only about 4 percent of faculty members have disabilities

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kitesandtrainsandcats
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12 May 2021, 8:56 pm

A Difficult Pathway
Faculty members with disabilities say stigma prevents some from being open about their conditions, and the path to the academy still has its barriers.
By
Lilah Burke
May 12, 2021

Quote:
"While it’s fair to say that the share of people with disabilities in the academy may have increased since 2004, faculty members with disabilities still say academe can be a difficult and unwelcoming place.

For one, there can be a sense of stigma about disability. Professors say that regardless of their quality of work, there can be a general perception that candidates with disabilities will produce worse scholarship or be a cost or burden to a department. "


https://www.insidehighered.com/news/202 ... t-barriers


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cyberdad
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13 May 2021, 3:50 am

A lot of university students likely have Aspergers but unfortunately many don't graduate



kraftiekortie
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13 May 2021, 6:51 am

But many do...

Indeed, Academia is a minefield for people with disabilities. Self-disclosure could be disastrous for your chances for tenure.



Fnord
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13 May 2021, 8:52 am

Is it because of administrative prejudice against people with disabilities, or is it because people with disabilities tend to avoid college courses that could lead to being qualified for faculty positions?

As an analogy, women and minorities are under-represented in STEM fields.  Is this because of administrative prejudice against women and minorities, or is it because women and minorities tend to avoid STEM-based education?


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bottleblank
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13 May 2021, 9:01 am

I've had considerable experience (as a student) in education and I've never liked it that much. It's never really catered to my way of thinking/working, despite there being some (minor) accommodations for those with disabilities, such as extra time in exams.

All the stupid rigid requirements and rules drive me crazy and seemingly irrelevant introspective "soft" subjects border on impossible for me to do as required. I didn't sign up to write about personality tests or what I see myself doing in 5 years, nor analysis of what I've done during my time in education and how it's affected me. I can't comprehend that and I resent having my final grade being dragged down by those things being graded assignments. I don't believe they should contribute to grades, even if they're deemed mandatory for whatever reason (which I don't think they should be, but I would compromise on that).

It's too bureaucratic for me, there's no flexibility, there's no understanding, it's all "do this, only this, and exactly this". I don't feel as though I've had any real opportunity to push and explore my own interests in the subjects I've taken classes/courses in. Often, trying to do more than the assignment brief states will end up losing marks, even if the requirements were insultingly simple and I've wanted to show I can do better than that.

So yeah, I couldn't see myself staying on for a Masters or Doctorate, nor becoming a lecturer or researcher in that environment myself. I'd just spend the whole time being just as frustrated as I am now, but with the added downside of knowing that I'm supposed to force my own students to do the same. I'm not interested in doing that, I would only care about helping students learn and explore the subjects they signed up to do, in as freeform a way as it takes to engage them.



Fnord
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13 May 2021, 9:03 am

↑ So, from your description, one could safely assume that it was a matter of you quitting because they would not do things your way.


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bottleblank
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13 May 2021, 9:11 am

Fnord wrote:
↑ So, from your description, one could safely assume that it was a matter of you quitting because they would not do things your way.


When you put it like that it sounds like I'm being petulant, which some might argue I am, but I think it's indicative of an unwelcoming environment that doesn't focus on the education it claims to be focussed on.

I understand that sometimes you have to do things you don't want to do, and I'm willing to do that to some extent. What I resent is that there's no option to say "I cannot do this, my brain does not function that way, I literally cannot explain to you what my experience of this/understanding of my internal dialogue about it is like" (in terms of soft skills) and that there is no mitigation for that. I can't take my certificate to somebody and say "yeah, well, I would've got a higher grade, but they made me analyse myself, which lost me marks". Instead, it just makes me look as though I'm less capable of the headline subject I signed up for/that's printed on the certificate, because there's no differentiation between soft and hard skill classes in the final grade, it's an overall average.

Additionally, I've been passionate about learning things about my chosen subject(s) since as far back as I can remember having the opportunity to do so. As a result, asking me to do a piece of work that an inexperienced teenage student could do without significant difficulty, without me wanting to prove I can do more than that, feels a bit insulting. The entire purpose of my signing up for education was to formalise the skills I've learnt myself, to prove that I'm officially capable of doing those things, and I want my skills to be appreciated for what they are, not as something somebody without that experience could've done in a weekend. I want to bring something new, something interesting, something that will engage me in pushing myself harder, to make me learn more than I've already learnt. I feel it's a disservice to the spirit of education to ignore or punish that extra effort.



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13 May 2021, 9:23 am

bottleblank wrote:
... I understand that sometimes you have to do things you don't want to do, and I'm willing to do that to some extent. What I resent is that there's no option to say "I cannot do this, my brain does not function that way, I literally cannot explain to you what my experience of this/understanding of my internal dialogue about it is like" (in terms of soft skills) and that there is no mitigation for that. I can't take my certificate to somebody and say "yeah, well, I would've got a higher grade, but they made me analyse myself, which lost me marks"...
Ah, now I understand.  Yeah, it sucks; but I had to learn (and learn quickly) to play the game by their rules.

The alternative was to go back to some semi-skilled job in a union shop.


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bottleblank
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13 May 2021, 9:28 am

Fnord wrote:
bottleblank wrote:
... I understand that sometimes you have to do things you don't want to do, and I'm willing to do that to some extent. What I resent is that there's no option to say "I cannot do this, my brain does not function that way, I literally cannot explain to you what my experience of this/understanding of my internal dialogue about it is like" (in terms of soft skills) and that there is no mitigation for that. I can't take my certificate to somebody and say "yeah, well, I would've got a higher grade, but they made me analyse myself, which lost me marks"...
Ah, now I understand.  Yeah, it sucks; but I had to learn (and learn quickly) to play the game by their rules.

The alternative was to go back to some semi-skilled job in a union shop.


My method, which has taken me some time to refine and it hasn't always worked (sometimes I just couldn't do it, again, mostly in soft skills) has been to bend the brief as much as I possibly can to suit my understanding/style of work. It's the only thing that's kept me engaged, to play my own game of twisting the things they ask me to do so they technically fulfill the requirements but also work for me and the way I want things to be. I don't think I could be as effective at that if I were a lecturer though, because the penalty for getting it wrong as a student is a lower grade, the penalty for doing it as staff is potentially getting fired.



kitesandtrainsandcats
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13 May 2021, 12:33 pm

Fnord wrote:
As an analogy, women and minorities are under-represented in STEM fields.  Is this because of administrative prejudice against women and minorities, or is it because women and minorities tend to avoid STEM-based education?


That is one of those "Is it this or is it that?" questions where the answer can be, "Yes."

For instance,
Why Women (Like Me) Choose Lower-Paying Jobs
September 11, 2013

https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2013 ... aying-jobs

Quote:
The other day, I was interviewing an economist who studies the effect college majors have on peoples' income. He was telling me that women often make decisions that lead them to earn less than they otherwise might.

Women are overrepresented among majors that don't pay very well (psychology, art, comparative literature), and underrepresented in lots of lucrative majors (most fields in engineering).

And even when they choose high-paying majors, women often don't choose high-paying jobs. For example, math is a pretty lucrative major, and more than 40 percent of math majors are women. But women who major in math are much more likely than men to go into lower-paying professions, like teaching.


also a factor,

Quote:
Working on this story, I started seeing versions of myself all around me. Rhea Faniel, a college career counselor, told me she had a degree in accounting and started her career in the corporate world. She was making good money, moving up in her company. One day, her boss came to her and said he wanted to groom her to be a director.

"I knew what that entailed," she says. "Taking up more responsibility, taking up other classes and training, and here I was, I was five months pregnant. He didn't even know it."

Faniel thanked her boss but told him she was more focused on having a baby.


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cyberdad
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13 May 2021, 4:42 pm

kitesandtrainsandcats wrote:
Fnord wrote:
As an analogy, women and minorities are under-represented in STEM fields.  Is this because of administrative prejudice against women and minorities, or is it because women and minorities tend to avoid STEM-based education?

That is one of those "Is it this or is it that?" questions where the answer can be, "Yes."

For instance,
Why Women (Like Me) Choose Lower-Paying Jobs
September 11, 2013

https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2013 ... aying-jobs


I am not sure if this applies with Aspergers though. My suspicion is STEM has a higher number of Asperger males than is reported. I am fairly sure computer programmers don't disclose a mental illness when 99% of the coding work is done in a backroom rather than in a team.