Staff-Faculty Accessibility Group

Who We Are
The Staff-Faculty Accessibility at Brandeis group includes staff and faculty who identify as disabled along with peers who support them.
Focused on accessibility-related issues that arise at work and the workplace, the Staff-Faculty Accessibility Group may help develop resources related to accessibility and disability-at-work, organize disability-related events, and engage in other activities as members determine, while also providing support and advocacy where needed.
Browse campus resources for staff and faculty related to disability and accessibility
Events
In honor of the Neurodiversity Celebration Week 2024, we welcomed your comments on how we might support and include neurodivergent people in our workplaces and work processes. All comments published below are anonymous, displaying only campus role (e.g., staff, faculty, student, colleague).
I wish that the people I work with would stop acting like everything I do in a way that is different than the way they expect it to be done is somehow necessarily wrong.
It's the way I do things. The way I think about things. I get to the same place they do. I just take another path there. I shoudln't have to do things in only one way if what I do, I do well.
- Staff Member
It can be hard to describe how exactly it feels to work in higher ed as someone who is neurodivergent. In some ways, it can be wonderful, as I am surrounded by a community that is both aware and fairly well equipped with sufficient language to help navigate challenges. However, I still experience so many instances of being made to feel that I am less capable, less hard-working, and less dedicated to what I do because others struggle to reconcile that something easy or obvious to them isn't to me. I spend so much time and effort reformatting and translating the world into something I can work with. I exist in an intricate web of "tips, tricks, and hacks," coping mechanisms, and contingency plans. I regularly joke that I only seem normal because "I've mentally straight-jacketed myself into the shape of a functional adult." Sometimes I dream about how much more I could accomplish, how much more positively others would view me if I didn't have to expend so much of my energy just trying to squeeze into a mold that will never actually fit.
- Staff Member
I am the proud parent of a bright young man who is autistic. He is a part-time college student with two part-time volunteer internships obtained through people and organizations who have known and supported him. He is a talented musician and has many interests.
I feel lucky to have had a supportive community of fellow parents, teachers, and therapists who have helped our family to support him. Yet, while I see what a strong contributor he is in his internships, I worry that he will be limited in finding long-term gainful employment due to his disability, or really to how people react. The workplace can be a complicated social and political environment as it is. I hope future supervisors understand that he brings many strengths and deep caring to his work. Patience and mentoring with the challenges will go a long way, but will it be enough?
- Staff Member/Ally/Family Member
When I was a student, a professor told me that he was grading me down because I was "distracting." My work was good, excellent even. But I myself was a problem and needed to be penalized. And that's what he did. (I did complain.)
I don't know if it was my ADHD or my being autistic that bothered him most. I don't know if my fellow students were at all bothered by me-by my existence! But I know I was devastated and never recovered. And I know that I was sure that I would encounter this same attitude in the workplace. I have. But not always to the same extent. Sadly, to protect myself from despair and rejection I often take evasive action, meaning I avoid situations where I think people will react badly to me being me. I try to work in a very separated space and found a job with little interaction with others. But I want to be around people. I hate this and know it's deeply unfair. I do what I have to to stay alive and make do.
- Current Staff
If I were to have a seizure at work, I wouldn't be able to count on anyone knowing seizure first aid, and would have to hope that the 2 trusted colleagues I talked to about what to do happened to be nearby.
If seizure first aid training were more readily available on campus, it would not only help faculty/students/staff feel safe keeping their epilepsy diagnosis private (if that was their preference) but would also help counteract the outdated/incorrect ideas many people have about what to do when someone is having a seizure. Without this knowledge, a well meaning bystander could try to help and make the person having a seizure less safe. I hope that Brandeis will consider providing this important training/information. 1 in 10 people will have a seizure in their lifetime so this is vital information for everyone to learn.
- Faculty
I didn't find out that I had ADHD until I was an adult with a fully established sense of self-doubt. Getting diagnosed didn't change much, it just gives me an explanation for the constant feeling of being not-quite-right. Medication helps, but it's not perfect. Office days are always the most difficult, but I try to find solutions, like listening to music to block out the distractions, coming in early to get an hour or so of alone-time, and avoiding social gatherings to prevent the sensory overwhelm. Driving is also a major fear of mine, because any lapse in focus could be fatal. It takes about a day to recover my energy after going to the office, more if there's a big event. I don't tell anyone about my ADHD due to the negative responses I've gotten in the past: "everyone is a little ADHD!," "just sounds like laziness to me," "didn't you know that ADHD is just a TikTok trend?" This has led to me hiding myself under a veneer of anxious perfectionism, because I have to be perfect or everyone will KNOW. I don't seek out social relationships because I might slip and impulsively say something that will out me, or I will excitedly interrupt and be seen as rude. It's better to be alone than face the stigma.
- Staff
Once again, it comes down to INCLUSION.
We all have to be open to thinking about things differently, pacing and organizing our work in various ways, and being RESPECTFUL.
Sometimes, you get to see something in a new way.
After all, we're all working toward the same goal - getting the job done, enjoying our work, and feeling successful.
- Staff
Partnership with the Rose Art Museum
Last year, we partnered with the Rose Art Museum to host an event focused on disability as creativity. In the artist's studio, in the workplace, at home, and in public: everywhere.
On March 8, Gannit Ankori, the director of the Rose Museum, gave a public online lecture on Frida Kahlo as a disabled artist. Kahlo is often discussed in other ways due to her wide-ranging resonance, but her disabilities were also part of her life and work.
Phantom Limbs: Frida Kahlo, disability and art
March 8 | 12:30 p.m. | Online, with ASL interpretation
In this program, Dr. Gannit Ankori, Henry and Lois Foster Director and Chief Curator of the Rose Museum at Brandeis University, detailed how the life and work of Frida Kahlo are a potent rejection of ableist discourse and affirm an alternative way of being.
Co-sponsored by the Staff-Faculty Accessibility Group and the Rose Art Museum, with additional support from the Brandeis Office of Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion and the Brandeis University Staff Advisory Committee.
See photographs of Frida Kahlo's house in the sidebar.
From the Archives
What may have been the first event at Brandeis to call attention to the demand for disability rights was held in 1983. Based on archival holdings, it is likely that the play "You Can't Turn Off the Stars," performed by a theater company composed of both disabled and non-disabled actors, was performed on campus on what was called Disability Awareness Day. The events seem to have been organized by Professor Irv Zola, renowned disability studies scholar who taught in the Sociology Department at Brandeis and was the first editor-in-chief of Disability Studies Quarterly.
Photo Credit: Courtesy of the Robert D. Farber University Archives & Special Collections Department, Brandeis University.
The first photograph shows Irv Zola, who is at a podium, with a member of the theater company nearby; the theater-company member may be signing in ASL. The second photograph shows a man holding a poster for the play.
Resources
Brandeis Resources Related to Disability and Accessibility at Work and the Workplace
One of the Accessibility Group's main activities is to help develop accessibility resources related to work and the workplace. The following are examples of what should be a growing list:
- Lurie Institute for Disability Policy's Disability@Work 2021 Blog Collection
- I Want to Talk About ADHD...
Campus Resources for Staff and Faculty
A non-exhaustive list of resources that may be helpful:
- ADA/Section 504: Explanation of the main laws that apply with respect to disability. See section III for Faculty and Staff.
- Identity at Work/Disability: The Hiatt Career Center's webpage contains a lot of information about disability in the hiring process and the workplace and about disability disclosure and networking. Though written for students and alumni, it may be helpful for current employees as well.
- Brandeis Service Animal and Emotional Support Animal Policy
- Campus Accessibility Committee
- Web Accessibility
- Accessibility Issue Reporting Form
- Disability Accommodation and Complaint Process (under Human Resources at Brandeis)
- Accommodation Grievance Process (under the Brandeis Office of Equal Opportunity)
- University Ombuds
- Office of Equal Opportunity: See also the Office of Equal Opportunity's Policies and Procedures.
- Accident/Injury Reporting Tool: Brandeis employees, student employees, and lab personnel can use this tool to report an injury, accident, near-miss, or health- and safety-related issue that occurred while at Brandeis. Also see the Quick Sheet for information.
Resources for Students
If you are looking for accessibility resources for students, several of the resources listed above may be helpful. Also see: