Dismantling the Supercrip Prof: Theological Education and Faculty Accessibility

AbstractMost research around neurodiversity in higher education focuses on students, with little attention paid to faculty. This essay deploys autoethnographic narratives to (a) ground anti-ableist pedagogy in decolonizing pedagogy; (b) argue that cognitive- and neuro-diversity among faculty should be valued similarly to—and in intersection with—other forms of diversity, (c) explore barriers to disclosure among disabled, chronically ill and neurodivergent faculty, and (d) call for a structural approach to anti-ableism in theological education that not only accommodates disabled, chronically ill and neurodivergent faculty needs, but also scales up those accommodations to create a workplace environment in which all faculty can flourish.Keywords: Accessibilitydecolonialdecolonizingdisabilitydiversityfacultyneurodivergenceneurodiversitytheological education Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1 Autoethnographers use their personal experiences to bring wider cultural practices into view in ways that critique those practices and seek to transform them. While often dismissed as solipsistic, autoethnography has the potential to illuminate the affective, experiential dynamics of cultural practices. Its goal is less to convince the reader to think differently using an argument, and more to compel the reader to act differently using a story. Autoethnography therefore disrupts and re-configures dominant academic epistemologies; hence its inclusion in my scholarly toolkit. For more on autoethnography see: Adams et al., Citation2022; Ellis & Bochner, Citation2006; Holman Jones et al., Citation2013; Walford, Citation2021; Wigg-Stevenson, Citation2017).2 UDL stands for “Universal Design for Learning,” an approach that provides learners with multiple means of engagement, representation, action and expression in the learning process so that they access, build, and internalize their learning in ways that activate their affective, recognition and strategic networks. Its goal is to make learning accessible for all learners. Where learning is not accessible, learners require learning accommodations to have equitable access to their learning.3 I should admit that I didn’t know what UDL was when I received these comments. As I scoured articles about these techniques on the internet, I came across multiple graphics that summarize UDL’s core principles. These graphics made me physically nauseous because the amount of information they conveyed overwhelmed me. Put differently, my students’ frustrations didn’t just start my journey to learn about neurodiversity: their frustrations began my journey to learning I was neurodivergent!4 The most common version of this that I have experienced is when a student who has ADHD is given an extra week to finish their assignment. But when that student’s particular executive function struggle is around starting their assignment, the extra week actually makes things worse for them. For me to be able to support them in ways that actually improves their learning access and, even, potentially equips them with the skills required to manage their own learning processes better, would require they disclose their condition to me—which is precisely what Accessibility Services protects them from having to do. This isn’t Accessibility Services’ fault. They are also overworked, understaffed, underfunded and often doing the best they can in a wider university context that is oriented more towards legal compliance when it comes to disability than actual student care.5 Throughout this essay, I use a blend of person-first language, identity-first language, language related to the medical model for disability and even the pathologizing paradigm, as well as language related to the social disability model to refer to myself. I have made each choice in context to convey something particular about my experience. When speaking in general, though, and despite the more common use of person-first language in disability theology, I will use identity-first language like enabled and disabled, neurotypical and neurodivergent people, following Nick Walker’s critique (see https://neuroqueer.com/person-first-language-is-the-language-of-autistiphobic-bigots/).6 Brown and Leigh link academics’ tendency to minimize/avoid using their vacation time and/or sick leave with how values of research, teaching and good institutional citizenship get deployed to normalize overwork. Research shows that while “academics with disabilities or illnesses work hard to hold onto their academic work and identity whilst compromising other aspects of their life…non-academic individuals with similar health challenges reported that work was the first thing they dropped to maintain their personal lives and relationships.” (Brown & Leigh, Citation2018: 986–987). Further, while we don’t yet have hard data on academic versus non-academic rates of divorce, the significant anecdotal evidence has led to more people calling for research into the relationship between academic workloads, gender and marital dissolution (Boufis, Citation1999).7 The term, ‘supercrip’ was coined by disability advocate and writer, Eli Clare, to demonstrate two forms of ableism: one everyday and one exceptional. For the everyday version, wider society interprets disability as a challenge to overcome, and thus interprets people with disabilities as superheroes—simply for living their lives. At the same time, wider society might only value people with disabilities when they’re able to demonstrate the exceptional as a source of inspiration for nondisabled people (e.g., climbing Everest, world leader in theoretical physics, running across Canada with one leg while dying of cancer). See Eli Clare, “The Mountain,” in (Clare, Citation2015).8 As my psychiatrist was writing my accessibility support letter, she had me practice the phrases: “I want to succeed at/be excellent at my job,” and “My psychiatrist says these are the accommodations I need to meet all the expectations of and/or excel in the workplace.” She warned me not [to] link the accommodations in any way to my own survival or wellness. “And definitely don’t mention your kids,” she added.I use these phrases in every accommodations-related meeting I have. They are the best advice I have to offer to other scholars seeking to secure their own accommodations. Frame every request with the way it helps you serve the institution. And practice your framing before any meeting. Because it’s going to feel awful to prioritize the institution over your own wellness as you try to secure your own survival.My other advice is not to underplay your needs—which my psychiatrist noted I was doing. I insisted that I wasn’t, but realize now that I was lying to her and to myself. I was afraid to ask for “too much.” Disabled, neurodivergent, and chronically ill people are always afraid of asking for or being “too much.” We have to stop that.9 It’s worth noting here, that my personal ‘accommodations’ are actually just a formal re-statement of the provincial labor laws where I live. Indeed, it was difficult to explain to my psychiatrist and human resources representative why my only chance of having a forty hour work week, daily thirty minute lunch breaks plus two other fifteen-minute breaks, and personal time to attend medical appointments (I didn’t even bother trying to ask for formal sick days) would be to request it via the Accessible Canada Act (ACA, Canada’s equivalent to the ADA), rather than via the provincial labour laws that already guaranteed it.10 A pre-pandemic, non-scientific study of Canadian professors found that we work an average of 48 hours per week (Brownell, Citation2018), a number that increased by at least 10 hours per week during the pandemic (Austin-Smith, Citation2020). Attending to the US (where the faculty workload situation is more bleak than in already-bleak Canada), a survey conducted by MIT in 2001 compared university faculty and CEOs regarding workload questions. 78% of faculty reported that “no matter how hard they work, they can’t get everything done” whereas on 48% of CEOs said the same. Furthermore, 62% of faculty reported “feeling physically or emotionally drained at the end of the day” compared to 55% of CEOs ((Berg & Seeber, Citation2016: pg. 16).11 I recognize that the terminology “crazy” can be ableist. It can also be reclaimed as empowering, which some of us in the “mad” community are doing. I use it here to self-describe because it’s one of the ways I identify. I would not, however, use it to describe anyone who hasn’t intentionally claimed it for themselves.12 I wasn’t diagnosed with ADHD until halfway through the term when I taught this course, at which point I shared about that in ad hoc ways as well whenever it felt relevant to our shared teaching and learning.13 The process of writing this article helped me figure out how to articulate and transfer these decolonizing, crip approaches into my redesign of the MDiv Integrative Seminar I am teaching this semester. They are even more interwoven into the structural pedagogical design of the course now, which has led me to move them from the syllabus’ ‘accessibility’ portion into the course and assignment descriptions—syllabus sections that the students and I have begun to refer to as “Natalie’s pedagogical manifesto” for shorthand.14 I wish I had good news or even just advice for specifically junior scholars here trying to navigate these same systems. I’ve only been tenured for about five years, but the precarity my generation faced seems like the golden years now compared to what post-pandemic junior scholars in theological education are dealing with. Particularly concerning is that by the point of tenure in an academic career, we’ve so internalized the propensity to overwork that it’s difficult to recognize our role in reproducing overwork’s normalization for each other and for the next generation. This is why it’s so important for those of us who do have institutional security not only to try to change these oppressive systems, but also to find ways to provide safe cover for junior colleagues navigating them as they’re currently rigged.15 Whereas a medical model for understanding disability sees a bodily impairment as a problem to be solved, a social model for understanding disability interprets the social conditions that make it impossible for people with impairments to flourish as the problem. So, whatever made my colleagues laugh are the same social conditions that make our shared flourishing impossible. And it’s those social conditions that need to change.16 A number that will surely increase thanks to the growing phenomena of Long-COVID and Post-Covid conditions.17 I should note that after sharing the draft of this article with our leadership, conversations in my context seem to be opening up. I’m hopeful!18 One of the peer reviewers for this article rightly pointed out that it ends on the desire for flourishing without theologizing what flourishing is. I agree with the reviewer that the article would be strengthened if I did that theological work. Instead of strengthening the article, though, I’m going to leave it just a little bit weak: not out of performative solidarity, but out of genuine need.I could just ignore the reviewer’s excellent suggestion. No one would have known. But I do have just enough energy to write this footnote.Yesterday I discerned that some institutionally marginalized students required ‘above and beyond’ care. Offering that care took an emotional and physical toll on me that I’m paying for today—the day I set aside to deal with the ‘flourishing edits’. I’m also close to my accommodated 40 hours for this week, this article is due, and I don’t want to make more work for this journal issue’s editors by missing the deadline.Knowing about my brain injury (which makes dealing with words difficult), Erin Rafferty, one of those editors, extended the generous offer to help me get it across the finish line. She has a lot on her plate too, though, so I wanted to find a way not to take her up on it. So, here I must extend gratitude to my writing group (Colleen Shantz, Michael O’Conner and Reid Locklin, especially Reid) who gave me emotional and intellectual support, as well as specific line edit feedback on this article’s penultimate draft, and to my research assistant Mike MacKenzie who proofread it for me. Their support let me finish up without Erin’s help. It takes a (neurodiverse) village!I don’t intend this footnote to set a precedent for authors just to articulate why they didn’t get everything done or just to shove what they didn’t get to into a note at the end of an article. But, I would direct the reader to the Canadian Journal of Theology, Mental Health, and Disability, where their experimentation with neuro-affirming forms of academic publishing has led them to include questions for readers to ponder at the end of their articles.And then, I would remind the reader that this paper already contains multiple stories that illustrate the “relational accountability” required for “meaningful access” playing about across the power differentials of a teacher and students who got to feel that not yet future hope before we thought it. It would also explain that the purpose of autoethnography isn’t to construct an argument that convinces the reader of a new idea but, rather, its purpose is to tell stories that compel the reader towards a new action. And I would ask you: what might the already not yet version of flourishing look like for you?