Disability Services and Disability Studies in Higher Education: History, Contexts, and Social Impacts

History, Contexts, and Social Impacts

C. Oslund

• Publisher: Palgrave Pivot
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781137502445
• Topic: Bildung
• Subtopic: Bildungsverwaltung

Disability Services and Disability Studies in Higher Education considers how the two fields of disability studies and disability services in institutions of higher education impact each other. Disability Studies is centered in the classroom, an interdisciplinary field that teaches about the social contexts of disability, while Disability Services works outside the classroom, making sure students with disabilities are able to access classroom spaces and educational material. Oslund explores the effect of the services on the larger societies in which they are located, students who encounter the respective fields, and those who self-identify as disabled or have an identity of disability posited on them by the society in which they live.

1

The Campus Divide: Teacher or Service Provider

Abstract: Introduces the two fields being discussed, Disability Studies and Disability Services, and shows how they are tied to the respective work of two employee groups on campus: Faculty, who teach, and staff, who provide student services. Establishes why it is natural that the fields have worked independently of each other; the obstacles inherent in the working/professional environment; some of the obstacles that stand between greater collaboration between the fields. Foregrounds the idea that generations of social practices and beliefs both necessitated the development of each field and led to them being two distinct fields.

Keywords: Disability Studies; Disability Services; faculty and staff work divide

Oslund, Christy M. Disability Services and Disability Studies in Higher Education: History, Contexts, and Social Impacts. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015. DOI: 10.1057/9781137502445.0003.

Conversations with people outside an academic setting have led me to think that those who do not work in academics often perceive colleges and universities as monolithic entities where everyone takes summers off from work, everyone works modest hours, and all employees know each other because, after all, the environment is like a small town. Those of us who work for colleges and universities would counter that we work long hours, we are hard pressed to find as much time as we would like for family and outside interests, and we are most likely to know the people in our immediate department; even when we are familiar with a person’s name, we might not recognize that person if we saw them in the flesh. While some realities of campus life are thus obvious to those of us who work on campus, these realities might come as a surprise to those who work in different environments.

There is a basic divide in campus life between two broad divisions of employees who work in academics. On the one side of this divide are the people responsible for classroom content, teaching, and research; in North America we broadly refer to these people as “faculty“ and this division includes professors, lecturers, research assistants, teaching assistants, and laboratory assistants. On the other side are the people responsible for providing student services and administration that runs the business of the university; in North America we call these people the “staff.” While theoretically we all work toward the same goal—educating students—our roles, our reporting structure, our salary scale, and how our contributions are measured are perhaps surprisingly different on each side of that divide. I refer to this as a divide purposely, to create a mental image in the reader’s mind of a clear division that is not regularly or quickly breeched.

Disability Studies, as a field, is primarily made up of those who would fall within the division of what I will call faculty, that is, they are primarily people who teach and are responsible for classroom content. Disability Services, as a field, is primarily made up of those who would fall within the division of what I will call staff, that is, they are primarily people who provide academic support services for students. For the sake of brevity then, I will refer to the different groups as faculty and staff and this reference is meant to indicate these two different types of work, as well as the different ways that this work is typically valued by an individual’s employer. I recognize that teaching structures are different in different nations; however, I would argue that the reality remains that if one is primarily responsible for research or teaching, one’s professional value is tied to journal publications, presentations, and some measure of peer review from outside one’s home institution. If one is primarily responsible for academic support services however, one’s value is measured differently by one’s employer and more likely to be tied to reviews that give more weight to work done within the institution, with less weight given to still valued outcomes such as publications.

Although titles and references between countries thus might vary, the basic reality remains that the work worlds of those responsible for academic support, versus those responsible for teaching and research, have less overlap than might be imagined by outsiders to academic institutions. It is helpful to understand this in order to understand that there are also two separate worlds related to disability, disability rights, and students with disabilities when it comes to campus life, study, and activism: Disability Services and Disability Studies have developed as separate fields for practical reasons related to this naturally occurring work divide that was already present on campuses when the fields emerged and developed.

I have participated in both these work-worlds as faculty and staff. I taught at a series of three universities before switching to the staff side of life where my primary responsibilities became academic support services; it still sometimes becomes noteworthy to me how these worlds are like right and left hands, largely unaware at moments of what the other is doing, yet also capable of moments of cooperative work.

Faculty

Recognizing that there are international differences in the layers and duties of those whom I am referring to as “faculty,” at this point I would focus in on those who have set the goal of obtaining a doctoral degree and spending at least part of their career passing knowledge on to students. Generally, these are the academics who share the goal of becoming tenured professors, regardless of the country they work in or the title they hold.

In order for this level of “faculty” to begin their professional career they will have completed studies at a bachelorette, perhaps masters, and eventually doctorate level; they have usually spent at least seven and often 10–12 years preparing to begin the process of becoming a tenured professor. The competition for entry-level positions, though it varies by field of study, is generally speaking, fierce. Having spent all those years preparing, a person then finds herself starting over, as a “candidate” for jobs. There can be 40–400 applicants with similar educations applying for an open job. The reality is, even with a PhD and years of preparation, not all job candidates will be offered a tenure-track job the first year they apply for positions. It is not uncommon for candidates to find themselves taking one year appointments which will not lead directly to a tenure-track placement. This can mean a person finds himself being stuck in a “candidate” position for several years or longer, constantly applying during the annual cycle of job hires, hoping to break into a tenure-track placement. One can read any issue of The Chronicle¹ to quickly realize that not all people who make it through the educational process will be offered a tenure-track job.

If one does obtain a tenure-track position there will be a sense of being a first year student all over again. Freshman professors are expected to immediately begin developing academic credentials which include working toward publishing journal articles, and they are expected to start serving on committees that support their department, and their university; they bear a lot of the professorial grunt work of their department as they “prove” their worth. There is an expectation that one will attend conferences of note within one’s field of study, and make presentations both at conferences and within one’s own institution. In Canada and the U.S., it usually requires about five years of this breakneck work-pace before a professor is ready to apply to move from the assistant to the associate level. The application process itself will require an incredible amount of work putting together binders that show one’s teaching philosophy, service to their field, service to the university, and service to the larger community. If one has teaching responsibility then samples of their syllabi and assignments usually need to be presented; publications and professional awards must be listed; references from within and outside one’s field/institution will have to be collected. After an assessment of all this material the candidate will either be promoted (in the U.S. and Canada the next career level is Associate Professor) or the candidate will basically want to start looking for another university where they are more likely to be able to further their career. This can be another point at which an academic career stalls or dies. If one is doing the math—by this point the academic has usually given 15+ years of their life to their studies and academic pursuits.

In order to be considered viable in one’s field there are basically two ways that an academic can make the cut. A person can either be a good teacher in an institution that values teaching, or one can be a researcher/writer in an institution that values research/writing. At research-focused institutions one proves their merit by having their work published by peer-reviewed journals. On average a person needs at least five publication credits that “count” in order to make the cut to be promoted; additionally, increasingly often one will need to publish a book (with a national press, often a university press) to be seriously considered worthy of full professorship. Alternatively, one can be a successful grant or research writer, who brings significant research funding into the university and has their research published in peer-reviewed journals.

Remember, while all this research, writing, and committee work is going on there may also be teaching assignments, which include preparation, delivery, and grading. Even if one has a teaching assistant, teaching is time and energy consuming. If additionally, one works at an institution which offers graduate degrees then by the time one becomes an associate professor they will be expected to add supervising the research and writing of graduate students to their workload.

At those institutions where graduate degrees are offered, supervising successful graduate students is another element that is expected of faculty. And this is another point at which an academic’s career can stall-out; usually by now a person has 20+ years in academics, from the time they have started their undergraduate work down the path to becoming a tenured professor. It is easy to imagine that to discover at this point that tenured professorship will not become a reality for one tends to be bitterly disappointing. It also tends to be a bit late to reconsider one’s career goals, although of course leaving the academic life does happen. When one has spent that long in the halls of academia though, it can be difficult to feel at-home anywhere else. It can also be difficult to find a potential employer who will seriously consider someone that has spent so long “in their ivory-tower.”

To recap then, faculty will have spent a number of years becoming more and more specialized in their area of knowledge; their ability to gain and keep a position is based heavily on the reputation they have among others in their specific field of study. Reputations are judged by references and publications; in the U.S. and Canada at least, if one is expected to teach and has yet to obtain tenure one must obtain overall positive reviews from students. For those whose primary role is not teaching, then it is more than ever a “publish or perish” world where journal articles and peer-reviewed books count—and are counted. More institutions are also considering how often what an individual has written is being quoted by other members of their field—just one more way of measuring the value of the individual within their field.

Hierarchically, faculty may have a supervisor/senior faculty person who gives them assignments, it is the Department Chair, however, who is considered the head of their unit. In Canada and the U.S., for example, the department one works for will answer to the Dean of their school, such as the Dean of Arts and Sciences. The Provost is usually responsible for overseeing requirements for all academic areas. The Provost assigns budgets to each academic school, the Dean of each school provides budgets for departments and makes decisions on funding new positions, or cutting funding to a department, and the Department Chair typically has final say on whether a job candidate put forward by a hiring committee is offered a position or not. Additionally, funding may be brought in by researchers who write successful grants, for example, the National Science Foundation in the U.S. funds a considerable amount of research (which may include multinational researchers/institutions) which in turn leads to funding that will support research assistants, lab assistants, and teaching assistants. Typically a department or faculty member that brings in outside funding will have more money to work with than will a department or faculty member that relies on budget allocations from the school.

Staff

In Canada and the U.S., staff are divided into two general groups; from what I can see these divisions take place despite one’s nation, although the labels used may differ. Those I will refer to as professional (administrative) staff have graduate degrees which prepared them to take part in a specific field. Fields represented by professional staff will include Student Affairs, Housing and Residential Life, and Business Management, among others. The category I will refer to as support staff fill occupations that typically do not require degrees, although the individual within the position may or may not have a degree. These differences may also be reflected in whether one is considered to be an “hourly” employee (support) or a “salaried” employee (administrative). Support staff include customer service and facilities and ground’s maintenance, to name just a few. For those in nations where these particular labels may not be used, I am differentiating between the staff who would be perceived as administrators and those that would not. In Canada and the U.S. disability support specialists would fall under the administrative staff label.

Depending on the campus, nonadministrative staff may or may not be offered opportunities for continuing education and professional development. Usually though, the focus is on training that is designed to facilitate having this level of staff do more work, with greater efficiency. While individual unions may provide some sense of job security, support staff are some of the first employees to be affected when there are budget cuts. Raises are either negotiated as part of a new contract and are therefore across the board, or an individual will typically have to go through a performance review and show they are doing work that is a significant addition to the amount/responsibility of work which is outlined in their original job description.

Professional staff are more likely to receive at least some financial support from their department to attend professional conferences in their field. As one rises up the managerial ladder there is increasing emphasis placed on the importance of providing “service” such as volunteer work or committee work, not just to the local campus and wider community, but also to the field one belongs to. Presentations at conferences often become expected. Professional staff are also expected to provide service on committees that make hiring recommendations; review policy (a constant activity); carry out assessment and accreditation work; volunteer for activities which support campus life and spirit; and volunteer in the community portraying a positive image for the campus in a wider arena. Professional staff members are expected to help bridge the gap between town and gown. As one upper-administrator on our campus is famous for saying, “This isn’t a career, it’s a way of life.” Going above and beyond is just as expected of staff, even often administrators, as it is of junior faculty.

Staff hierarchy is organized within departments and divisions; divisions vary among campuses. Typically however, support staff are organized by seniority and work-level and the two do not necessarily match. Work-level is tied to the responsibilities that are assigned to individual positions; work-level trumps seniority. For example, imagine three people are employed in the bookstore to work under the supervision of the bookstore manager. There is a level...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Introduction
• 1  The Campus Divide: Teacher or Service Provider
• 2  Religious Texts and Popular Media
• 3  Logic, Law, and the Fight for Education
• 4  Disability Services and Higher Education
• 5  Disability Studies and Higher Education
• 6  Barriers to Interactions between Disability Studies and Disability Services
• 7  Potential Impact of Intentional Interaction and Coalition Forming
• 8  Building Collaborative Efforts through Coalitions
• Works Cited
• Index