race and sexuality studies, activism and social justice in education, and diversity, equity and inclusion programs for our series, ‘Banned! Voices from the Classroom.’ Submit pitches and/or op-eds and reflections (between 500-800 words) to Ms. contributing editor Aviva Dove-Viebahn at adove-viebahn@msmagazine.com. Posts will be accepted on a rolling basis.