Examining A Light in the Tower: A New Reckoning with Mental Health in Higher Education

Mental health is a somewhat taboo topic in academia. As Katie Rose Guest Pryal, a bipolar and autistic author and academic, writes in her new book A Light in the Tower: A New Reckoning with Mental Health in Higher Education (available now from University Press of Kansas), “Based on the logic of academia, if my brain is wrong, then everything about me is wrong.” She argues that mental disability is stigmatized in higher education and pushed into the shadows and that the key solution to the mental disability crisis — Pryal's preferred terminology — is to increase accessibility overall rather than just provide accommodations for faculty and students. This can decrease the stigma around their illnesses.