In January 1997 I was recruited to design a proposal for an undergraduate Disability Studies program at Ryerson University in Toronto, Canada. How fortunate I was to be able to turn to David Pfeiffer and Karen Yoshida's seminal 1995 article that mapped the state of Disability Studies in North America. Their survey provided the critical evidence Ryerson's academic decision-makers needed to grant institutional recognition to disability studies in this inner city, activist university. I must confess I made a claim of my own in the concluding section, a claim which I deeply believed to be true. I argued that if Ryerson agreed to offer a Bachelor of Arts degree in Disability Studies in 1999 they would be ahead of the curve because this new field was about to burst at the seams.

In their meticulous new study Cushing and Smith have thoroughly chronicled this explosion, documenting more than a decade of the field's bourgeoning growth. Starting with the platform established in 1993, they document where disability studies has arrived in 2008. Several interesting findings caught my eye, notably those that report: that disability studies is "expanding in a way that is sustainable"; that (and here my national sensibilities show) there is "marked growth in Canada"; and that counting programs and courses, the field is "growing exponentially."

Years ago, I read Pfeiffer and Yoshida (1995) instrumentally, seizing the evidence they presented with the express purpose of prying open a wedge at Ryerson. At that time, it was the historical development of the field and the rich array of syllabi that most suited my purposes. Today, I read Cushing and Smith (2009) inquisitively, wondering how the authors might capture a discipline that is "unsettling" even as it takes its place in the academy. Would they bring to the surface any of the maturational complexities associated with years of experience in course and program offerings? My question was answered in their cautionary note not to overstate the success of disability studies on the basis of growth alone. "We're there," they suggest, "but have we 'arrived'?"

Disability Studies at Ryerson encountered a challenge this year that illustrates the complexity of "arriving" and invites further research complementary to Cushing and Smith's study. All departments/programs in the university undergo a curricular review every seven years; at Ryerson this rite of passage is called the periodic program review. It includes an extensive self-reflective study by the department; questionnaires completed by students and alumni; a peer review conducted by leaders in the field; and finally, accountability to the university's academic body (Academic Standards) for all that is revealed in the process. A key document in this evaluation is the report written by a Peer Review team after an on-site visit. In our case the process took almost two years, ending with Senate approval in March 2009. While there is much to recommend in self-reflective studies of this kind, what emerged was somewhat disturbing: That element of the program that the peer reviewers found most laudable was the very same element that the university's academic body found most questionable.

Two highly recognized disability scholars wrote a 30 page peer-review report in which they stated approvingly: "The program coalesces around a particular framework of understanding disability…. and the importance of the [socio-cultural or socio-political] framework cannot be overestimated."

But a twenty-member university appointed Academic Standards Committee challenged our emphasis on this framework in a series of questions, most notably: "Which courses offer alternative perspectives on disability and how do alternative perspectives on disability enter the discourse?" Speaking back to this barely veiled critique of the social-political perspective underpinning our curriculum — in a 2 hour presentation before the committee — was an experience reminiscent of my doctoral defense. One could almost hear the committee members thinking: Where do they cover rehabilitative therapies? Where are discussions of diagnoses, symptoms and treatments? How will students ever get jobs without this background?

Looking at the past 10 years, our program can count the many ways it has acquired the signifiers of legitimacy: achieving a base budget, getting faculty appointments, attracting corporate funding, and building a scholarly research record. In addition, in league with disability studies programs elsewhere we have refused the academic periphery and pushed the boundaries of disability arts and culture. The program review is another marker that denotes a "coming of age" but our experience illuminates the distance still to be traveled before we can assume broad understanding of disability studies in the academy — whether manifest in the independent, hybridized or integrated formulations categorized by the authors. The authors do well to remind us of the bigger picture — the growth and expansion we might not see as we focus our attention locally on the institutions and regimes that would constrain us.