From Accommodation to Access: A Conversation with Emmett Binkowski, Senior Associate Director of Disability Services at Penn

Part of Every Kid Can's ongoing interview series, where we speak with professionals, advocates, and educators who work alongside people with disabilities every day — to better understand the barriers they face and how youth can be part of the solution.

Every Kid Can was founded on a simple belief: that social isolation and inaccessible opportunities shouldn't stand between kids with disabilities and their peers. To understand these barriers more deeply, we've been sitting down with professionals across the disability field. This installment features Emmett Binkowski, Senior Associate Director of Disability Services at the University of Pennsylvania's Weingarten Center, whose work centers on helping college students navigate accommodations and access.

What Does a Disability Services Director Do?

Binkowski's role is fundamentally student-facing: he and Penn's team of disability specialists meet individually with students to determine what accommodations they need, making most of the day-to-day work personal, one-on-one conversation rather than policy from a distance. Beyond those meetings, he supervises staff — including graduate students completing field placements from Penn's School of Social Policy and Practice — and coordinates office-wide policy.

A significant part of his job also happens outside his own office, working with campus partners like academic advisors, professors, Student Health staff, and dining staff to raise awareness and put accommodations into practice campus-wide.

The accommodations themselves span far more than the classroom. While academic support — extended exam time, note-taking assistance, ASL interpreters — makes up the bulk of the work, his office also handles housing accommodations, dining plan adjustments, and connects students with Penn's Accessible Transit service. "This varies a lot for each individual student," he noted, "which is part of why we have every student meet with a disability specialist and talk about their unique needs."

The Barriers That Remain

Binkowski pointed to a gap that's easy to overlook: the jump from K-12 to higher education. Many students arrive at college with accommodations already in place from high school, but few are prepared for how differently the system works once they get there. "There are different legal frameworks and expectations in higher ed," he explained, "but many high schools don't equip students with much knowledge about how to navigate this transition."

He also emphasized that formal accommodations only solve part of the picture. Many students need support that goes beyond paperwork — tutoring, time management skills, or simply help building social connections on campus. This is where he sees real value in student-led spaces, pointing to groups like Penn's Advocates for Neurodiversity and the vision for a future Disability Cultural Center as meaningful steps toward the kind of community and belonging that formal accommodations alone can't provide.

How We Can Do Better

Binkowski's advice centered on a mindset shift: build with disabled people in mind from the start, rather than accommodating them as an afterthought. "It's always a good idea to incorporate universal design and build things to be accessible from the start when possible, rather than trying to adjust things later at the last minute," he said.

He offered a concrete example for student groups specifically: before hosting a meeting or event, think about the physical space and entrance, bathroom access, dietary restrictions if food is served, and different ways people might need to communicate. His broader advice echoes a theme running through this series — assume disabled people are present, keep an open mind, and stay willing to keep learning.

Every Kid Can is a youth-led initiative working to expand social and sensory inclusion for people with disabilities across our community. This interview is part of a series in which we speak with professionals, educators, and advocates to better understand the barriers to inclusion and how young people can help close them.