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Mariah Lossing, Ph.D. is a 2025 graduate of the PhD Program in Leadership and Change at Antioch University.

Mariah Lossing at her Dissertation Defense.

From L-R: Dr. Amy Lesen, Committee Chair, Dr. J. Beth Mabry, Committee Member, Dr. Heather Dwyer, Committee Member

Dissertation Committee

  • Amy Lesen, PhD, Committee Chair
  • J. Beth Mabry, PhD, Committee Member
  • Heather Dwyer, PhD, Committee Member

Keywords

leadership, accessibility, higher education, action research, community-based participatory research, retention, disability

Document Type

Dissertation

Publication Date

2025

Abstract

Accommodation requests for students with disabilities have increased in higher education over the past decade, with the sharpest rise occurring in the post-COVID environment. Most requests over the past five years have been related to mental health. Faculty, especially adjunct instructors, often lack access to training and resources that address the growing challenges efficiently and effectively. Faculty are balancing academic rigor with flexibility and accessibility while universities experience increasing pressure to retain both students and faculty amidst rising demands and resource limitations. This study explored a community-based approach to addressing accessibility and professional development in the changing landscape of post-COVID-19 higher education. This dissertation is available in open access at AURA (https://aura.antioch.edu) and OhioLINK ETD Center (https://etd.ohiolink.edu).

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Mariah Lossing

ORCID iD: #0009-0007-3194-4396

Mariah Lossing is a higher education practitioner and current Interim Dean of Student Affairs. Her work centers on accessibility, faculty development, and equity in student support. With extensive professional experience in student affairs, crisis response, and community-engaged institutional practices, she brings a practitioner/researcher lens to issues of inclusion and instructional design in postsecondary settings.

Her doctoral research, conducted at a small, private, primarily women-serving university in the Midwest, investigates how faculty understand and enact accessibility and accommodations for students with disabilities. Grounded in Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR), her study incorporated a Community Advisory Board, a campus needs assessment, faculty workshops, and post-workshop focus groups. This collaborative design reflects her commitment to partnership-driven inquiry and shared knowledge production.

Mariah’s scholarly approach integrates Dewey’s Reflective Learning Theory, Universal Design for Learning (UDL), and Wallerstein's Logic Model (2008) into evaluating critical disability studies frameworks as well as research on culturally sustaining pedagogies and post-COVID student experiences. Her work emphasizes reflective practice, dismantling deficit perspectives, and designing learning environments that recognize student diversity as an asset.

Across her career in higher education, Mariah has led initiatives in student support, accessibility services, restorative practices, and faculty/staff training that incorporate Universal Design as organizational best practice. She is committed to building institutional cultures that prioritize psychological safety, collaboration, and students' holistic success. Her research and professional practice both center on the belief that communities thrive when accessibility is treated not as an accommodation, but as a shared responsibility.

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