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November 7, 2013

Disabilities on campus:

Panel discusses improvements for those in need

disabililogoA panel of faculty, administrators and students shared their experiences and discussed ways to improve accommodations for students with disabilities as part of a conference sponsored by the Pitt student group Students for Disability Advocacy (SDA).

Paula Davis, senior vice chancellor for health sciences diversity, moderated the Nov. 1 roundtable that concluded the SDA’s “Disability Experience: State of the Arts in Research, Scholarship and the Arts” conference. About 170 people attended the two-day conference in the William Pitt Union, organizers estimated.

Arranging for accommodations

Communication among students, faculty and the disability resources office is key in requesting accommodations. Lynnett Van Slyke, director of Pitt’s Office of Disability Resources and Services, said that students who are seeking accommodations must disclose and document their disability at the disability resources office on their campus, then discuss with a disability specialist how their disability affects their learning or other participation in campus life.

The disability specialist will discuss whether the requested accommodation is reasonable, how it can be implemented and whether it will fundamentally alter the standard of the program.

Once accommodations have been decided upon, the disability specialist notifies the faculty member of the appropriate accommodations and, if necessary, helps the student and instructor implement them.

“The very crux of the law is we have to engage in interactive conversation,” Van Slyke said. “We all have a responsibility to continue to engage in conversation about what are reasonable accommodations.” Students must share the responsibility by discussing their needs; the administration and faculty must determine the standard for a program or course.

Van Slyke said her office often struggles with the concept of “reasonable”: “How much can you and your colleagues tolerate in terms of an alteration to a standard?” she said.

“I think faculty get frustrated with our office because they’re looking for disability services to provide them an absolute. We can’t do that.”

Consulting with the disabilities office is useful, said Kathleen Ryan, assistant dean for medical education in the School of Medicine.

“If I feel that I have to extend something to a student that I cannot in conscience extend to everybody in the class, I need to clear that with the disabilities office,” she said.

“I may not have enough understanding to say what are the accommodations that we use for this and how does this make it level as opposed to making it an advantage.”

She noted that accommodations can be put into place temporarily until the disabilities office completes a review.

“It protects all the individuals — both the students who are not getting accommodations as well as the self-esteem of the student who does need the accommodation. Both of those are clearly important to a healthy educational environment,” Ryan said.

Students’ experiences

Student panelists said their experience with arranging accommodations at Pitt had been largely positive.

Elizabeth Dunn, a senior in nutrition and dietetics, transferred to Pitt last year from Gannon University after taking two years off from school following a 2010 spinal cord injury.

“It’s been difficult adjusting to a new school and adjusting to a completely different way of studying than I previously knew before my injury. It’s been very different but everyone’s been pretty open in helping me learn to do stuff differently,” she said, noting that peers elsewhere with similar injuries have been a source of support.

On campus, Dunn said she worked with Van Slyke initially but this year is working more directly with her professors on classroom accommodations. “They’ve all been very open with me,” she said. “If I need a change they’re willing to work with me.”

For example, because she doesn’t have full control of her hands, “In one class, they’re letting me use one of the graduate students to be my hands. I just have to explain what I’m doing,” she said.

Alexandra Corral Edmonds, a student in communication, said she’s been met with “a great level of understanding” when discussing her needs with faculty.

Because her disability is invisible, she tries to meet in advance with prospective faculty members. “I always like to speak with my professors prior to signing up for their class to make sure there’s a good agreement between my accommodations and the structure of their class,” she said. Because she doesn’t “look like” she has a disability, sometimes she needs to explain what she needs.

“I enjoy telling faculty when they need to know more,” she said, adding that she emphasizes that she’s not seeking an advantage, just to level the playing field.

Brian Lupish of the College of General Studies, who has learning disabilities including dysgraphia, and an autism spectrum disorder, agreed, adding that not only have his faculty members been helpful, but the disabilities office has helped him with academic strategies in addition to the accommodations.

Lisa Ripper, a graduate student in public health who has hearing loss, uses hearing aids and lip-reads. In class she uses an FM radio system and sits at the front of the room, which helps, but sometimes isn’t enough. “I keep trying to find ways to adapt,” she said, noting that it can be difficult to lip-read if the speaker has facial hair or doesn’t move his or her lips when speaking.

Ripper said one faculty member’s thick accent made understanding difficult. “I just felt so bad asking her to repeat herself constantly and in front of everyone in my class,” she said. Rather than asking in class, Ripper arranged to go over material during the professor’s office hours. “She’s been very patient and accommodating with me, so I appreciate that a lot.”

Self-advocacy

Self-advocacy is important, but it’s not always easy, students agreed.

Matt Hannan, a sophomore majoring in public service who was injured in combat in Iraq while serving in the Marines, said, “I found that when I didn’t go seek the help, I started to go downhill quickly.” He suffered a traumatic brain injury and has mobility issues, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and cluster headaches that sometimes prevent him from attending class.

He credits self-motivation for helping him continue his education. While some students may be tempted to say “it’s not working out for me” and give up, he said taking steps to correct each problem is crucial.

“You really have to be proactive about your personal care and your education if you want to advance,” he said.

Lupish said, “When someone just arrives at college it especially can be really challenging to seek out the help you need.” He admitted that it took him years to become comfortable talking with faculty about his disabilities.

While at another university earlier in his academic career, a professor who was familiar with his type of disability took the lead by asking in an indirect way if Lupish was in need of help. “He kind of tried to steer the conversation,” Lupish said. “He was helpful in getting me the accommodations I ultimately needed.”

Ripper noted, “It’s very hard to talk about a disability sometimes. You want to be viewed as normal — whatever normal is. I think that makes it hard.

“While my hearing loss is a part of me, it’s not the only thing about me. … I do think that in the classroom students with disabilities need to self-advocate. That is so important because they’re the ones that know what they need.

“If something is going to help you, why wouldn’t you speak up?” she said.

Reluctance to seek help

A perception of stigma can make it hard to seek help. Hannan, who is president of Pitt’s Student Veteran Association, said misconceptions — that all veterans have PTSD, for instance — hurt.

“Stigmas have had a significant impact not only on myself but on the student vets here in Pittsburgh and throughout the nation,” he said, noting the inherent differences of being a nontraditional student are compounded for vets.  “We’re having a hard enough time moving from military culture to academic culture,” he said.

Stigmas hurt, Lupish agreed, adding that he is hesitant to discuss his autism spectrum disorder diagnosis. “When people think of someone on the spectrum, they think of people somewhat different from the way I present myself,” he said. “Sometimes people have preconceived notions.”Faculty feel the strain of students’ reluctance, too, said the medical school’s Ryan. Medical school students often have been told by their families not to accept accommodations out of fear that it will affect their future career, Ryan said. While medical licensure forms used to ask whether applicants ever had sought psychiatric assistance or medication — “and you can imagine what happened if you said yes” — that’s no longer legal, she said. “But this rumor persists,” Ryan said.

“We have a psychologist and psychiatrist available for students to work with who have mental health disabilities,” but their fears of accepting the help have to be settled first.

Whatever the condition, she said the school expects students to handle it maturely.

“That goes with learning disabilities too,” she said, adding that she tells students that the school showed confidence in them by accepting them into the program. “We knew about this when we said that you can get through the program,” she says. “What we look for is not that you have an effortless trajectory. What we look for is that you deal with this just as seriously as you will want your patients to. You accept the help you need to do what you need to do,” she said.

“It’s not a definition of self as damaged: It’s ‘Look, lots of students have burdens to carry. They have extra things that make their job harder.’ And students with significant disabilities almost have another part-time job in addition to the medical school workload. So they need to acknowledge that.”

Accommodations will help them move forward, she said. “It doesn’t mean it’s going to be easy.”

Generally speaking, the medical school workload is so high that sooner or later most of these students will go and seek help, Ryan said.

Learning to manage health conditions is important in the long run as well. Some conditions — bipolar disorder or depression for instance — “aren’t things that get fixed once and then go away. We really need to work with them so they can maintain function all through a fairly challenging curriculum,” she said.

“It’s very important. We all know that if that doesn’t happen, even if they manage to graduate, they are not going to be able to continue to work,” Ryan said.

“It’s a real challenge in any of the schools that have a high academic stress level.”

Making things better

Students on the panel expressed frustration with housing. Accessible off-campus housing is scarce, which is particularly problematic for graduate students who are not guaranteed on-campus housing at Pitt and who may be searching for housing from out of town.

Dunn, who has moved off campus, said her on-campus room was mostly accessible, but noted some problems with balky automatic doors, a lack of space for her therapy equipment and occasional issues with security guards who didn’t always understand when her personal care assistants who didn’t have Pitt IDs tried to enter the building.

She continues to have problems with the doors in her apartment complex. “I’m still working to figure it out,” she said.

Hannan said he’d like to see a “one-stop shop” veterans’ resource center to aid retention as well as to attract vets to the University. Likewise, more specialized vocational rehabilitation staff who could better tailor tutoring to an individual’s learning style, for instance, could help outside the classroom.

Lupish said educating faculty in a more detailed way about disabilities would be helpful. He noted that his dysgraphia means he has to give more attention to handwriting than would a typical student. Educating faculty on “what it means to have these disabilities” could lead to increased help for students, he said.

Edmonds added, “The most uncomfortable interactions I have with faculty members stem from the fact that they view the accommodations I’m requesting as an advantage or something I don’t deserve,” agreeing that education would be helpful.

She noted that some education for graduate students who teach would be useful. As an undergraduate, “We interact with them as faculty,” she said. “From my experience they really don’t know how the disability process works and why the student is requesting accommodations and what they’re supposed to do with that.”

Not all faculty are equally aware when it comes to disabilities and accommodations, noted audience member Carol Mohamed, director of Pitt’s Office of Affirmative Action, Diversity and Inclusion. Adding such training to an already-full faculty orientation schedule is unworkable, she said. And, although the disabilities office presents workshops through the University faculty and staff development program, attendance varies. “What might we do to make sure more faculty members are aware that this workshop is occurring so they can avail themselves of it?” she asked.

Ellen Sue Ansell, a faculty member in the School of Education and co-chair of the University Senate anti-discriminatory policies committee, said, “The more students come forward and the more there is that helps us as faculty realize there’s a need, the more you’ll see people seeking it.”

However, the issue goes beyond faculty who would like to educate themselves on these issues, Ansell said.

She noted that the University has established required online training in other areas such as sexual harassment. “I think that kind of thing would help with those people who don’t know they need to know more,” she suggested.

Faculty often don’t educate themselves “until there’s a situation that is very difficult for them,” Ansell said, adding that this topic “has not had the kind of publicity as other areas of discrimination. It really is something that needs to have more,” she said, noting that the conference “is a nice beginning for that.”

Faculty, administrators and students discussed disability issues in a Nov. 1 roundtable as part of the first-ever disability studies conference at Pitt, “The Disability Experience: State of Scholarship, Research and the Arts.” The event, sponsored by the Pitt student organization Students for Disability Advocacy, took place Oct. 31-Nov. 1 in the William Pitt Union.  Panelists were, left to right: Lynnett Van Slyke, director of Disability Resources and Services; Kathleen Ryan, assistant dean for medical education (obscured); Ellen Sue Ansell, co-chair of the University Senate anti-discriminatory policies committee and faculty member in instruction and learning (not visible); moderator Paula Davis, senior vice chancellor for health sciences diversity; Alberta M. Sbragia, vice provost for graduate studies and faculty member in political science; and students Alexandra Corral Edmonds of communication; Brian Lupish of the College of General Studies; Student Veteran Association President Matt Hannan of rehabilitation science and technology; Elizabeth Dunn of sports medicine and nutrition, and Lisa Ripper, a graduate student in behavioral and community health science.

Faculty, administrators and students discussed disability issues in a Nov. 1 roundtable as part of the first-ever disability studies conference at Pitt, “The Disability Experience: State of Scholarship, Research and the Arts.” The event, sponsored by the Pitt student organization Students for Disability Advocacy, took place Oct. 31-Nov. 1 in the William Pitt Union. Panelists were, left to right: Lynnett Van Slyke, director of Disability Resources and Services; Kathleen Ryan, assistant dean for medical education (obscured); Ellen Sue Ansell, co-chair of the University Senate anti-discriminatory policies committee and faculty member in instruction and learning (not visible); moderator Paula Davis, senior vice chancellor for health sciences diversity; Alberta M. Sbragia, vice provost for graduate studies and faculty member in political science; and students Alexandra Corral Edmonds of communication; Brian Lupish of the College of General Studies; Student Veteran Association President Matt Hannan of rehabilitation science and technology; Elizabeth Dunn of sports medicine and nutrition, and Lisa Ripper, a graduate student in behavioral and community health science.

—Kimberly K. Barlow

Filed under: Feature,Volume 46 Issue 6

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