Thanks for the summary Brianna. I would also like to encourage viewers to join the online AccessADVANCE Community of Practice to engage in conversations about how we can make our STEM departments and campuses more welcoming and inclusive of faculty with disabilities. We want to engage with those who have experiences and expertise in this content area but also consider it important to engage those who do not in order to learn your perspectives and invite you to join a community of people really excited about making systemic changes to our institutions so that they are more welcoming and inclusive of everyone.

You are so right, Lisette, that policies and practices need to change.  Our partners at North Dakota State have done some work in this regard.  You can find details about their work on our website: Women Faculty with Dis/ability Task Force: A Promising Practice for Faculty Equity.  We also make some policy related recommendations in our publication Equal Access: Making STEM Departments More Accessible to and Inclusive of Faculty with Disabilities.

In talking to blind faculty, in particular, though, I also hear about the impact of inaccessibility of publishing and grant application processes.  We need journals, professional organizations, and funders to also take steps to ensure that they are working to be accessible.  Difficulty publishing and obtaining funding also has a direct impact on the career trajectories of blind PhD recipients.

Karen, those are good questions.  It's important for staff to know how to respond to common accommodation requests, to ask if people need accommodations, and to ensure that documents and websites are accessible.  Here at UW, our Accessible Technology group works to ensure folks across campus are familiar with creating accessible documents and websites.

In this project, we aren't collecting data from faculty. Our evaluation in this project considers the impact our trainings and materials have on community members nationwide.

In general, broadening participation efforts don't collect data on disability.  My colleague Richard Ladner and I wrote about this in the context of computer science and offered some best practices for collecting disability-data from participants: Why is Data on Disability so Hard to Collect and Understand? 

It sounds like you have a very intentional and responsive system in place for those providing and/or needing support.  In your response, I recognize that the norm at UW is accessibility, as opposed to inaccessibility until there is a request (at least most of the time, I think).  That should be the goal--thank you for making it clear.

I appreciate the resources you and Cali provided.  I will read them soon!  

These are wonderful resources, Cali! I will check them out.

Exactly. At NDSU, including disability in tenure-clock extension requests, helped improve our promotion and tenure process for all faculty. Tenure-extension requests go directly to Provost bypassing departments and colleges to ensure consistency but also to prevent any biases in the reviews by limiting who has access to information on personal matters (illness, disability, parenting status, etc.). For information on how NDSU revised accommodation and promotion and tenure policies see Women Faculty with Dis/ability Task Force: A Promising Practice for Faculty Equity | DO-IT (washington.edu)

Matthew, the issue of time and productivity is something that we have heard over and over again from faculty with a variety of disabilities.  This is definitely a significant issue without a clear or easy solution. Some ideas that we've heard include tenure clock extensions or paid assistance. Of course, the latter comes with a price tag. Convincing institutions that this is reasonable may be difficult.

That being said, I think it is important to talk about this issue in order to get the attention of administrators.  Without talking about the very real impact that disability has on productivity, we can't begin to make change.

Brianna, it is frustrating because, I believe that disabled folk in leadership roles would/does create a shift in institutional priorities, it promotes the use of disabled experiences to inform policy making/creation.  If promotion and tenure policies, for example, were informed by disability, they would not hinge on productivity, at all. I fell like they would attempt to measure our ability to support and form networks of critical inquiry. It is just so difficult to imagine "disability" having the opportunity to inform such policies. 

Brianna, it is frustrating because, I believe that disabled folk in leadership roles would/does create a shift in institutional priorities, it promotes the use of disabled experiences to inform policy making/creation.  If promotion and tenure policies, for example, were informed by disability, they would not hinge on productivity, at all. I fell like they would attempt to measure our ability to support and form networks of critical inquiry. It is just so difficult to imagine "disability" having the opportunity to inform such policies. 

I think you're right that have more disabled people in leadership roles could lead to institutional change.  I find it frustrating that disability is largely left off the table in all of the conversations about diversity and equity among faculty despite decades of work in that space to promote equity for other groups. 

We are just starting our work in this space with a focus on raising awareness of those already working on institutional change to more meaningfully include and integrate disability into their efforts. I hope that as we move forward this will have an effect.

Thanks for your kind words, Chris.  I think you've hit the nail on the head - we have to start talking explicitly about what unique issues faculty with disabilities encounter because there are so many ways these differ from the needs of students with disabilities. 

The pandemic certainly brought to head many discussions about mental health and other health-related disabilities. I think as we continue to emerge from the pandemic, we also need to talk about who benefited from the flexibility and grace afforded to people during the pandemic and what that means for new norms.

Absolutely, Brianna. The pandemic also amplified the barriers some of our campus technologies and information resources created for faculty and students with disabilities because of their inaccessible designs. I agree with you Chris, "SO MUCH work to do." We always enjoy working with you and your team in this journey!

Thanks to all for this important project!  I especially appreciate that you all offer concrete, actionable questions in your video.

I am a disabled and chronically ill research professor in physics.  Chris, I appreciate your question about "what else, beyond extending the tenure clock," in part because so often as a disabled person the accommodations offered to me are about trying to increase my access to an ableist system, rather than rethinking the system itself.  Increasing time for tenure feels like that.  I deeply want to see us re-examine our thinking about what counts as an "accomplishment" toward tenure, in a more expansive way.

Appreciate you all!

Great points, Amy. I agree that there is so much ableism in the current system and changing the academic culture is more than daunting.  Maybe the barriers need to be called out very specifically with suggestions for doing things differently???  

We also need to truly embrace universal design principles in rethinking critical faculty processes in highered from recruitment to workload/resource allocation to evaluations Universal Design: Process, Principles, and Applications | DO-IT (washington.edu).   

A few things that have really stood out to me based on conversations that we've had with faculty since starting this project:

• Faculty with disabilities feel isolated and would benefit from making connections with other faculty with disabilities.  I think it could potentially go a long way if institutions that are already doing well in their DEI work think strategically about how they can make disability and accessibility meaningfully included in their work.  I would also encourage professional organizations to think about this.
• Administrative support for faculty with disabilities, particularly in the form of paid support staff could go a long way to support faculty who encounter accessibility barriers. Time spent organizing interpreters, seeking accessible documents, etc can take time away from the time faculty can spend engaged in research and teaching.  Institutions need to take this into consideration. 
• Carefully looking at the way that your institution handles requests for accommodations.  Is it clear that centralized funding exists?  What burdens are you placing upon faculty who make these requests?  Is the paperwork onerous?  Does it ask unnecessary/invasive questions? 

Brianna, 

These observations are really interesting. I founded an affinity group on my campus about 5 years ago originally for disabled faculty and staff and their allies, but that has since opened up to include students due to interest and need, and lack of broad student organization. While students seem to be confident and happy to self-identify as disabled, we have had difficulty appealing to faculty and staff. And although I personally know disabled folk in these positions, faculty and staff are less willing, or, more importantly, less able or encouraged to accept their disability as a social/cultural identity.  

At the same time, our university has been working through complex restructuring (and rebranding) through COVID that has ironically focussed on carriers--and their Departments-- aimed towards success, forward thinking and progress and productivity.  In a time defined by pandemic, sickenss and mental health crisis, my institution has made it difficult for those who suffer to imagine themselves as part of this "renewed" image on campus.  

This is, of course, an example, but we should really consider how our fields--and the ways in which our fields and institutions are understood socially--work against disability altogether. I have been reading Academic Ableism by Jay Dolmage, and it has helped to conceptualize the systemic nature of this discrimination. I saw Dolmage's work mentioned earlier and this is another good resource. 

Community building is the way to go: I really believe this. But, the neoliberal university is moving in a direction that does not seem to support our goals. 

Brianna, 

These observations are really interesting. I founded an affinity group on my campus about 5 years ago originally for disabled faculty and staff and their allies, but that has since opened up to include students due to interest and need, and lack of broad student organization. While students seem to be confident and happy to self-identify as disabled, we have had difficulty appealing to faculty and staff. And although I personally know disabled folk in these positions, faculty and staff are less willing, or, more importantly, less able or encouraged to accept their disability as a social/cultural identity.  

At the same time, our university has been working through complex restructuring (and rebranding) through COVID that has ironically focussed on carriers--and their Departments-- aimed towards success, forward thinking and progress and productivity.  In a time defined by pandemic, sickenss and mental health crisis, my institution has made it difficult for those who suffer to imagine themselves as part of this "renewed" image on campus.  

This is, of course, an example, but we should really consider how our fields--and the ways in which our fields and institutions are understood socially--work against disability altogether. I have been reading Academic Ableism by Jay Dolmage, and it has helped to conceptualize the systemic nature of this discrimination. I saw Dolmage's work mentioned earlier and this is another good resource. 

Community building is the way to go: I really believe this. But, the neoliberal university is moving in a direction that does not seem to support our goals. 

Matthew, that's a really interesting observation about the ways that students and faculty/staff have had differing reactions and levels of engagement.  I've seen a similar pattern where students seem confident embracing disability and at times I've wondered whether this is a generational shift.  Will these students as they progress through their careers continue to have that enthusiasm?  If they do, that could be powerful in terms of the impact it could have on institutional change.  At the same time, you're absolutely right that this could also reflect not students' confidence about disclosure but the inability of faculty and staff to be open.

(And Academic Ableism is a great resource!)

Hi, Jayashree. We have an online community of practice where we discuss issues related to disability and faculty careers.  Anyone, with or without a disability, is welcome to join.  We also share there when we hold webinars or other workshops related to the topic.

...and flexible policies benefit other faculty as well!