S3, Ep 4: Accessibility, Accommodations, and Belonging in Education

In this episode of What IFF?, we are exploring conversations about disability, accessibility, and accommodations in academic spaces with Bilal N. (he/him) and Dr. John Thomas III (he/him).

Bilal will provide a student point of view regarding hustle culture, campus neurodiversity, individualism, and the ableist standards that people are held to within institutions.

Dr. Thomas speaks about the importance of balance in a busy life, and ways that he implements accommodations in his classes as a professor. Additionally, he provides insight about his encounters with accessibility from other institutions and other life experiences.

*UDL: “Universal Design for Learning;” learn more here.

For campus resources, visit charleston.edu/accessibility. 

Transcript

[intro music]

Emily (E): Welcome to What IFF?, a podcast where we imagine intersectional feminist futures and talk about the role social activism plays in our everyday lives. I'm your host, Emily Currey, and I use she her pronouns

Mallory (M): and I'm your other host, Mallory Mason, I use they/them pronouns. I'm a current sophomore at the college, and I'm a double major in communication with women's and gender studies and a minor in Spanish. I'm involved in Library Student Ambassadors, a really cool organization on campus, and I'm also involved in the Pride Center on campus, and I'm really excited to be a host on What IFF? for the semester.

M: In today's episode, we will be speaking to Bilal N, who will provide a student perspective on hustle culture and accessibility on campus and in downtown Charleston, and Dr John Thomas III, who will provide a faculty perspective on these issues. We hope you enjoy.

E: and welcome to this episode of What IFF?, 

Bilal (B): Hi, my name is Bilal Nafea. I use he/him pronouns. I am a junior at the College of Charleston. I'm majoring in psychology and sociology, and I'm minoring in Middle Eastern and Islamic World Studies. I work for the Res Life department. I'm involved with the HHS [Health and Human Services] scholarship. I am involved with Arabic club, Muslim Student Association, a little bit of QSA [Queer Student Alliance], sometimes 

M: Awesome. Thank you so much for being a guest with us on this episode. We're so happy to have you. I guess we can jump into some of the questions. So me and Emily were talking when we were developing these guiding questions and these parts of this conversation, we were talking about hustle culture and as a student and from a like, student employee perspective as well, how does that affect you in your life, and, like, the way that it's so praised oftentimes?

B: Well, a good example is that just now, when I was listing all of the things, I was like, I don't have enough things. I don't have enough adjectives. 

E: There was a lot of things you listed like I was sitting here, being like, Damn, you are accomplished. 

B: No, I'm like, throwing shit in there. I'm like, I went there once. I went there once. Yeah, I mean, I feel absolutely inadequate in the amount of campus involvement that I have. I just as you become an upperclassman, more and more you are asked increasingly about, like, what is your student involvement? What have you done? You need to prove yourself? XYZ. And so, like, in any sort of situation where I'm introducing myself, even when it's just meant for people getting to know me, I'm thinking, what are my academic accomplishments? What are my career oriented goals, so that I can present myself as this accomplished and meritable person that is worth this social Hangout, which is very, very silly, but I definitely think that we have this idea that we need to commodify ourselves and create a sort of individual brand in order to be worth anybody's time. And it's like, I mean, of course we feel that way, like we are encouraged to adapt such behaviors, and we get no we get very little, I think, encouragement in the opposite direction to actually truly be yourself and be okay with the fact that maybe you are not incredibly productive, maybe you are not exceptional and robust and dynamic in your career orientation. 

M: But yeah, we can go into that more something I want to kind of add on to some of your points. It makes me think about how like on resumes you want to be listing as much as possible, and and, you know, I think it's really good for people to be involved in so many things, but again, it gets to a point it's like, sometimes we need to take a step back and then kind of take a breath for ourselves, because, especially in the time that we're living in right now, taking care of ourselves is so important, especially for advocacy and a lot of things that we are trying to push for and hustle culture isn't going to help us if we're going to exhaust ourselves every day from all the stuff that we're doing. 

B: Yeah, I think that it's like, honestly, a really dehumanizing model, and it's really ironic that we live in this culture of individualism that actually does not put any priority on the individual and their needs. You are only an individual insofar as your resume reflects and I think that's really interesting, because we really like to put ourselves above, like collectivist countries in terms of like, paying attention to individual needs. But that is just, I think that is definitely like an American myth that is definitely like, you know, that American Dream that has proven, time again, to be very false, especially in so far as, like, people who are not ready and willing at all times to be accomplishing 24/7, I mean, as that like has to do with disabled people, like, sometimes, at least for me, I I've struggled with, like, chronic fatigue. So that is a, you know, a sort of like psychological and bodily experience, but I am not ready at all times to be grinding and doing homework and going to different shifts, and I'm already, like, managing a lot on my plate, but there's always an expectation to do more. Like, oh yes, you're working two jobs, but are any of them internships? And are those career oriented? And it's like, yes, you need to make money to survive, but you also need to make money in a way that looks good. Yeah.

It's just not like a feasible reality for most people, and so people definitely get, like left in the dust that way. 

M: especially as students; from this perspective, I think all three of us. I'm only a sophomore, and I this has been the busiest year of my entire life, and I love what I do, but it is so exhausting. But like, especially from a student perspective, we have so much happening, and it is so exhausting, but especially with students having to keep up with classes, clubs that you want to go to, things that you're involved in. I'm in a leadership position for something, and I love it, but that takes up so much time. And then the job that I do, I love my job, and I would like to do more of that. It is just suffocating sometimes. And it's like, I love everything that I do, but it's so hard to keep up with all of it. 

E: And like as a young person too, there's so much pressure to like, be so career focused, especially like, as you're becoming an upperclassman, there's more stakes on career stuff. But a lot of it is from this, like, very, very capitalist oriented narrative of just like, all this pressure to like, get a like, quote, good job, or just, like, a lot of pressure on income, like, monetarily, and it just feels kind of like, I don't know, it feels very ableist. Let me rephrase this. I feel like the capitalist nature of our country is just very, like, inherently ableist. You have, like, social pressure too. I mean, especially in Charleston, the party culture is huge. It's kind of impossible to balance, like, your schoolwork and furthering your career and like engaging in, like the party culture too. I mean, you can't do everything, and I feel like there's a huge pressure to do everything. It's hard to have boundaries for yourself when that happens, especially like, and I kind of want to consider Charleston as a city too. And like, the culture of like Charleston specifically in regards to like, kind of like a culture of ableism too. I mean, everyone considers it a walkable city, but like, is it really that accessible, though? I mean, 

M: it's really not 

E: jagged bricks everywhere, like 

M: sidewalks are like two feet wide. It's it's really not accessible. And I'm going to touch back on your points earlier about, like, just the capitalist system that we live in, it is so ableist, and we praise people for doing so much all the time, and go, go, go. And that's really not the flex that it is. And it's okay to be doing a lot of stuff and to be a busy person, but it's not- we shouldn't be encouraging people to do this and then not have time for themselves and not have time to take care of themselves. It. I mean, again, especially now, it is so important for us to care for ourselves and like to help each other and care for each other in these times, and just like generally, too, we should keep that in part of our relationships with each other. But I mean, especially with a lot of the things that are happening right now that is so crucial, and then hustle culture is just not helping it. Going back to the walkable city about Charleston, like it's not accessible,

B: I'm totally ambulatory. I use my bike to get around a lot of the times, and ironically, using my bike. This is kind of like a strange way to put it, but I can't, like, find a better way to articulate it. My bike is a little bit of like a mobility aid for me with my exhaustion, saves me a lot of time during the day, and it makes it less intimidating to go out to, like, have this tool that I can use. And so that's that's really nice, but ironically, like biking around most places has made me even more aware of how things are wheelchair and mobility aid inaccessible and like there. (When I say mobility aid, I mean more like the traditional sense of like, wheelchairs, walkers, things like that.) But even just like for strollers like this is to a broader point of how supporting our most marginalized supports everybody, but whatever. We lack sidewalks in a lot of places, especially as you get farther from the perceived like downtown, it is difficult to bike safely in a lot of places. There's minimal lighting, and there really is minimal, like, wheelchair and stroller access. There's like, you know, garbage bins in the middle of sidewalks. There's cracks in the sidewalks. They're too narrow. There's like, poorly placed, like, trees in the middle of sidewalks. And most sidewalks are definitely not wide enough for like, two like, let's say wheelchairs to like, pass each other in most places. And it is, it really sucks, because it's like, Charleston is considered like this really like progressive place in South Carolina and like, arguably, like, even in the south like, this is kind of like, I remember like, in high school, because I went to high school in Charleston, being told that, like, yeah, like, Charleston is like, the best place that you can go as like a minority. It's like, if that is true, that is very unfortunate, 

E: yeah

M: the bar is so low now

E: seriously

M: it's just bewildering. There's a lot to say about that. And I think Charleston is a wonderful place, and I love the- especially the campus community. I feel like there are so many people that are represented despite student demographics, but I think there's so many spaces on campus, but as a city as a whole it's not accessible at all. Like it- again, the sidewalks are terrible, and I know that a lot of the buildings it's they can't change it because of like funding or historic preservation or whatever, and that's a different conversation.

But there's so much that can be done with that. And then also, a lot of people don't know the resources that we have on campus for things like that. There's actually a barrier notification process that you can easily access on the Office of Equal Opportunity website, and it's just a short form, and you can put in a request about a physical barrier that could possibly be fixed. So it's just really small things like that. I mean, especially on campus, because these are our resources, this is where we live. We pay for this. A lot of people just don't know about those resources. 

B: That's a really good point. I think that, like, you're totally right. We do have some, like, very helpful infrastructure in place that is not like, universally true, but there are some resources that will get things done. And I think these are the kinds of things that of things that need to be advertised as like physical signs on campus, like, for example. And this is like no no hate to like the neurodivergence initiative or anything like that, but like signs showing, for example, problematic celebrities and then associating them with disorders that are already stigmatized. This is not like doing enough. And I think we also need to reevaluate the way that we make space for neurodivergent people on this campus, because it's not just like, you know, giving out fidget toys at tables and discussing like, quote unquote like less scary disorders, for example, like ADHD havers and like autistic people aren't like, quote unquote scary, but people with schizophrenia, people with bipolar disorder, these are not like people that we respect or that we pay adequate attention to their needs. We don't educate people in our community on, like, what exactly it means to experience delusions or hallucinations, and if anything, we make jokes out of them, like, you know, popular like, colloquial phrases like, like, "I'm so deulu" Or, "Oh, she's so bipolar," things like that. Like, we also have, like, a verbal culture that is very, very 

M: normalized?

B: yeah, like, it very much self-sequesters people socially for, I guess, lack of a better way of putting it. 

M: No, I entirely agree. And it's also important, because, like, in terms of accessibility accommodations, this includes so many more than just physically disabled people, especially with a lot of the DEI legislation happening right now, this is impacting 504s, and people that have learning accommodations, especially in education systems that we exist in, and also accommodations and accessibility benefits and impacts everybody. It's just small things that we can do all the time, and just having more conversations about it too, and just having spaces for this to happen. 

E: Yeah. I mean, I feel like, back to what you were saying. I mean, awareness is just such a huge thing. Because, I mean, I feel like, to an extent, we do have a lot, like, some accessibility accommodations. We do have some but the ones we have aren't even, like, made aware of. I feel like you have to go through all these, like, hoops and bounds to even find out about them, you know? I mean, there's so much you have to do to, like, figure out where they are, how to get to them, and it's just like that should be made, like, there needs to be more awareness. 

M: They need more visibility. 

E: Yeah, I mean, absolutely. Because, I mean, if there's no visibility, then how's anyone supposed to know? I mean, that just makes more work for people who, like, oh, well, I need these accommodations time for me to sit and research this for 20 minutes. Like, that's, that's so stupid that should just be, like, made visible and know exactly to do all that work to get to it. 

B: Yeah. I mean, I think you make a very good point there, because it's also like, we very much do not all have the same 24 hours in a day. Like, even if we're gonna, like, put disabled people out of the conversation, as we so often do. If you are low income, you have to work more, that's just a fact. So you have fewer hours to orient towards your career because you're busy working your service job, for example. But if you're disabled, you so many of my friends deal with fatigue, sometimes hours a week or even hours a day, just like sleeping in order to function. And it's like people who have to allocate hours a day into, like, caring for themselves in order to function at even a remotely similar level to other people, if they're capable of doing so at all. Tacking on that extra like, timed research and like, try and find things is just like, not terribly sustainable. And it's like, if you're having like, a significant pain day, right? Like, if your like, wrists are killing you, for example, and you need to, like, call out, or you need to request some sort of, like, assignment accommodation because you're not able to type, or something like that. But you don't know where to find those resources. Who are you going to ask? Your roommates, who also definitely don't know? This is the kind of stuff that should be posted on campus for the world to see. 

M: I'm gonna switch topics a little bit. This is specific to campus, but this goes for all three of us as students. What do we want to see more of in terms of accommodations and accessibility in classrooms and just from professors and other staff here, or just something that you wish you knew more about, or something that was more widespread on campus?

B: Well, I would like to know more about, I guess, what training do staff and faculty get on disability and neurodivergence? Because I definitely I get academic accommodations. I have ADHD and anxiety. And so what that means is that, like you know, my assignments and my readings take 10 million trillion years to do.Going back to that, like not having the same 24 hours a day. So just like, as an example, I have to communicate with my professors every semester. Here are my accommodations. What can I expect from you? Here's what you can expect from me, that kind of thing. But it's always, like, scary, because I don't really know whether or not, like this professor is going to take my experiences seriously. And I'm lucky because I'm like, in the humanities, I am in psychology and sociology. So psychology, hey, that's cool. They, like, oftentimes know a thing or two about, like, what my disorders are, not that I'm, like, necessarily disclosing them, but they at least have the context for how to be empathetic to people with mental health issues or disorders. So like, hey, that's cool. But like, let's say that you are in the math department, the business department, high efficiency environments where human experiences and things that aren't technically empirical, things that can't be like, empirically measured or perceived as like, empirically valid. Like, getting those things addressed, I imagine, is very, very stressful. And so I would like to know more about like, Hey, what is it that professors are actually taught with regards to disability, it's just a very intimidating process to every single semester be like, "hey, my brain works different. Please be nice to me." 

M: I agree. I think that there needs to be more transparency with that. And like, I don't have accommodations, and I think it's also worth noting, like, I am a an able bodied person. I'm not disabled, and I think that's important to address in this entire conversation. But I think, like, even that, like, I would like to know as well, because I think that this is important for people to be able to know what professors and staff do know and what they do not know, you know, just kind of understanding where they're coming from. And also, just like, as you know a queer person, and also someone that really values DEI programs, even though it's not directly impacting me. I still want to know these things. 

E: Yeah, I 100% agree. And also, like another thing, I there's a lot of classes I've been in where, like, attendance is very much so, like strict to the point of, like, you will get dropped from the class if you miss more than three and I just feel like there should be a little bit more like accommodations to that in the sense of, like, I had one professor shout out, Dr. Perez Rogers in the English department. She what she would do for students, she would have, like, she had a Zoom set up, like we would have class every day in person. But she also had, like, a Zoom option available for students who couldn't be physically present. And she would set that up for anyone, and they would still get, like, attendance credit. And I feel like more professors need to do stuff like that, because not everyone can be physically present for like, all the classes, except for maybe three of them. Like, I just feel like sometimes, and I mean, maybe this is more so with like the STEM classes, or like foreign language classes, where you oftentimes have like that strict attendance for reason, but I mean, if there was a Zoom option, then that eliminates the whole problem. 

M: I entirely agree. I think that's a brilliant idea. I have a lot to say about this, but I'm a Spanish minor. In the whole department, because a lot of people take things like Spanish for Gen Ed credits. I understand the policy, but they are so strict about it, and I think you can only miss like four classes in a semester. I understand it to an extent, but it I've never seen other options for that, and it's just really frustrating. I don't I often don't miss class, but things like these attendance policies are encouraging people to come to class sick and to overwork themselves. And first of all, don't go to class sick. You are going to get other people sick, and you're not going to get any better, any faster. But also, it's just like, I have really bad anxiety. I take medication for it, and I have terrible fear of missing out and things like that, and like, I don't want to be behind on things, but I think again, we need to make sure that people are not going to class sick and putting other people at risk. I have a professor right now, Robin Humphreys. She's incredible. I love her so much. We have been doing class on Zoom, even though it's supposed to be an in person lecture. She does lectures on Zoom. And she is so, so flexible. And I think that if we give flexibility to professors, they should also give that back to us and give us more options. We were in class in the beginning of the semester, like in the lecture room, and then she was on Zoom, and then if someone couldn't show up in person, they could still show up online and not miss anything. And I think that that's just an incredible idea, something so easy too.

B: I think that also, I do want to mention that like, there are, like, absence accommodations, but the thing with accommodations, and the thing with registering with the Center for Disability Services [CDS], which I've had a lot of friends who are, like, registered with the Disability Services and have still had very negative experiences there, especially those with physical disabilities. Because, I mean, let's be real. There's like, very, very real consequences. Off the top of my head, I can think of two or three people who I know have had to drop out because of, like, physical health or disability related issues and a lack of accommodation by the college due to policies like the like, if you have, like, a certain GPA, you have to leave, which is absolutely, like, super questionable, in my opinion, because it's like you are going to get paid by these people anyway. Why not provide them with support to, like, keep them here? Because then you can have more credited graduates in the workforce, for example, you also keep getting- the longer people are at the college, the more you get paid. So why do you want to kick them out? I know it's probably because of those, like, GPA averages, and it makes us look bad. But like, the more successful graduates we have, the better. I don't know. But, um, I also want to point out that it's like not everyone has the privilege of, like, having a psychiatrist or having a doctor that can diagnose them so that they can provide paperwork to the CDS to prove that they need really, that they are deserving of these accommodations. And so I think it's very important that professors like if possible, because obviously professors work too. That's the whole thing. Professors are very busy. But I think that when you are in a position of any sway or power, you need to educate yourself on those who might be disadvantaged in your classrooms, whether that's immunocompromised students, physically disabled students, neurodivergent students, because it's like, yes, this person might not have absence accommodations or have accommodations for, like, submitting assignments late, but like, the way that, as a psych major, like, I know and anyone who's in any number of psych classes, should know that your diagnosis is totally contingent on, like, kind of insurance you have, whether or not you have insurance, like, it's more based on, it's not exclusively based on, like, what is financially feasible, and it's not exclusively based on whether or not you have insurance more so compared to, like, what your work symptoms are, but absolutely whether or not you get diagnosed, and specifically, the the name of what you are diagnosed with is totally, totally contingent on, like, what your insurance might cover, because mental health professionals are responsive to that. That's even if you're even lucky enough to have even lucky enough to have healthcare providers. 

M: I entirely agree. There's so many things about disability and accommodations and accessibility, but yeah, diagnoses are really difficult to get. They're really expensive. I don't have experience with it, but I know a little bit about that, and the process is really lengthy and difficult, and that also just makes paperwork and accommodations even more difficult, too. And it could be a question of, like, you know, we can't make it too easy, because then so many people are going to want accommodations. But like, the people that are going to go out of their way for it are the ones that really want it and need it, even if you do make it an easier process to get them, people that don't need them are not going to go out of their way to try to do that. 

B: And it totally also has to be like, let's say that everyone and their mom is getting accommodations. Sure, that's a lot of work for the professor to be like, having to organize grading assignments, let's say late. It also needs to be a reflexive relationship, like, if something that a student is doing is making a professor's job harder in a way that is undue, a professor needs to communicate with that student, and they need to work out expectations of that student, if that student doesn't meet the expectations, or, like, doesn't communicate, like, oh, actually, I need to shift them a little bit like this, so that we could they could work the best for both of us. Like, it needs to be a two way relationship, in terms of, like, our capitalist society, that there's so much like removal between individuals that it's like, you see this professor, like, three days a week for several hours, and it's like you don't have any sort of working relationship with them, or any sort of like, consistent communication. People need to communicate their needs, and that applies to both students and professors. If a student has an accommodation that they need, that the professor cannot meet, they need to work that out so that student can get to a different professor who might be able to accommodate it, or that professor might need to communicate with the Center for Disability Services to see how better they can, like, meet that student's needs. Like, it is not there is no like oppression of the professors, because the students have to have like accommodations, at least as far as I know, like, if something does not work for professor, a conversation needs to be had. 

M: I agree, and I can't speak for professors, but if you're a professor, you are signing up for the possibility of this, and that can go with, like, really, anything, any kind of job, any like, also just being a parent. I can't speak for parents, but I think, in my opinion, if you're going to be a parent, you're signing up for anything and but from a professor perspective, which I don't have, I think it's safe to say that, like, if you are going into this kind of field and having this job, you are signing up for doing that. And then also, just like in general, going off of what you said, transparency, communication is so crucial with something like this between professors and students also supervisors. You know, this can be said for really anything. 

B: I also want to talk about, like the the intersection between gender and race, and as far as ableism is concerned, for example, in like, a medical context. And I'm mentioning this because I think that there it has its counterparts in the educational setting. Okay, let's say, for example, you are black and you are diagnosed with bipolar. As I understand it (and I encourage someone to factor me on this) but as what we've learned in class, like you are more likely to get, like, prescribed medication, prescribed higher doses of medication, because your symptoms are more scary and more of a threat. Like these, like these, like, things exist in the medical field. I mean, if you're a person of color, you you don't need me to tell you about medical discrimination. You probably know the deal already. But like, like, the way that people are perceived based on the intersections of their identities will also transfer to the educational field. You know, if you're a nice white girl and you're like, I struggle with anxiety and I struggle with XYZ, and so I need these accommodations. Probably your professors are going to be a bit more patient with you, a bit more patient with your needs. But like, as people of color know, especially dark skinned people of color, know, there is a perception of people of color where, like, I don't know, their needs are lower. They need to be more resilient, so on and so forth. There's absolutely like, you are at the mercy of your professor in some ways, because it is your job as a student with accommodations every semester to present, like, hey, here's the letter with my accommodations on it, but here's exactly what it means for your course. And then you have to work that out your professor yourself. So you are very much like, and this is something that happens between you and for your professor. You know, if you CC someone else on an email, like, of course, that way, like, you can have that accountability with like, the CDS. But if you're not, if you're having this conversation verbally, like, you know, there's no one paying attention to ensure fairness. It is just between you and your professor, and based on what your professor feels is right for you or like for their course. And that like, you know that that interpersonal, like aspect is great, but it's also like, opens up potential for discriminatory practice and willingness to be more or less accepting of a student's needs, and that's just, you know, that's a danger in every field, but I think also it needs to be mentioned in so far as disability. 

M: I mean, there's just so much to say about this topic in particular. Like, I don't think you could ever cover everything about it, but yeah, we touched on some really good points. Is there anything you would like to say to anyone that is interested in advocacy or just wants to have more conversations about accessibility, disability and accommodations?

B: I think just at the core of it, you have to ask yourself, why you act the way that you do and in your interactions with other people, especially when a disabled person is communicating their needs to you or a neurodivergent person, ask yourself, are you asking them to prove themselves to you? Or are you trying to create a solution that works for both of you? Are you asking this like, are you subconsciously, like, waiting for this disabled person to prove that they aren't just being needy or asking for too much? Or are you actually trying to hear, I guess, like, the truth about their lived experience? And this doesn't mean like, if a disabled person says something, they're right, but if a disabled person is communicating to you about their own experience, it's it's good to listen and consider that they might know more about that than you do, and it's okay that they know more about their own experience than you do, like you have not- there doesn't need to be, I guess, a feeling of, I don't know, this is a conversation like that's a lot more broad about like people in positions of privilege when they are encountered, when they are forced to encounter people who have been marginalized by their ancestors or by like their broader cultural community, ask yourself if you're acting in good faith, and ask yourself, is this an inconvenience for me, sure, maybe. But is it a little bit life or death for them, or is their entire education contingent on whether or not I provide this sort of accommodation? I think it's really important to assess, like, who is going to be more affected by this interaction. And if you are inclined to center your own feelings, ask yourself, why? Sometimes that's appropriate, but sometimes it's not well. 

M: Thank you for that. That was awesome. I think, like in terms of disabled people and anyone that falls under that category, they know themselves better than anyone else will, and they will know what they need, and they just need to be listened to more. You know, I can't speak too much about that from an able bodied perspective, but they're often silenced in a lot of conversations. And, you know, I feel like we don't really have as many spaces for them, and especially as a college like we want to be an accepting College, we have all these programs, but I feel like disabled people, from my perspective, are often left out of a lot of these conversations. I don't have that experience, but from my perspective, that's how it seems. It's one step to at least have more conversations like this and to ask these questions and and take this into consideration. Thank you so much, Bilal, for being on here. It was great speaking with you. 

B: Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it. Oh, wait, I have one last thought

M: yeah

E: yeah, go for it

B: be very mindful when asking people questions about their disabilities. You know, there's always a time and place, but it's also a good rule of thumb, I find, is, are you asking these questions because you feel like they would want you to know the answers and because you want to, like tangibly, be helpful and supportive? Or are you asking because you want them to be your educator? Because I don't say I don't mean this in a snarky way, the internet is a really great place to go with those questions. So if this is something that you could solve with a Google search in 30 seconds, that'd be awesome, because sometimes these people get these questions, like every single day of their lives, and you might just save them a five minutes of peace in a small way. So, yeah, just just make sure that when you are trying to be an ally, make sure that you're doing it for the right reasons, and that you do your best to take your ego out of it. 

M: Exactly. That was a really good point. Disabled people do not exist to answer your questions. I mean, I can't speak for disabled people, but from what I know, you can ask them, and they might be so happy to have a conversation about it, but you know that's their decision. They don't owe you anything.

B: Yeah, thank you a lot for having me and thank you for listening to me yap 5ever 

E: I have loved every moment of it.

E: Now we are moving to our conversation with Dr John Thomas III where we will be discussing the ableist nature of hustle culture, as well as accommodations and accessibility, specifically in classroom settings, and what he does to implement that, in addition to the wider campus as a whole. Here we also cover some of his experience with accommodations between institutions and other experiences.

M: Hi, Dr. Thomas. Thank you so much for joining us. 

Dr. Thomas: Thank you for having me here. 

M: We're so excited to have you. If you want to introduce yourself real quick?

John: Sure. Well, my name is John Thomas III. I am an assistant professor in political science. I've been here since 2022. My pronouns are he and him. I came here from Chicago. I finished my PhD at the University of Chicago, was hired here. This is my first academic job as a professor, so I'm excited. I'm from Nashville, born and raised. My research is focused on comparative racial politics in Latin America. My dissertation was on looking at how black groups in Peru and Ecuador mobilize for civil and human rights. I also look at democratization, social movements, things that have nothing to do with what's going on in the world right now, and I also deal with development studies. So here I teach courses on world politics, Latin American politics, and I also was able to teach a course on Afro-Caribbean and Afro-Latin studies. And one fun fact about me is that I have over 500 Starbucks mugs. Yeah, so that's a little bit about me.

M: Awesome. Thank you so much. I guess we can jump into our discussion. Something that we discussed with Bilal, we were talking about hustle culture, and this impacts, I think, everyone, but especially students and professors like you. Can you talk about how that impacts you, especially from a professor perspective? 

Dr. Thomas: This hustle, you know, trying to get ahead, you know, doing all this stuff in life, I think that hustle culture has led us to a place where we're out of balance. For example, you know, with students like, I'm on my grind, I'm on my hustle, that's great, are you living? And one of the things, especially this issue at College of Charleston, is that we have a lot of students here, because of the cost of living in Charleston, who are working. I know you're working, but are you in balance? And, you know, the collegiate experience isn't just supposed to be eat, sleep, hustle, get out of here. You're supposed to live. So I think one of the things that happens with this hustle culture, you know, is that you lose community, and you lose yourself. I appreciate students who want to live life to the fullest, who want to dedicate themselves fully to what they're doing, but I always encourage, try to find balance.

M: Yeah, I think that's an incredible point, and I mean, we were talking with Bilal about how, I mean, there's just so much to do, and especially, like, the cost of living in Charleston, you know, you kind of have to do all this stuff all the time, especially as students, and like, the time that we're living in. Taking care of yourself and taking a step back is so important.

E: How do you personally keep your balance going? 

D.T: One of my mentors in the department told me, he said, John, I'm going to keep it real with you. You're not going to find, find your mojo here for about three years, because your first two years, you're trying to get your classes together. Your third year, you're up for third-year review, and so it's really after the third year where you figure out, okay, here's what's going on, here's what I want to do, and he was right. Moving here, getting classes together, figuring things out, just living life. I have been out of balance, and it's had some tangible impacts. I've, like, literally come home, drop my bags, had to go grade some papers, go to sleep, then run back out. I have now been intentional about finding space, because I now can't be more intentional, because those first two years, and honestly, the beginning of this year, were a ridiculous grind. I try to find balance by intentionality. The little things like, you know, all the news environment that's going on, you know, I found myself beginning to be on, like, I don't want to say doom-scrolling, basically being on Drudge or Ground at the beginning of the morning, and I'd be like, no, stop. Before I even open up those webpages, I need time for meditation, do my daily devotional, then we open those things. I think routine's important. And I lost my routine moving here. It was easy to be in the house, you know, typing, typing a dissertation, but being here, it upended my routine, because, you know, you have to come to campus. I'm involved in student organizations that I help advise, the things I have to do for my department. So finding a routine, I think that's what my mentor was trying to tell me. It's going to take you some time to find a routine, but be kind to yourself and be honest to yourself. I could say that I'm finally beginning to feel like I'm getting back in a routine, and that is what's helping me to give balance. Don't say yes to everything. Find balance and build a routine, something that anchors your day.

M: That's fantastic. Thank you so much for sharing that. Scheduling time for yourself and your community, that's so important. The hustle culture itself, we were talking about, is just inherently ableist, and it encourages us to push ourselves way too much beyond what we can do, and it's so normalized now.

D.T:  I mean, the gig economy is one of the worst things that's happened to this country.

E: It truly is. 

M: Especially from your perspective, specifically in terms of accommodations and disability and accessibility in the classroom, we wanted to know, kind of switching topics, how do you implement accommodations for your students and anyone that you work with?

D.T: So first, I finished grad school in 2022. When I was coming through grad school, things were different than what I experienced in college. I learned in grad school that while we are trained to be researchers, pedagogy is something that you also have to learn. The art of teaching is something that you have to learn. And in thinking, back in my college career, I realized that I loved my professors, my classroom discussions, but those professors really weren't trained to be great teachers. Some of them just had an innate talent. But you look at UDL [Universal Design for Learning], looking at things, first we called them learning styles, but now we don't call them learning styles anymore. It's now UDL, which is more encompassing. And it's thinking about, reflecting about, you know, how my classroom might have looked a little bit different if those professors had been trained today. So when I was coming through grad school, we had a great center, the Chicago Center for Teaching and Learning, and I was able to learn a lot of things. And I think, for teaching and learning, CETL here, the Center for Excellence for Teaching and Learning, is like one of the best things that has happened on the College of Charleston campus, because it is providing institutionality to have these discussions about ableism, UDL, how do you craft your classroom? But when I was in grad school, Chicago Teaching, our teaching center, we were encouraged to go get certificates over there, to go take classes, to understand what pedagogy meant, and to understand where students are. What I got from there was learning things, that we may do unknowingly to cause barriers, and on the flip side, things you may do unknowingly to help students. One little thing, for example, that I learned was how to structure first day of class, you know, icebreakers, making people feel comfortable, setting classroom norms. Those things came to me naturally, but it was nice to be in a setting where we actually learned the theory behind these things. Now, as an African-American who went to a college that was historically black, Morale Scholars of Atlanta, I honestly had an understanding about the fact that just because people may look a certain way, they might not have a certain identity. I learned there because we were all more or less the same race, though we did have white students and Asian students there, which were cool to have them there. We came from different cultural backgrounds. It allowed me to remind myself that when you look at someone, do not make certain assumptions. So that's why, you know, looking at the idea of belonging in a classroom, how do I make you belong in this classroom? What can I do to make sure that you feel you have a place there? That's what I learned in Chicago at the Teaching Institute and being here at the College of Charleston, we have tons of tools to help professors do and scale that up. So, for example, my classrooms, one thing that I always do is for every class, I always do PowerPoints. There are some professors, some old school ones, like, “that's lazy.” What I found is that, again, UDL, visuals are important, hearing's important, writing's important. Students are going to write down their notes. They want to see something on the board. They want to hear you. In my classes, in every level, I incorporate movies. I love movies, and I think movies are a great way to teach politics. In my 100 levels, I have the students do a movie critique on two movies. In my 300 levels, in my upper level classes, the readings for the week have a movie that accompanied them, and it's required that you watch the movie. I add that in because there's some things that I might say in class, but if you see a movie, then, you know, it's like, oh, I get this idea. So, you know, I really am big on incorporating movies, visuals into the classroom environment, into the learning environment so students can get hit from different angles.

M: Those are really great points, and from a student perspective, and I'm sure that Emily can probably speak on this as well, audiovisual and these other resources that are incorporated into lesson plans make it so much more engaging, too. Even just something like PowerPoints, it's so much more accessible, too, and, like, having closed captions on a video and giving people a way to access something other than something that might have a paywall, there's so many parts of that that we can speak about.

D.T: Exactly. Let's talk about captions. Lots of the courses that I teach are courses that are in foreign language. For example, when I do Latin American politics, a lot of the films I pick are going to be bilingual films. So, I am already predisposed to, like, I have to find a film with captions. In the summer, I had a student who has Brazilian family, and it was all English, and she was like, “you know, I can use captions, too.” I was like, aww, yeah. And these were films that I had brought in because the Kanopy films have the captions. I now, for whatever film I use, I try to make sure that the film has the subtitles. Because even if you speak English, you might need those subtitles to keep along. So I try to make sure that everything has that. And the captions, yes, they're important. And especially, again, because I deal with foreign language, that's an issue. Paywalls. You know, one of the most annoying things is to assign an article or have an article assigned to you and it's like, well, how am I supposed to get this thing? Did you not take the time to? So what I will do is that I'll make sure that if I'm going to give you a reading to do, I just don't tell you to click this link unless I know, for example, New York Times, CofC has a subscription. And as a CofC student, you should have subscribed to that already. I will have the PDF up there so you can find it. And also, I was encouraged by my chair to do this. So for every course that I have, I've already ordered at least one copy that the library has. So it's on reserve here. I also know that there's some students that even though, we've tried to normalize using a screen a lot, look at a screen, there are some students who need that break to have a physical copy. And so I make sure that for my classes, there is one on reserve in the library.

E: Absolutely. And I feel like another issue, like you were saying, I mean, with the paywall, it's like, you know, I have a friend who had to drop like her gen ed language class because her textbook was like $350. And it was like a digital one where it's like a one-time use code thing. And it's like, you can't get it rented. You can't get it used. Like you have to pay. And it's like, that's like kind of withholding students from being able to like really like get into their learning and stuff. Cause especially with like gen ed things, I mean, you want to get that done as soon as possible. And it's like, then it's just like throwing you off track for graduation completion and stuff too. And yeah, I think that's just really important to have everything like accessible and like not only in a being able to physically access it, but also in like the economic sense. I mean, things should be accessible to students cause you're already paying so much in tuition, you know?

D.T: And I'm so sorry that, you know, your friend had that experience. Because again, you know, textbooks are expensive. And I tell students, I said, look, you know, if I assign this book, we're going to use this book. I don't believe in gratuitously assigning books just for you to- But no, if we're going, if I'm a sign of this book, we're going to use the hell out of this book. I at least let students know, I'm asking you to buy this. We're going to use this. And I also try to make sure, you know, in the class that I have to the extent possible that there are resources. Now in POLI, you know, the most expensive textbook I've had new may have been like $70 but there were different rates. Again, I have requested for every class that I do that the library have at least one textbook ordered that's here that can be checked out. Some people just want to read the book. They don't want to pay for that. But yeah, it's annoying and it's frustrating. And I've, I empathize with students who are like, I can't afford this course. That, that, that should never be the case.

E: And I love your intentionality too. Like, I just like want to go back to what you were saying about having like the movies and the readings. I feel like, that's so important for students to be able to like feel like connected to what they're learning. Because I mean, otherwise it's just kind of like a, I don't know. I just kind of hate that like you're just doing assignments to get them done and to like make like progress towards your degree. But like without intent kind of, you know what I mean? Like I like how you have it like intentionally laid out so that students are actually getting something out of it. Cause I feel like that's so important.

D.T: I'm glad you said that. So for those of y'all listening to this, this is a plea from your professors. Y'all, we take time to put these syllabi together. Now also, I know you can tell when a syllabus is not as well thought out as it should have been. But when you see a syllabus that has been well constructed, that has been constructed with you in mind, know that the professor really wants you to learn and has picked these things for you. So we ask you to take advantage of the learning. And I'm so glad you said that. It's not just show up and check the box and go. We want you to learn. And I take time to construct my syllabi. You know, I take time to make sure that there are things there that may interest you. I know everything's not going to interest you. The same way that you're saying we were intentional about creating the students, I hope we'll be intentional about engaging with their learning and understanding that. And if you see or want something that's not there, ask for it. You know, if I have students say, Professor Thomas, have you considered doing this or put this there? I'm like, well, that's a good idea. And I guess because I have 100 level classes, which means I get freshmen every year. And I'm like, you know, this is part of that socialization process where we're transitioning people from being receptors of learning in high school to coming here. Like, no, you must go get your learning. So let’s talk about mandating office hours. I learned my first year here about, you know, students and office hours and students. My friends were like, “oh, they never come to office hours. Students don't come to office hours.” I was like, “hmm, interesting.”

D.T: So I gave extra credit for office hours in my 100 level class. And about a third of the class showed up. And in those one-on-one discussions, I learned a lot. I learned so much about the students, where they're from, what they're doing. And also, they learned some things about me, and we learned some things about our class. Like, and I was able to triage certain things. So now I mandated all of my classes that you have to come by office hours at least once because it does two things. I want us to have interpersonal interaction outside of the classroom. I want you to know that I know you, and I want to get to know you, and I also want to know how we can help the class work for you. And I've learned some amazing things. We're adults, too. You're adults. Come talk to us. Some of my best times in college were when class spilled over into the office. Also, I know that there's some students who may not want to speak in class, may be a little shy or uncomfortable. Coming to the office, making it one-on-one, removes that barrier.

E: That's just so important for, like, community building and, like, strengthening relationships. Because, I mean, especially, I feel like I've gotten so much more out of classes where, like, I have a good relationship with the professors. It just makes everything so different because you're having a personal experience, a first-hand learning. I don't know how to put that into words.

D.T: No, exactly right. I mean, that's why you come to a liberal arts school. If you wanted to be a name at a lecture hall, you would have gone to Clemson or USC. If you're coming here, it's because you want that engagement. You want those touch points.

M: This can bring in a conversation about a two-way learning relationship between professors and students. And we were talking about this in my communication class, 281, and we were doing an activity kind of about guidelines for not really debates, but, like, having these serious conversations. As a class, in groups, we were creating these guidelines, and we told our professor, like, oh, we really like doing these group activities and being able to talk to each other. And I think that that also goes into being able to give feedback to professors in real time and then having a more two-way relationship with them where it's not just the professor speaking at you, but you're also speaking with them and you're working with them. Because I think that that also, it makes it so much more engaging as a student. And I can't speak for everyone, but it just makes it a much more memorable experience, and it's some of my favorite classes. And last semester in my Women's and Gender Studies 250 class for the approaches to research, it was pretty much a discussion-based class, and it was amazing. It was incredible, and I became so close with those people. It makes it such a better experience from a student perspective.

D.T: Yeah, and I mean, and, you know, because I end up with, you know, big lecture classes, out of the CofC side, there has not been a class where I've had that's been below 25 students. So, one of the things that I've tried to figure out is, okay, how can I get students to talk to each other? And Alcor and I, we break these things down. So, in my 100-level classes, I instituted group quizzes. Three times of the semester, I just break the students up into groups at random, and I give a prompt. I'm like, “okay, for the class period, y'all are talking about this, and then bring it back to the class.” We are having a discussion with the political science department about writing and assignments, and so we're looking at having standardized group activities across the department, to allow students that opportunity, because we realize that, you know, you all learn from each other as much as you can learn from us in different ways. So, we want to make sure that's there.

M: And I think that's so important, and this kind of circles back to going out of your way to implement things like this. This can be like looking for resources that don't require paywalls, and also going and ordering those books so they're here for your students to access, and it's just the little things like that. And I understand that from a professor perspective, there's a lot that you have to consider with a whole class, especially a large class. But I think having those intentions, again, going back to your intentionality, I think that that's so important. I mean, a lot of people don't really consider this accessibility and accommodations, but it really is, and it's also just creating a classroom environment and community.

D.T: One of the things that I was challenged to do when I came here by my department chair, Hollis France, she was like, “you know, we need to look at what barriers there are to equity in the classroom, and what barriers there are to learning.” And barriers come in a variety of places. Barriers can be in how we do our grading, how we destruct our course catalog, how we do other things in the classroom. And so she challenged me to say, you know, one of the things that we're big on, if we truly want to have this impact and have the sense of belonging, we need to look at barriers beyond, you know- So I look at, okay, what am I doing that could make you not be able to learn your best? If a student can't eat, they're not doing their best. If a student is sick, they're not doing their best. If a student is running, you know, 40 hours at work a week, they're not at their best. And so that has challenged me to be a bit more empathetic and compassionate when it comes to learning where we are. Because like I said, I started off by saying, a lot of students in this place work. We had a discussion in my development policy class. Only you know how your life is layered. I said, so I'll tell you all what. I will reconstruct the reading list. I'm not getting rid of anything, but some of these things are optional unless you're writing a paper, or a response for the week. And that helps some students out. But I also realized, you know, and my chair also challenged me, look for patterns. There are students here who, you know, are dedicated and trying to make it through. Things happen. Life happens. And so we have to be compassionate and understand that people are in our classrooms, not just numbers.

M: No, and that's so important. And this just makes me think of like, just little things like letting your students eat during class, if it's not a big disruption. And then being flexible with attendance. And I know that there's restrictions to that, and we were talking about attendance policies.

D.T: I'll tell you straight up, my attendance policy is, I'm an adult, you're an adult, you're grown. You're paying to be here. I'm going to teach this class. If you decide that you don't want to show up for the rest of the semester, that's on you. But I don't believe in like, you know, meticulous, you know, penalizing, “if you're not, if you miss 10 days”. But I do build into my syllabus, a like, you know, if you, if you miss a disproportionate number of days, this will negatively impact your grade. But I don't pass a roll around, because to me, that is counterintuitive. I'm not going to police you. You should want to be in the class. If you don't want to be there, odds are, if I made you be there, you wouldn't be happy. You'd probably disrupt the learning.

M: Exactly. Yeah. And there's, I mean, there's so much to say about attendance. There's so many, like, really strict attendance policies. And it encourages people to come to class sick. And we're putting people at risk. And then it's just not worth it.

D.T: As a professor in a class, I can, I know how it feels when you look in the class, and it's like, of the 30 students who were there, 25 of them went to Folly Beach, and you got five in the room. I've come to learn, you can tell when things are going on. You can tell when things are happening. And basically, I feel like if I respect you as an adult, you will respect me as an adult. So respect is, you have your own work and own life. Now, for pedagogical purposes, I don't have to mandate attendance the same way that they have to do in language departments. What I can say, in our department, we have the ability to be flexible. And I was at a previous institution, where basically the policy was, you get as many excused absences-  unexcused absences, as you get per credit hours. After that, you know, we start docking stuff off. At one point, I was like, well, let me just institute that here, because, you know, we have whatever. Then I realized, this is a different environment. And again, because so many students work, and there's just so much going on here, because of where we are, I have learned to be a little bit less, and I realized, if I respect the students, they'll show up. They'll be there, because they need to be there. They want to be there. And I don't want anyone to be anywhere. We're going to be there. Because they have to be there. But again, if we treat you like the adults that you are, it's up to you to make your own responsibility and your choices.

M:I think that sums it up very well. I don't know if we want to flip topics a little bit. But something that Emily and I really wanted to talk about was how a lot of clubs outside of workplaces are based around physical activities. And this is really specific. It doesn't necessarily have to be specific to our experiences, but how can we flip notions like this and, you know, have more third spaces that are not around things that are so limiting to people? Especially, like, in the real adult world, there's not even a lot of, like, clubs to go to other than, like, bars. And then those things are not open after typical 9 to 5 hours.

D.T: When I saw that, I reflected on it. Because one of the things that's been good about me traveling is that I get to travel to see other countries and other spaces. On the one hand, we should be very thankful in this country for the ADA, for the Americans with Disabilities Act. Because that has set a floor here that many other countries do not have. On the flip side, while the ADA has made some things institutionalized, there are some things that we aren't good at as Americans in terms of making space and allowance and breathing room. So, yes, we put elevators everywhere. And we have ramps and parking spaces. But we also expect you to live to work and not work to live. And so, like, when you go to Latin America, when you go to Europe, yeah, there may be more stairs. But the pace of life is more relaxed and more accommodating in terms of what we're doing. Like, you know, I appreciated living in Chicago because Chicago actually had decent public transit. Charleston, if you don't drive and you're stuck on CARTA to get around, that's a whole other thing. You know, I lived that life my first year here. Well, my first summer here. Let me tell y'all, that is not an easy life to live.

E: No. It's so unreliable.

D.T: And looking at students close here on campus, again, just reflecting on where people are. And where we need them to be. And, you know, I don't have a good answer for that because ableism is the next frontier. And we need to look at what does it mean to put things in place for persons who need accommodations? One of my cousins, he died last year. He was in his late 70s. So for 50 years, he was paralyzed from the waist down. But he worked. He still had a productive life. He had a daughter. And he drove around the island. He showed on that tiny little island, which probably had nothing there. He was like, you know, I can play dominoes. I can do everything. When I need you to help me, help me. But I really don't need that help. And I think even though that's one example. And, you know, my cousin Val taught me so much about what people who have mobility challenges need or don't need. I think we just need to have an open mindset about here. Like, you know, what do we need to do for things to be accessible? And ableism is a thing. And ableism isn't just about physical mobility issues. We can also look at timing and challenges. One of my pet peeves is when we don't stream or record campus lectures. If you're a working student or a parent, not even single, if you're a parent, you've got childcare duty, we deny you the fact of being able to watch something. And I know the pandemic opened us up to having discussions because everyone needed to be streaming. But then we realized, wait a minute, we should have been recording these anyway, because why should we make you have to take off of work to be in this seat because we value you being in this seat? That is a discussion that I'm having with, you know, my church right now, because the culture has been, well, if you're not present, you need to be there. And I'm like, well, there's some people who can't be present. We need to make sure that they are present. And the pandemic opened us up to look at different things, different ways. That's why it's so disheartening to see in the federal government right now this, you know, if you're not in your office, not productive. That’s not true.

E: Not at all.

D.T: That's not true. And this rollback of telework. But then again, what can you expect from a person like Elon Musk, who clearly has no understanding? Like, I'll sleep in my office because it's showing you how good- Huh?

E: That is so toxic. 

D.T: Yes. 

E: So, like, incredibly toxic.

D.T: It's not living life to your fullest. And I want to take it back to my classroom because I'm going to go back to the theory because this is what we talk about in class. Like, Amartya Sen, who is a development scholar, talks about development as freedom. He said, development comes when you are truly able to exercise all of your capabilities. And so in my class, we're talking about the political decisions that have happened for where persons of certain countries are not able to live fully. And even in this country, we have a wide range of inequalities. And it's not just about income. How can we equalize and make it available for persons to be in places? So now I don't Zoom all my lectures. That's different now because you're supposed to be coming to class. But I was challenged by some students that, well, you know, can we get the PowerPoints ahead of time? And I was like, “well, I don't like doing that.” I was always taught if I do that, then, you know, y'all ain't going to come to class. But I said, you know what? Some of my students asked for them. I said, OK. I have some students with SNAP [Special Needs Accommodation Process] accommodations who I do that for regardless, but because it's part of the SNAP letter. But a student made a request and said, OK, you know what? I'll add you to the folder. If it will help your learning, I'm OK to do that. Now, I do not do that uniformly, but I'm OK to do that and help you. But I think we really need to be challenged. One thing about these student clubs, these events, the broadening, the openings, do you really want more people at your event? If you do, what do you do? And I think we have to challenge ourselves with that. Sometimes, if we're going to be honest, some of these folks don't want more people. They say they do, but they don't.

E: That's very true. I mean, it's just like a guise of, like, inclusion that's just not true. And it's very sad to see because it's just like you can't say that and not follow through.

D.T: Exactly. Or, you know, well, yeah, we want everyone here. OK, well, did you do this? Did you do that? Did you do that? Well, I mean, we want everyone here. Uh-huh. Right.

E: Actions speak louder than words.

M: And I mean, again, like it just goes back to the small things, like specifically about the PowerPoints. I can say I love having them ahead of time. I pull them up during class because a lot of time my professors go way too fast. But it's just small things like that that we can implement. They benefit everyone. And like this can be said for accessibility in general and DEIA, all of that benefits everyone. And a lot of people don't recognize that.

D.T: You know, this is concocted backlash against these constructive acronyms. “Oh, we're going to kill DEI.” What's DEI? Huh? Learning is about learning. Whatever acronym you want to throw on something, our job as instructors. I don't care if you're at, you know, the most conservative school you're at. If I'm an instructor, my job is to help you to learn and help you to eliminate the barriers to your learning, eliminate the barriers to what you need to be in a place and try to make it for as many people have the opportunity as possible. Now, if I know that there are groups who haven't had opportunities because of X, Y, Z, why wouldn't I want to open those doors? Because I want the best people to have opportunities. We were watching a movie in my class, The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, about a kid in Malawi who used a secondhand engineering book in high school, no, grammar school, to build a windmill for his village to save them from a drought. He ended up going to England and getting engineering degrees. It wasn't that he was no less brilliant, it was the fact that he didn't have the opportunity because guess what? His family had to pay school fees and they were broke because the props didn't come in, so they had to work something out with the instructor. I mean, all these barriers that are there. And I'm like, how many geniuses like him are there but aren't able to have the capabilities? It makes me sad to think that we would be in the space that, well, everyone's equal and meritocracy means we're not. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. The meritocracy means that I value the experiences you have, the abilities you have, but I also look at where I am. For example, when I was in Chicago and a friend of mine asked me, she said, how do you feel being a black male college professor? I said, it's interesting that you ask that question. My father was a medical school professor. My mother was a nurse who taught nursing at the college level and also ended up being a school nurse. My godparents were both tenured track professors and department chairs. So, I have come from a lineage of educators at the university level, but if I wasn't black, you wouldn't have asked me that question in that way. The point that I'm trying to make is I'm not first gen. I'm like deep generation in this stuff. Again, recognizing my privilege, I have some privileges of understanding the space, so you should treat me differently than a first gen white woman from Appalachia who is a professor. We're going to have different experiences. But also, I'm black. She's white. There are different privileges. And so, this whole, we're all meritocratic, yeah, we want to be meritocratic, but meritocracy also means looking at every one of the totality of the circumstances. And that is something that I think that is being missed in this nuance, in this short sighted attack against these acronyms that is purely political and spiteful.

M: That was a great way of putting it. Thank you for that. That goes into intersectionality so perfectly. And it's, I mean, it's just understanding people. And encompassing that all together.

D.T: We are living in a world where we're trying to reduce things to slogans. “Yeah, kill the DEI. Yeah, no CRT. Yeah, go get the LGBTQ.” People are people. And again, the administration is showing us better than they can tell us. I mean, you have one of the highest officers in the land, the Secretary of the Treasury, is a gay white man. So again, identities and their complexity. So we need to be very careful about how we end the fact that this election, we saw a significant proportion of black and brown people supported the Republican candidate. So identities are complex. And we just can't throw slogans at them, hoping they'll go away or hoping they'll get better. And that's on both sides. We really need to be nuanced and understand where we are.

M: And labels are so complicated in everything. And especially in the way that like in today's world, we associate certain labels and kind of jump to conclusions with it. With so many overlapping identities, you can't just confine people to these single words and these single ideas.

E: And like labeling really just like kind of like fuels a fire of prejudice too. 

D.T: Yeah. 

E: Because a lot of these people just like, I mean, you get like all these prejudice ideas based on a label.

D.T: Like for example, when you read the DEI bill that's coming down the pipeline of the state and I read it, a lot of us have read it already, and where it says we don't want you to look at these statutory things at race, but instead look at underrepresented backgrounds, geographical areas. Well, South Carolina, if we were to do that, it would eerily look similar to different patterns. So it's like, okay. I mean, we're on a campus where I literally could not be a student until 1967. So I think we really are, and I mean, we all know this is politicized. We all know these are just things that are done to whip people up into a populist frenzy. My hope is just that anyone who's listening to this understands that when it comes to teaching, when it comes to learning, creating an environment of belonging is important. And to create a place where you belong, I have to understand where you are and whether that is taking time to understand you work, so I need to be lax in my attendance policy, or you have a kid, so let's figure out how we can do something else, or you need the PowerPoints before class, that's not going to kill me. Fine. Those are the discussions we need to have. Because if we take it back from slogans to how do I make you belong in this place, and what do you need to be here, that's different.

E: Yeah, that focus on personal experience is just so important, because there's not a one-size-fits-all version of learning at all. So I mean, I'm glad that you think that way.

D.T: Yeah. I mean, that's the thing. I was reading some of the stuff that happened in the military, these affinity groups they had. The women fighter pilots were like, we need different helmets so we can fight because we're getting alopecia because the helmets are pulling our hair back. Or black men were saying, can we relax the beard shaving because we'll get razor bumps. Those are about belonging. I want to be a soldier. I'm still a woman. I'm still a man, a black man with a- So help me belong here. Don't believe that all of us are of a certain cookie cutter, because we're not. And we lie to ourselves when we say, well, yes, we're all equal. Yes, we're all equal human beings, but all human beings are different.

M: Yeah. I mean, we're all different people. And we want everyone to be equal, but you still have to acknowledge the differences and work with that. And it doesn't really matter what that looks like. It can just be these small changes that we make. We don't need to make everything a standard. We can change it and we can make it specific to people. It's having the intentionality and it's taking extra steps ahead of time. I mean, it can just make all of these experiences and especially learning just transform into something so much better.

D.T: This comes back to intentionality. These things only happen when you ask the question, what can I do to help you belong in this space? And when you give me the response that I actually do it, if I want you to belong here, I'm going to take the steps to help you feel that you can, because I want you to be the best student you can be. I want all my students to do their best and they can't do their best if they don't feel that they belong.

M: And like, you can't ask that and not be open to making changes. 

D.T: Mm-hmm. 

M: And you can make a compromise. You can do something that you might not be able to meet that exact request, but you can still work on that and try to reach that as best you can.

D.T: Yeah. Yeah. And that's the different type of pedagogy that I was trained in that the people that I studied under in college may not have known. So that's what I'm reflecting on. The old school was interesting, but we have to meet people where they are today. Now we're making it no less rigorous, no less whatever, but I want you to be the best student you can be. And if you're not able to belong in the space, how do I think you're going to be able to learn?

M:I guess one last quick question. Is there anything that you want to say to anyone that's interested in this kind of advocacy for especially disabled folks and accessibility and accommodations in general and just having these conversations?

D.T: I would say the College of Charleston has done in the past three years that I've been here, they have done an amazing job in helping to bring these resources to life. So I would encourage you to advocate for these resources and utilize these resources because resources are here, but if y'all don't use them, people are going to be like, why are they still here? A shout out to Margaret Haygood over in CETL because she definitely is doing work. Shout out to the Office of Students with Disabilities. Her name's escaping me right now. I know it's Ann. I'm forgetting. I know. But she came to speak to my department. And we need to advocate and talk to your professors and professors listen to your students. We learn a certain way because we were taught a certain way. But that doesn't have to be the way you continue to do things. CETL, Office for Disability Services, they are here to help us do better and know better for our students. But students, you have to advocate for yourself. If something's not working in your class, don't take it. At least have the discussion. You're an adult. Advocate for yourself. And there are also people who will help you in that advocacy. So that's what I would say here. You know, I mean, the college has these resources, use them to be the best student you can be because we want you to belong here. We want you to be the best student. There are professors like me here, and I'm not the only one. Most of us here want to make sure that you have the best experience possible.

E: Well, thank you so much. We've really enjoyed talking to you. And we thank you so much for being on here and taking the time to talk to us.

D.T: Well, it's been my pleasure. It's been a great way to wind down my week before spring break. It's been great. And I've enjoyed talking to you. I've learned so much from both of you.

E: We've learned a lot from you.

M: Mm-hmm. Certainly. You had so many great points, and I loved our conversation. Thank you so much for being here and for taking the time to sit with us.

D.T: Well, I think you wrap up with intentionality. You have to, if you want to talk about something, it's not just talk about it, be about it. You all are doing a good work in these podcasts to make students understand. And I'm glad that WGS is taking the initiative and being intentional, because this isn't just a WGS issue. This is for everyone here. So thank you both for being intentional to advocate the discussion and to advance it along.

E: Absolutely.

M: Thank you so much for tuning into this episode of What IFF? And thank you to both of our guests, Bilal N. and Dr. John Thomas III, for being a part of this conversation and helping make our campus more inclusive.

E: For more information about campus accessibility, please visit charleston.edu/accessibility.

M: I'd like to thank our site supervisor, Aaisha Haykal, and the director of the Women's and Gender Studies Department, Dr. Lauren Ravalico, for all of their time and help towards this.

M: I'm your host, Mallory Mason. 

E: And I'm your host, Emily Currey. And thank you so much for listening, and we'll see you in the next episode.

[outro music]