one great hello everyone and welcome I'm I'm Dr. Rory Cooper and I'm chairing this this committee and helping to lead this wonderful group on the conversation series about accessibility and inclusion in STEM we have a wonderful panel and a team from the National Academies of Science and and Medicine working with us. I'm wearing a blue sweater and a I'm a white male in my early 60s and I use a wheelchair as a means of mobility due to a spinal cord injury and in the background you can see a bookshelf and some plaques on the wall I am sitting in my office today so and I use the pronouns he or him or his so the this is a conversation series that would take place in five parts we have pre-recorded keynote sessions I hope that you took the opportunity to listen to for now Dr. Okolami's wonderful keynote session I enjoyed it myself I had the privilege of meeting up at the University of Pittsburgh a few years ago and actually giving them a tour of some of our resources so I would like to next introduce allow our committee members to briefly introduce themselves maybe we can start with with Cheryl oh I'm Cheryl Berksfeller from the University of Washington in Seattle and there I direct accessible technology services which includes the Dewitt Center and Dewitt stands for disabilities opportunities internet working and technology and the IT accessibility team for our campus I'm also an affiliate professor in the College of Education great thank you Caroline how would you like to introduce yourself up you're on you hi my name is Caroline I am the uh professor for technology and science as well I'm also to classes at uh for University of Guyudette my background is a white wall with shelves I have a globe on one of the shelves it is nice to see you all here today and I'm so happy to be here today Christopher good afternoon folks Chris Atchison faculty or a professor of geoscience education at the University of Cincinnati I am also the founder of the International Association for Geoscience Diversity and I am a white male with a graying beard and a green jacket good to see you all Julian would you like to go next yes hello everyone my name is Dr. Julian Brinkley I'm a system professor of human center computing here at Clemson University I lead the design and research of in-vehicle experiences lab where we explore issues of accessibility and how to design and prototype technologies for personal mobility I am an early 40s black male with a blue shirt thank you um great then let's see I don't well I don't see any of the committee members Alexis are you you're no I think that's it right I'm sorry no no no it's not I uh so forgot Emily there you go Emily would you have please introduce yourself sure I'm Emily Ackerman I'm a postdoc at the systems biology department at Harvard Medical School I am a white woman with long brown hair and glasses and I am a wheelchair user as well wonderful um just a few logistics items please use the reactions bar at the bottom of the zoom I'm sure most of you are familiar with zoom nowadays to to raise your hand and you can also post things in the chat and and Kate and I will try to to use those to help facilitate the conversation today and I would now you've met Emily and Cheryl Burkstah they have agreed to be the host for today's session and moderate the conversation Emily is a chemical engineer who is currently working as a postdoc in the law lab at Harvard systems biology department and Cheryl is the director of accessibility technology services and affiliate professor at the University of Washington they are both planning committee members and I would now welcome them to moderate this session so thank you all for participating and I'd like to thank our panel members in advance I'm I'm sure that Emily and Cheryl will introduce them thank you great thank you so much everybody for attending um before we dive in uh with our panelists I want to provide an opportunity for our speaker to provide sort of an overview of the highlights of the pre-recorded keynote talk we hope that you were able to see it before uh today's event but if you haven't that's okay it's still on the website and will be available along with this recording um so our keynote speaker uh for this first conversation is Dr. Farami Oganlami who is an assistant professor of family medicine physical medicine and rehabilitation as well as urology at michigan medicine he's the director services for students with disabilities and the director of adaptive sports and fitness uh division of student life at the university of michigan so Dr. Oganlami uh would you please give us sort of a brief overview of the key points from your talk about intersectionality um ableism and racism and how you think STEM can integrate uh you know these ideas into um our education and research recording in progress certainly thank you Emily thank you Dr. Cooper and thank you to all of you at the national academies of science engineering and medicine I am Farami Oganlami I use he him his pronouns I am a young to middle-aged black man with brown skin I've got all some clear rim glasses I've got short black hair I've got on a dark blue blazer with a blue colored shirt and a wooden bow tie in my background there's some drawers and an American flag and a plant and a scooter that I think Dr. Cooper could do some pretty cool things to if I let him get his hands on it uh as introduced I run disability services for the university of michigan and I'm also a clinical faculty in the medical school here at michigan and also at UCLA so I tell people often that the sort of the framework for this talk you said give some highlights now I I hope that the the points I bring up were considered highlights or not I I'm not sure if people enjoyed the talk or not but I get really excited when we get an opportunity to do this because it was really a chance to have a conversation or start a conversation about things that are very important to me and and I say they're important to me because in these conversations I also talk about my own humility and authenticity and vulnerability of a topic that is near and dear to my heart because of my lived experience but by the end of it what I was hoping to demonstrate is that one needn't have a particular lived experience to be able to then recognize the importance of equity and inclusion in our society so I talked really about juxtaposing sort of racism and ableism and the fact that we have two systemic structures here that are because our society was not created or built or fashioned with certain people in mind so not being difficult or jarring or controversial but we know the history of our country was that certain people that looked like me were allowed to be property were allowed to be beaten and hanged and sold and used and I'm talking about people of color but at that same time individuals with disabilities have not been seen as fully human just like black people were not seen as fully human and so ableism and racism are systemic frameworks and structures that then disadvantage specific populations and so I was not pointing fingers at individuals and saying you are racist and you are ableist but in order for us to then start a conversation about ableism today in the past sort of year and a half in our country we have seen racism be sort of front and center in conversations something that should have happened long ago and that despite the fact that we allegedly have laws that make that illegal we still see the effects of racism today and so to talk about ableism something that people have not had the same experience with articulating people don't recognize how inaccessible our world really is people don't recognize how they may be unintentionally perpetuating these systemic injustices I was inviting people in to then see the world from that viewpoint because I said that before I entered this world as I call it on the other side of the stethoscope as an individual with a disability that takes care of people with disabilities myself I did not fully appreciate how inaccessible our world was and did not appreciate the fact that there are still things in place that limit people's participation and so then in STEM we do have an opportunity and I say an obligation to then make the STEM field accessible and inclusive to everyone and so utilizing disability as a framework to then tie how that then connects with every single community that we're talking about if we create accessibility for the disabled community we will then by design be creating accessibility for everyone if we then support our most marginalized and disadvantaged of individuals we are going to then be creating access for everyone I talk about how everyone can use the ramp while not everyone can use the stairs and so hopefully we will then start in this conversation of trying to then build ramps to then provide access for all people and that by centering these conversations around the disabled community we will recognize that a rising tide will raise all boats and we'll get to a day where hopefully we can create a tomorrow that is better than people's yesterday because the yesterdays of America did not include people that looked like me did not include people that looked like Emily did not include people that looked like Julian and there are many of us that need to then have that access because having that access is going to then make the work that we all do better despite the fact that it's the right thing to do despite the fact that diversity equity and inclusion are things that we should believe in in the body of work that we're doing we aren't going to create solutions that are going to then better our world if we don't have people that then are diverse in those conversations dictating and determining and contributing to all of the amazing advances that we will be able to have in science technology engineering medicine mathematics so that is a brief sort of synopsis of what I was hoping to then begin in this conversation and I look forward to continuing the conversation in this panel today thank you so much for that I I really enjoyed your talk and I think it's such a I needed and refreshing perspective that we don't often get um on these kinds of science talks so thank you uh for sharing your story with us um and so I guess we can move to kind of introducing uh our uh panelists today who have joined us uh for kind of a structured conversation uh and then as well as some live Q&A so uh to do some introductions we're joined today by Dr. Kate Seelman who is the associate dean from the professor of rehabilitation science and technology at the school of health and rehab science at the university of Pittsburgh we have Dr. Gabby Serrano-Marx who is a marine geochemist also a freelance science writer and patient advocate here in Boston with me uh and Alexis Bowie who is a grad student in neuro immunology at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in the UT Health Graduate School of Medical Science so welcome uh Kate, Alexis and Gabby uh we're so glad to have your expertise here today and we're gonna start with some questions uh that we can do some pre-response with our panelists as well as planning committee members if you have any thoughts um please share uh for those of you better listening in the webcast um if you have questions or thoughts that you'd like to share um please put them in the Q&A chat we're going to be incorporating them as we speak um so any and all thoughts fire away um so our first question for the group is uh what do we think that we can learn from research and practice regarding other marginalized groups that can help us to guide our practices with respect to people with disabilities in our environments um so would anybody like to start would you repeat the question sure so the question is what can we learn from research and practice regarding other marginalized groups that can help guide uh similar research and practice with respect to disabled people so what can we learn essentially from work that's been done with other marginalized groups Gabby would you like to go first yeah I think the important thing that we can notice for sure is including the members of those groups when we're doing research on that group I think it really should be with that group as opposed to researching like we're an external kind of group so there are excellent disabled social scientists scientists many of them are here on this call so I hope that we can hope I hope that we can include our expertise their expertise um in studying this group um I think that's one of the most important factors yeah that's a great point I think done nothing about us without us um kind of slow being applied to the science that we do in our our actual academic yeah exactly yeah this is fair me I'll jump in there as well now many people that know me know that I I go straight for the jugular and I like having some of these uncomfortable conversations and so what I'll say is that what we can learn and this is something I learned from our outgoing chief diversity officer here at the University of Michigan is that oftentimes people wait for the system to do the right thing and they ask the system to change they ask for things that should have been done in the past and I was one of those people that asked for things to change thinking that it would happen and the reason why I said that I go for the jugular and I'm being direct is because it was that chief diversity officer that told me if you want to see history if you want to look through history to see how change has occurred never has the majority group or the group in power gone and said you know what we've been owning these slaves for a while now and we should probably set them free you know I think that that's probably a good idea we should give them their free no that's not how it happened what happened is a good people said hey there's this railroad underground that we can then get on and we can get out and then we can fight this system to actually get to what we need to be so what we can learn is the fact that it's going to take a lot of work to get these systems to change it's going to take people then speaking up and acknowledging the fact that there is a problem and so while many of us are unaware of some of the injustices that exist when we look at these populations that have already been identified as marginalized and disadvantaged it is a still a struggle to then get equity and inclusion so what the disability community can look at is say yes we're 31 years post ADA now but we still have a long way to go and therefore we cannot rest until we then continue to demonstrate the inaccessibility of all these environments that we're in so this is not inciting you know violence by any means but what it is saying is that it's going to take active communication and participation to then move a needle that without this voice without the voices of individuals with and without disabilities recognizing this as a problem without leveraging the work of other marginalized groups and what has happened in history before we are not going to then move far enough into what we need to be in the future this is Alexis I definitely agree with all of them I'm glad you said that because I feel like we keep having discussions which is always great you know if you haven't heard these voices if you haven't heard stories maybe you're not aware maybe you don't fully understand how you know you may take advantage like okay I can walk down the sidewalk but not understand that how how bad cracks and a sidewalk can be for people that don't walk or don't walk well you know I used to walk all the time and now that I have a walker to get around a lot of my life has stopped because if you've ever seen a sidewalk in Houston if you can find them a but b just how poorly maintained they are you you just get to the point where you're like I I don't want to anymore you know and I think that's always something to keep in mind when you're in your environment is you know I've always kind of been the person the only person in the room and that's something that I've always kind of had to live with so if you're not used to being that person take a moment to say okay what would it feel like if I was that only person in the room what would it feel like trying to navigate these different ways and there's so many stories there's so many resources and so you may need to take some time to get into that mindset but once you're there action is what's going to be important and it's not going to be comfortable or easy as we've seen from any other type of of group that has worked towards equity and inclusion and and ultimately to justice it hasn't been easy and it's been really trying to change policies and change the power dynamics and power it's kind of like inertia you know nothing's going to move until you put some some pretty strong force on it and we're really just trying to build up that momentum so that once we really hit that thing it's going to start things are going to move quickly after that point I think once we finally kind of again another science term but hit that activation energy everything else will will kind of come in place but we still haven't reached that point yet and we just need more people to get along especially the people in power to help change those systems so that we can overcome and do amazing things and make make the world accessible it's great yeah okay would you like to come in yeah thank you I think back at some of the things we did at the university Pittsburgh that were fun so I'm going to give you an example once a black wheelchair hip hop group visited Dr. Cooper in his laboratory and there was a wonderful interaction between them also that same hip hop group filled a theater in Pittsburgh with one of the most diverse audiences you would ever hope to see in the theater another thing that happened at Pitt which was fun if difficult was organizing and finally had something to do with this but the first disability led student with disability organization at at Pitt and it really has worked it worked out pretty well unless there are just two fun things that faculty can be involved with in some way and very clearly that leads that leads you to something like you get to know these students and these people leads you to disability studies and not only the scientific method but the legitimacy of the narrative the person's life and one more thing as in our more professional capacities are the models that our disciplines have set down for us one in medicine and one with all due respect to Dr. Cooper who doesn't represent this model at all and probably the other engineers here but let's start with the medical model and the medical model assumes decision making in the in the professional as you well know and the knowledge base is very limited to science itself the engineering model that I think of which is technology development model didn't include participation and we don't have participation in the development of devices and products for people with disabilities to be all inclusive universal design and no testing then you have a model that as you know is is just not going to work either so these two models from careers and disciplines that are very close to us here today need to be challenged further thank you okay thank you all for that we can move on Cheryl would you like to do the next question sure I have one to comment on the on your question too and one thing is we're looking at you know future leaders today but also future leaders and one thing I use learned particularly from the women's movement on the age when I grew up and people that are going to be good leaders often need to be provided with opportunities to be leaders and we in our do it center work a lot with teenagers who have disabilities and they have a lot of ideas they have a lot of energy but very often students with disabilities just haven't been given the opportunity to be leaders in their schools their communities and so forth they're kind of just expected to be rather passive and they kind of get used to be in that role so we all need to to work for helping young people who have disabilities get those leadership opportunities opportunities to express themselves and so forth and the other thing to remember that is that anyone person represents that one person and so there's a great diversity within the disability community so we need to listen to a lot of voices I hear sometimes that you know groups so we have a person with a disability on our group and they're representing all people with disabilities well no they're not it's important to have a person with disability in a group but we need to hear a lot of different voices and all that we do now we're going to segue into something we've been talking about as in our leadership team for this project and that is intersectionality and so the question is in what ways does or should intersectionality issues I'm talking here about people that have multiple disabilities like a person who's blind but also has a learning disability who has who was on the autism spectrum but also has a mobility impairment but also between disability and other marginalized groups status such as race or ethnicity gender other marginalized group status so how should this intersectionality inform our research and practice with respect to people with disabilities so kind of taking a next step and thinking more about intersectionality as far as practice and as far as research just one comment I'll make is in many of our programs that deal with one marginalized groups let's say our students on campus who are ethnic minorities are not very welcoming to students with disabilities who might be in that ethnic group that they're serving so how do what do we need to do here as far as practice and research when we think about intersectionality so this is this is for me I'm going to jump in first and say thank you for the question and provide some additional context from my perspective because I think that often when we talk about intersectionality what people hear in intersectionality is multiple identity groups now Kimberly Crenshaw who is a black woman who truly coined the term intersectionality has said it best but what intersectionality truly is it is a framework of oppression essentially and is the fact that having multiple marginalized identities is not just an additive impact so if you have a disability and you're a woman if you are a person of color and you have any other insert marginalized group here it's actually an exponential impact on the oppression so I think that too often when people hear intersectionality they use it really when they're trying to say diversity right they're saying oh well you've got multiple identity groups that you are part of and so how can we make sure that we are supporting each other with our multiple identities now that's a really good thing so I want to make sure that we can speak to that during this answer as well because there are spaces as Esther brought up that may not be as welcoming to one facet or subset of that group because you know the black disabled folks are not being nice to the brown disabled folks and it's like wait a minute how do we address that but intersectionality as a term is something that the definition is actually lost at times and it's the fact that we must recognize the additive and exponential impact on having a marginalized identity and how that then makes it such that there are additional barriers that that person experiences as a result of that and so we need to then address the intersectionality component to say you know there's a wonderful image that one of my colleagues Dr Valencia Walker used when we gave a talk about this this image has two people at the starting line of a race and then there's a finish line in the distance and one individual is a Caucasian man and then the other individual is a black woman and in their lanes there's nothing in the way between the start and the finish for the Caucasian man but for the black woman her legs are already chained down to the ground before she can start there are alligators and crocodiles and hurdles and bombs and all sorts of things on the way to the finish line and then the caption says but the distance is the same so that is what intersectionality then is a is a part of trying to demonstrate is not just that we need to be cognizant of the different identity groups that people are part of but that we also must recognize the impact that has on the reason why their journey is going to be more arduous and more difficult than someone else's now I will say before I pass it on that I am not being critical of that white man I'm not being critical of majority groups by any means so it is not my fault that I'm a disabled black man anymore it's that it's Dr Cooper's fault that he's a disabled white man right but we need to recognize the identities that we are in and how some of those positions put us in positions of privilege and I recognize the privilege that I have at the same time as I can acknowledge the prejudice that I've experienced so just a little you know addition to throw in there as we consider great contribution who else would like to comment on this so I would definitely love to jump in on that as well because I think something that I've noticed especially when it comes to anti-racism work you know people tend to shy away from oh well I got called a racist something I did was racist or something I did was ablest and then they you know they want to make you feel bad for their mistakes and I think it's important to remember that not only do you have to be culturally competent of whatever that intersection is going to be but you also have to realize that it takes work and anything that you have to work with you're going to make mistakes anything you're going to do is going to be messed up I mean even me now being more physically disabled and more apparently disabled you know I had to still work against my own internal ableism and and deconstruct that within myself and so even though I may not have been outwardly like oh no I'm ablest and I've done this and I've done that and then tried to put put the pressure and the blame on other people for calling out my faults I just realized oh that's a boundary you know I won't do it again I work to do better and so I think it's also being cognizant that it's not necessarily easy work and you're gonna have to do some of it yourself but if you mess up you know okay I learned something new today um and we move on and and we make the world a better place and and we we work together um and these types of ideas and again just being cognizant of that that balance between you know where's my privilege and and where are my disadvantages and and where am I where am I being cut off at the same time um and I know what the black and x event are our motto is lift as you climb you know there's going to be people that are above you in different ways there's going to people that are going to be below you in different ways um but that doesn't mean that you don't lean on other supports and you don't bring other people up with you because yeah okay I'm a grad student I'm a black I'm a black woman but I can talk to junior high and high school students you know there are people that aren't where I am and so I can bring them up as same as I would lead or lean on uh senior faculty and so it's it's not only being culturally aware but also figuring out how you can um spread these dynamics and and notice what's going on in the room and what's going on in the environment and like I said I know it sounds exhausting but at the same time there's people like me that have to deal with it every day you know that goes into a room and I'm like well dang I'm real uncomfortable but I'm going to try my best and and I'm going to speak my truth and I'm going to be authentically me um and whatever other things that people feel you know that's on them that's for them to work through that's not my responsibility um but it's still my responsibility to notice okay well there's only me in this room so who am I going to sponsor today like whose name am I going to bring in whose discussion am I going to bring and I think that's always important as well when you go to intersections again not just okay what are all these other identities but how again the the power balance and what can you do again to shake up that system nicely said thanks for sharing Gabby do you have something to say on this topic you look like you do I have lots but Kate's raising her hand so she wants to go first oh okay we can go okay next I can see seconds I don't care uh I think one of the things that uh is uh missing people with disabilities data-wise are poor I remember I was talking to a professor from on who was teaching at a very distinguished women's college and they were actively recruiting uh from quote-unquote minority population and they had more trouble integrating lower class people however you want uh than uh you know didn't know which fork to use uh uh than they had otherwise now if you have uh three or four identities like this uh of course you're in even more trouble I was looking at the number of at one point uh the number of uh students on SSI and SSDI uh who are disabled and I think it would be very important to continue to collect data of this kind so we know what their situation is not not just and I'm really I'm so happy that NSF and so on are continuing to collect data on number of people with disabilities in STEM but let's know a little bit more about them uh so I think class is a big issue here and it's uh not one that we is in our country in the United States uh recognized very much thank you so many things I want to talk about on this clearly I'm like um I think about this a lot in terms of academic hierarchy and STEM hierarchy because I think it's a sort of a unique experience um in that I noticed that as a grad student at MIT I actually had more privilege than full-time staff members not faculty but staff because it's much harder to get rid of a grad student than it is to get rid of a staff member for example and so having conversations like that where I was like but I'm like 23 and I am I have no idea what I'm doing with my life where I have these other aspects of my identity where I feel like I don't have that privilege but understanding for myself like now that I I do have a phd that gives me more privilege than people who don't walking around with my institutional badge when I'm at a doctor's visit I get treated differently and so I'm trying to recognize as I move through the world as an early career disabled woman um Mexican-American I am part of the LGBTQ community all these identities are so important to me that I'm like this is this can be really hard as a scientist to be trying to push through with these aspects of my identity and also remembering that I have to hold on to those privileges that I do have and just like Alexis was saying bring people around me to make sure that I'm not the only one um because I know that I am only able to I was only able to get a phd because of disabled advocates who came before me um and so I'm trying to like hold all of that at once and that's why I think this is a really interesting conversation to have yeah any additional comments on this uh this conversation by intersectionality okay Emily let's go on to the next question great yeah so uh the next uh the final three questions have more to do about uh what we can do like actions we can take um so the first is how can we move from diversity you know that kind of on paper um check mark for who we have towards true equity in our educational and research environments so what changes or things would you like to see um I'll I'll hop in first I'll try to keep it on the disability side more than some of the other ones but um I think one of the biggest things I would love to see is honestly just accessibility like in the lab um a lot of people and and breaking down preconceived notions of what a scientist should be or or look like or act one of my accommodations for my graduate school is that I actually have a research assistant that does the physical side of my research because I just can't um from day to day I don't know how my body is going to be um I don't know if my hands are going to cooperate and so my my home has become my office you know I work exclusively from home um and I have a bunch of accessibility aids at home to make my work easier but I got a lot of resistance from other people trying to tell me well you're not a real scientist because you're not in the lab doing the techniques um and to that um one of them was I'm sorry but um I'm sorry but I'm not sorry because I have over a decade worth of actual laboratory technique experience so I don't need any more A but B what are you calling your PIs you know when was the last time your PI was actually in the lab physically doing the work with you um sitting beside you um are they not scientists the people that you're answered to and if not then why are you training under them that just doesn't make sense um and so the fact that I I tried to do certain things within my lab to make things easier um having things like electronic pipettes trying to make sure that you know benches were the were the right way and I think um as I've told people funding is is going to be really important in all of this and people want to say ah well it's a waste of money it's not it's an investment um being able to have labs that are accessible and spaces that are accessible makes everybody else's life easier and even though I have an end of one experience but my my daughter loves all of my accessibility aids because it makes her life easier um even though she's disabled um and half the time I'm telling her to give me my stuff back um but that's it's it's still that she's able to notice that hey since mom has xyz and this has been easier for her this this makes my life a little bit easier I don't have to use as much energy to to go around and do these things and I think as as people start to realize and notice those like yeah there are certain things that may be hard like I hate why doctor's office has extremely heavy doors and they're not usually electronic and it doesn't make any sense but you see more people going through electronic doors than physically opening themselves and that's an accessibility aid you know you see people preferring sometimes ramps over the steps that's an accessibility aid and so you don't realize how much better your life can actually be once it's accessible to everybody um and it makes it easier that way so I would just say work towards accessibility do that those investments plan for more money because you're just going to make it better I mean even down to captioning I've had issues where people are like I hate captions they're annoying and I'm like science is an international sport and I can't understand everybody's accents and the way that they may say things or denote things and now I have the captions and I can say ah okay now I know what you're talking about and the whole time I'm not like what is this word what are they trying to say and then I miss the entire presentation and so there's just things like that that you may not ever know that is going to be great but I'm going to say in a way take the risk and believe that accessibility is also going to make your life easier to you know listen to disabled people we tend to quote unquote predict things before they happen so if you really want to know what's going on get on disability twitter and hear what we have to say because we'll be able to tell you almost down to the T how things are going to unfold and in the way they're going to go so yeah invest use your money um towards towards those things yeah thank you so much any other thoughts on what you would like to see change yeah keep yeah uh infrastructure it's a good idea to have somebody who is uh an advocate for people with disabilities within the sciences in the university situation a vice president for example having banged my head and whatever else against other doors within universities uh for example the employment office it surely has to change if we're going to get people out into the employment you know uh and there are many uh and uh as our guest speakers mentioned uh there's a diversity office sometimes is that the vice president's level sometimes it's not and even if it is uh it would depend on quite frankly budgets uh which is a word that should be brought up here uh you know uh in any situation uh or at least for the most part it will cost money to be make something accessible when i was in rehab science it's a pit my dean actually tried to make the classroom accessible for those uh with very little hearing which includes me uh it was very difficult to do that it's not the same kind of ramp that we can build for but he tried and and we had we engaged the audiology department so uh i would say infrastructure is very very important and budget is very very important uh if you want to have power uh and the well any environment we're talking about the university yeah absolutely i think that just as a kind of to add to that i think it's important to acknowledge that universities and and companies are built in you know able body mode they're built um without thinking with forethought and so any engagement in in change is is difficult it's it's an effort that has to be um purposeful i think and so yeah you run into like the budget the the people they're willing to do it um so yeah there's it's going to take institutional change on quite a large scale for most of the changes that will probably bring up right hi dr ill i let gaby go i saw her head go up at the same time mine's quick which is don't use your students as your broader impacts criteria unless you are providing them with benefits including funding including whatever supports they might need for all of those identities um if you are saying you have a disabled lab member and like oh my gosh i'm supporting this latina disabled lab member like you better have a research assistant like alexis has like you better have whatever they need you can write it in your grant that's fine but you better have whatever they need to succeed if you're going to include us as the impact that you are making on science that's my hot take that that's actually a perfect sort of segue into i was going to make two brief points because keeping in line with what i say in terms of being a straight shooter go for the jugular we all talk about diversity equity inclusion now everyone's having keynotes and webinars and sessions on it everybody recognizes that if they don't seem like they care about diversity someone's going to come and say that they're a problem but the problem that now exists is while everyone is now willing to then create diversity meaning variety difference people with different backgrounds people are not actually prepared to be inclusive they're not actually to then make ready to make things accessible as alexis said and so as you were just saying gabby is that you need to actually be prepared to provide the things that individuals need if they're coming and so you know i was going to tell a really brief story that i'll tell you a bridged version but i was at an institution that's actually a health sciences institution and they were talking about how their students that were requesting accommodations for high stakes exams and that they're saying you know we're doing these students a disservice because they're not going to get accommodations in the real world and so we're setting them up for failure by accommodating them now right an institution you know i was having dinner with the the leadership before i gave my keynote and they asked me so you know what do you suggest that we do when these students you know are asking for their accommodations you know we really want to provide them but don't you think that it would just be better for us to to make them you know do what they're going to be expected to do in the real world and i paused and i said no i think you should give them their accommodations and they said well and i know you know we really want to but it were really we're setting them up for failure and you know i we want to do the right thing so how do you think we address this and i paused again and i said that's a good question you should give them their accommodations and then one more time they said no but really i did you know we we've been giving them accommodations we get what you're saying and i was like you know what i've got the answer i figured this out you're right i haven't been hearing you clearly what you should do is not admit students with disabilities since you're not prepared to take care of them and then there are silence because this isn't just some sort of joke this isn't some sort of feel-good thing this is actually about human rights and so if you're not prepared to provide people with what they need do me a favor and don't even include me in your presentation in your population i would much rather be at a place that acknowledges the fact that they still have room to improve and that they're going to work with me to then figure out what accessibility means i have and like alexa said that more people are going to benefit from you getting your institution to an accessible and inclusive institution it's not just going to be the individuals with disabilities and the part that i need to highlight that we haven't spoken publicly about in this session but we've talked a lot about things that you can see not all disabilities are visible and so the more you then go towards creating accessibility and inclusion individuals with and without disabilities will then recognize that this is an institution that cares and we can make sure that the environment is inclusive of all people with and without visible and invisible disabilities and so that's why don't you know miss me with your DEI initiatives that are just meant to check boxes if you're not actually going to then implement the resources the change that's needed and the last part of it is this is truly about changing stigma because people think that they're lowering the bar for people with disabilities when they do these things they think that you're not going to get the same academic rigor they think that if you're not the one pipetting that you're not going to be a good scientist if you're not the one doing insert whatever tactic here that later on in life you're not going to contribute and as alexa said look at the p is look at the senior faculty they're not still doing all of those things so why do we need people to be pluripotent stem cells that can do everything when they're going to then differentiate into whatever specific thing they want to work on and we can then give them the tools to be that we are not then allowing these amazing people with potential to add to the body of work of what we do when we are merely failing to provide accessibility and I think I said this in the keynote but accessibility provides access it does not guarantee success we still have to work hard to be successful and you provide an accommodation is not then giving me a leg up to be successful it's merely providing the appropriate and reasonable and necessary access for me to then demonstrate that I can be successful thank you so much for that um so we have about 10 minutes left and we have two questions left Cheryl I think have had a comment cap do you have a comment on that one again okay yeah I have a comment when I was director of nighter we put accessibility on as a budget line on grants that were to be competed and NSF could do maybe it does that it would help from the end the Gabby's talking about when you have the students right there and you see all the possibilities of this young person so and we are all in professional organizations we can find out whether NSF NIH and various institutes have that budget line under certain grant situations to briefly answer that I know the NIH does if you end up having a I know for sure an F grant you can get a disability supplement but just because you have that mechanism doesn't mean that your institution or your grant's offices know how to leverage those mechanisms either because I have been waiting over a year to even though the paperwork is done it has not been submitted because our our special projects office just doesn't understand how that works and so they may be there but I think that's also part of the accessibility is training people to understand how to leverage those mechanisms and work through them so that you can do that yeah go ahead Cheryl yeah I'd like to say sometimes grant people have written grants and they don't include that accessibility in their grant money and say well what can I do I think you find the money somewhere else in your grant it's like we get a pile of money I get a lot of grants there's a pile of money there and I always include accessibility issues in what we're doing but even if I didn't if I have some of these accommodation you just cut back somewhere else we do it every day in our grants we re-budget and just make that case you can't decide that after that but we didn't budget for accessibility and so we we don't need to provide it uh it doesn't work that way so I think we should move on to the next question um I was thinking about combine them maybe what if you want to combine them they're kind of related to part question yeah I think that would be a good idea how can we support those with a combination of marginalized identities at a personal and an institutional level and the last question is how do we approach inclusive community building within the scientific institutions and so kind of looking at these two things when we're working with individuals and I often think about this is simplistic of course but thinking about accommodations to create that level playing field and by the way when I get that question from faculty that well they're getting all these accommodations I'll never get a job in this field so and I said oh this is really interesting that you shared this I didn't know that we promised students to graduate in this field that they would get jobs it's like all of a sudden they changed the rules like it was a student with a disability well what if they can't be successful I said well I'll tell you're willing to have that conversation about other students in your class and guaranteeing their success I don't think that's the right conversation to have our job is to provide accommodations so that there's a level playing field to learn the content of the course that you happen to be teaching so so anyway so let's talk about you know providing things for individuals kind of systemic change how we can make sure that happens and then also systemically how can we make sure that diversity equity and inclusion efforts include individuals with disabilities including those with marginalized status multiple status and and even incorporating approaches like universal design or inclusive design or whatever so who would like to start talking about that group of concepts this is Gabby I can start one of my big things that I've been thinking about a lot right now is how to have networking events that are accessible and welcoming and how to do that virtually or physically hopefully soon that might happen physically but right now what I've seen a lot is that people tend to schedule things at bars and I find that bars are like one of the least accessible least welcoming places to go it's not helpful if you have a hearing disability if you get migraines if you can't stand at the bar there's so many different reasons and like that doesn't mean you shouldn't invite us to the bar like maybe we'll go but hosting an inclusive or networking event is very hard to make it inclusive and accessible at a bar so one really quick fix is to not do that and to provide accessibility information for whatever type of event you're going to have be specific about it ideally you would have a wide range of access for example here we have captions we have asl interpreters and hopefully people are aware of that ahead of time but my like really easy tip is don't hold events at a bar and to think about that systemically because some people will respond with something like that well well if they don't want to meet at the bar then we can we can do it in another place another acting asking the person to decide it's not very inclusive of them but they should be thinking more generally and if they are going to meet at the bar make that the optional activity at least the social not business oriented and they're at the bathroom single all the other aspects that go into being at a bar like if there's only two single gender restrooms like who's going to be included there who's not so a hot take again and we have some but there are also others online of guidelines for designing an accessible meeting an accessible conference and so forth and so there are things Google is you'll find the resources we have on our websites but also others have posted yeah I guess I'll go next because he had mentioned you know universal accessibility and things like that and I think that's definitely a good start especially if you don't know what you're doing you can at least push for that you know I I like to also remind people that you may not know what you want to do you just want to use your power to do something so you don't have to change every university policy at you you know that that you're at your your your thing can say I just want captions you know you can find that one thing and you can be the caption champion you know you can hey I've noticed that our our flyers don't have alt text when you're sending these pictures this isn't this isn't accessible you can start there and learn where to get your voice and learn where to get your footing and then from there learn more and grow more and do more I would also say take the time to listen to the groups and their needs and also make sure that they have space a lot of people get really offended when there's these personalized spaces for people whether it be race or disability or sexuality and and you know so many other ways that you can identify a first gen things like that again I don't know why people feel so entitled to other people's plights but I promise you it's it's not a cakewalk it's not rambos and unicorns this is a fun we just we're trying to get to the fun we're trying to enjoy the same things that we see other people enjoy and in this case it's typically the able body cishet white man and so we just want to be able to enjoy our spaces and but also talk to people that know our plight and and understand you know me saying dang I've been fatigued for the last two weeks with a bunch of other people that are disabled would say oh dang I know that you know do you have you know do you need anything here's a heating pad I'm sending some water um but somebody that may not be disabled is just like I don't get it just take some naps go get caffeine like you're gonna be fine and it's like no no no no no you don't get it um and so understanding that sometimes people still need need that space to be able to to fill welcome um and not only have DEI initiatives but have DEI policy um and make sure that you are looking at all the different intersections and being culturally competent if somebody says hey this really isn't working um don't get offended just again adjust pivot that's life um we're all learning um we're learning best practices and sometimes we're learning best practices as we go um nomenclature changes um the internet's fast um and so you have to be just as fast as that as it is um and and work towards steering the boat in the correct direction so um figure out where you want to be that champion it doesn't have to be big um figure out other people that you can get involved in again it doesn't have to be anything official um and and just do what you can I I the last thing I'll say hopefully I don't know we'll see but I like to think of any type of this advocacy work um I sing and acquire um and I like to think about it as music um in production um there's singers there's musicians there's a conductor there's stage tech um there's lighting there's sounds not everybody's on the stage not everybody enjoys being on stage but even those that are on stage if I have to sing a note one note that's the entire you know sheet of music with no breath marks they just tied that one note there's physically no way I can hold one note for five minutes without passing out um and so you lean on other people sometimes you have to drop out um and let other people take up the work that you that you need so you can catch your breath and then come back in um and so again also just figuring out where you are and kind of the symphony or the concert of life and how you make the show better um and and help other people in the process um because yeah I'm singing maybe I'm the star of the show but I'm singing for my audience it's not just for me the tech people are making sure people can see and hear um and and you know we're all working together for a common goal and just remember that um and in finding people that can help you continue to do that thank you and continuing to find roles for various stakeholder groups some people don't realize what power they have in a certain thing that might be a charge of a budget or they uh space or so forth and that everyone can contribute we're going to keep going on this conversation but at this point we want to make sure that we open the discussion to those of you who are listening via the webcast um we've been monitoring monitoring your questions and we'll bring them into the conversation now and we'll still continue to include the panel by the way so if you have more to say about any of this please speak up um and please feel free to add your ideas to the live question and answer so I will chime in and add I'm going to say it's always exciting for me when I join a panel that makes me feel like I don't have to say anything at all because everyone says all the things so I'm going to try not to repeat but we'll add add my little bit to it is that you know we tell people that when you've met one person with a disability you've met one person with a disability so what I encourage people is to not take something that one of us says and then think that you can then just apply it to every single person with a disability you meet because disability is a diverse group of individuals of diverse population and so that's when then people say well this is difficult doctor oh like how am I ever going to know how to help someone are you all these things and you've got captions and alt text and ramps and how am I ever going to know how to then be accessible and inclusive and this is the most simple answer is I say ask people I tell people I am still learning I do not know every single thing about this space and I even said you know Cheryl a private message earlier saying I want to learn more about her do-it-work because this is something that is constantly evolving as Alexis said the internet is fast we have things today that we didn't have yesterday and that means we have opportunities to make things more accessible and so I acknowledge that I'm still learning I don't know everything and that's why I'm very comfortable sharing the things that I don't know to be able to do better and I think that all of us need to be able to have the grace to recognize that we are all going to be able to learn with and from each other and that it's okay to not know because I think that where this comes from most of the time is that when you are in the position of power when you are the leader when you are the majority it is not a safe space for you to feel as though you're making yourself vulnerable to acknowledge that you don't know something and I think we all need to recognize that we don't know many things and we can then learn from each other but don't learn from that one person and think that's the only disability experience you need to hear from that's why diversity is important because the diversity of thought and of experience and of perspective is going to allow you to see things to learn things to hear things that you would not have learned or seen or thought if you did not have a diverse group of people around you and so that is I think a way that we can strive for that is if you listen to people and ask them questions about how they need or can be accommodated that's one thing that you can do do not then make people that sort of monolith for you and then I'll end with just a very short story about something that sort of opened my eyes to this one of my faculty sort of mentors had a son who was colorblind and he was in first grade kindergarten and his homework would say color the circle blue and I might have said this in the keynote I don't remember but I did I already told the story but it's a good story so tell it just in case they didn't want to finish the story in case someone didn't want so really quickly this man asked his son how do you get your homework done because it says color the circle blue and his son said dad I never use crayons that aren't labeled sometimes the solution to what the inaccessibility is is not something that is so far fetched and difficult to do but we may not see the solution ourselves unless we then include the individuals and then have that experience so that is really that the way that we can get there is not saying that there was one group that knows and another group that doesn't it's recognizing that at any given point we may be the teacher and the student at the same time and that's the way that we can all learn from each other and that's what we do in our work that's what we do in STEM and so therefore it shouldn't be that hard to apply that same mentality to then being inclusive and accessible to then make sure that everyone is valued in our space great point I'd like to add one thing to that is there are some certain some basic things P you should not have to ask somebody for for example if you're giving a PowerPoint presentation do you make sure that you verbalize all the key content that's on the PowerPoint that you don't just say this this circle over here or whatever when I get a PowerPoint presentation I just simply try to think that there's somebody or I think that there's somebody calling in by phone because they can't get their video up could be someone who's blind I don't know but I just assume when I go into my presentation that there are some people that can't see the screen screen and so you make sure you provide that in multiple ways and that kind of leads us to universal design and other proactive approaches where there's some things we just do just like we have the elevators and buildings and ramps and so forth so that's one area you can work on to kind of that basic what's a good thing to do to make sure that everybody's included so Kate did you have a comment well I was thinking of my disability studies classes which is a perfect place one of the perfect places to get to know other people with disabilities anyway we had one on sex you know other than money we don't talk about sex so and it was led by two people with disability a man and a woman and then working with somebody who didn't have a disability and it was really highly successful and part I must say maybe Dr Cuckoo will tell me on prejudice that we have a lot of engineering male engineering students in our class and they're pretty basic so I learned that the penis is a very unusual and diverse organ so that came out there then another another guy said that when he went in a bar before he had his accident he felt like he could just be a big flirt and then when he rolled in as a person with Bartram Felicia he felt like he was not attracted anymore and then a young woman and I can certainly feel this said my boyfriend whispered into my hearing aids and started ringing but there are lots of little things you can get to know disability studies is certainly one of the platforms for doing that another another area that we introduced in that class was addiction and the experience of we actually I actually brought we've actually brought in addicted very bright CPAs and so on and so forth so there I think there are many even is that are social based that you know we don't have to get into regulation and law as well of course as we have to fight for infrastructures and digits kind of jump in I think based on more social things I think I want to touch on community building because I think that meeting people that are disabled has been I mean events where I meet people that are disabled getting coffee with coworker that's disabled with someone I would meet for some kind of you know other shared thing like Kate was talking about or you know those are the things that that really sustain me to do not just like you know in my life but to do work to to feel energized at my job working with another disabled coworker and so I think that you know meeting people having offered communities to to to meet people and to openly have space to to talk about being disabled to feel welcome in spaces where I'm the only disabled person to talk about my disability uh those are the kinds of community building activities that really um or would keep that diversity and transform it into equity and so really focusing on creating spaces for people if you are not disabled or you know seeking out those spaces as a disabled person I think it's really key yeah I I don't know if there are any questions but I did want to briefly mention that we automatically assume that ableism is the default but you really are just one accident away from becoming disabled if you really think about it you are you are a few years away you know as you start aging from being disabled um and having those conversations and diversifying who you see can also help um and then especially with healthcare being the way it is in America there are still kind of two definitions of disability whether it be you medically defined disability or yourself defined and self-diagnosed disability and so for people that may not have access to healthcare either that's that's also something to consider when it comes to accessibility and things like that a lot of times you have to have some type of doctors know or some type of test to verify that you're as disabled as you say you are um and that can also be a really huge hurdle for people that may not have access to healthcare to be able to do those things so by just making or you know people may not be comfortable you know mental health is still severely stigmatized and so you don't want to exclude somebody that doesn't feel safe enough to just you know disclose this type of information so just building all of that in it keeps people safe it shows that you care and that you're willing to work with these individuals and that it's welcoming but again if you don't do any of that you're not saying you're doing much and and you need to reevaluate your life that's just the nice way I'm going to put it but you know just again thinking about all the barriers that somebody can come up against and I mean as as most Americans I mean we're all in the healthcare vote really and it's a really huge discussion so if nothing else even just think about that and and the access to healthcare that people have any other comments questions yeah it's Kate can I say something yes there's a movement out there I haven't heard it's spoken of here very much called the disability movement it was born a long long time ago and it's carried a lot of the water here and so when I was to skip I was an early part of that movement too so and other people I'm sure here who I don't see any of what white hair but in in any case in in Pittsburgh there was a council on disability at the municipal level there were many Easter Seals there were many many many so one time a young woman PhD PhD candidate came in she was not in rehabilitation and science but she was and she was a marvellous young woman and she had autism and we started I connected we connected her into various networks in the community she's now sitting on the state legislature and I think she's still in her 20s but this can happen but we do have to do outreach a little bit out of maybe you know some might not be so easy sometime but Pittsburgh of course was extraordinarily well developed in terms of the disability community and of course the scientific community we need to find each other there's some questions that have come in on the Q&A chat one that I think is worth talking about here with our last few minutes is how do we address hidden disabilities and mental health challenges I think that I I've been looking at this whole session is talking about including those as well at various types of disabilities but some people don't always see that as the same but I think we can still look at that the things that we've said here it's come up to talk to people with you know the disabilities talk to them about what they might need in a specific situation working with a person with disability I read in a research article a long time ago now where actually people without disabilities ask for more accommodations than students would do with disabilities I don't know if that's true but that was an interesting thought I wouldn't surprise me but but also that's where universal design can come in as well and also inclusive practices that are proactive if you work for instance if you're working with someone on the autism spectrum or someone with executive function issues both invisible disabilities unless they have an intersection with another type of disability one of the if you do much reading on this whatever one key at thing that you can do is just make instructions very clear instructions in a science lab for instance step by step and sometimes instructors back in the old days when we were on site where they put something on the power point you know on and then they'd go into the lab from there and make sure there's a handout that has very clear instructions it's one of the best things we can do for individuals with individual in invisible disabilities especially when they apply to executive functioning and and so forth so any other comments about specifically about addressing hidden disabilities including mental health impairments my very short my very short experience for that but first of all I just think that was a great response thank you very much it was very concrete and it was very but when I we were developing relationships with students with disabilities with them people with mental related disabilities one of their complaints was their relationship with their faculty I heard more of that with so it's probably true that we have to learn more of what Cheryl is recommending here in infrastructure so that you know we can follow through I think it's it's a very difficult area and not as easy as I mean I have had a hidden disability on my life but it's a lot different than having a mental or cognitive disability so I'll chime in this is family speaking and if you can't tell yet I like sort of giving responses in story form I gave a TED talk a couple years ago and it was framed around Mr. Rogers so I might be dating myself a little bit but we you know Mr. Rogers had a song at the beginning of the show was talking about you know won't you be my neighbor and so I framed this conversation around the fact that people tend to address things that they're proximal to and so I gave a sort of an analogy about if someone's house is on fire you know if that house is your house you clearly care that the house is on fire if the house is your neighbor's house you might care if their house is on fire because you one may know your neighbor you care about your neighbor or it may be that you worry that their house will then cause your house to catch on fire and so if you feel as though there's something in your neighborhood that may impact you that is why then people tend to then do something about it now I give this little story because I think that the problem at times is we create an us versus them dynamic at this conversation around disability and you know Alex has touched on this earlier in a way that at times like when I'm in more sort of engaging back and forth conversation this can come across as contentious but when she said you're one accident away you're a couple birthdays away from having some mobility difficulties or hearing difficulties or seeing difficulties and why we create this dynamic that disabled people are other and it's them that we're doing these things for that's the reason why we don't have things that are accessible so I'm using this one to talk about how we also address the hidden disabilities and mental health challenges if we recognize that that is really humanity right every single one of us exists on some and I use the word spectrum right some spectrum here of disabled or able there's no line in the sand that says this is what then makes you disabled because even as a healthcare provider right we talk about this medical model of disability but we're looking for a line somewhere and there is no line and so I think that if we recognize this as what can we do to make sure as many people have access as they can right that is what we then do so hidden invisibility disabilities mental health when we recognize that hey you know what this pandemic has shown us that if you are sick don't come to work because people don't want to get sick now right but we need to normalize the fact that people may need breaks people may need time to then stun by themselves and so these are some small things that have created a dynamic now that we have a lot more flexibility in our work environments we have a lot more a sort of understanding that there may be things that happen in life you need to stay at home and quarantine with your child because third grade had an outbreak of COVID and you have to be at home so these are some of the things that the disabled community has been asking for for a long time remote work virtual work time and flexibility so these are things that when we realize this is going to benefit all of us you don't have to think of it purely through the lens of I'm helping my disabled peer here you see it as I'm helping humans I'm helping make this environment environment where everyone can be more welcoming because that then doesn't make people worry about doing the disability dance of how can I make sure I'm not stepping on the wrong toes and so I think that if we view it that way that changes the stigma around disability specifically even though I have nothing wrong with saying the word and calling out disability and making sure that that is recognized there's still some people that what they're they're a little sphere of influence that they can impact change is truly just in that vein without feeling like they have to understand disability you just understand people and the fact that people all have different needs and therefore let's figure out what we can do to then support people excellent way to draw our conversation to a close here and it's even an interesting exercise and workshops and presentations I think to look at ability rather than disability because everyone in this room there's some people have disabilities and some don't in this particular conversation today but we all have abilities and so every one of us could rate our ability to see and our ability to hear our ability to manage our physical health or our mental health and we could do that individually my guess is there would be no two ratings exactly the same and so diversity intersectionality all these things are the way things are in the world and so being proactive about making things more inclusive and then being responsive to individuals who have specific needs and being successful so we've had a great time everyone thanks for the fantastic conversation that we've had today and how intersectionality is critical to stem particularly in fostering a culture and actionable plans to improve accessibility and inclusion in stem we talked about some practical ways to address this issue but there's a lot more that we all need to think about on our own campuses and institutions we heard at the beginning the conversation this is just the first of many discussions our next conversation in this series will be on tuesday january 25th market down tuesday january 25th from 10 30 to noon eastern standard time will focus on specific recommendations to improve accessibility and inclusion in the context of lab work that came up a little bit today but we're going to focus on that the whole time next time we hope you can join us additional information about that conversation will be available on our series website and so this webcast will be recorded and posted on the website uh is will all future conversations so enjoy the rest of the day um and we hope to see you in january so um thanks for joining us and thanks panelists for being part of this this has been great fun it went so fast yeah thank you everyone