I am
feeling triggered. Eight years after I graduated with a PhD from the University
of Michigan, they are finally, finally starting to address the issue of graduate
students with disabilities. While I was a student, I became vocal about
experiences I, along with others, had as a result of identifying as a student
with a chronic illness or disability.
I’ve
linked the report, “Executive Summary of Report from Committee on Graduate
Student Experiences with Disability Accommodations at the University of
Michigan”, below:
https://rackham.umich.edu/downloads/grad-student-disability-accommodation-experiences-umich.pdf
The
opening letter ends by saying they are considering a role for an advocate for
graduate students with disabilities. This is exactly what’s needed. And I could
do it.
The
University of Michigan and others need to know they are AINO – this is my new
term, maybe it will catch on – Accessible in Name Only. They opt to do the bare
minimum, but what they don’t realize is that while they might not get sued,
they won’t get cheered on either.
In my
experience, it was hard. There was no support. I even had my dissertation chair
tell me that if I went on to get a second master’s degree after the PhD, it
would be viewed as a backward step. So what did I do? I did just that and I
never told anyone on my committee. I told them I had to take some time and
focus on my health and figure out what my next move would be. Eight years
later, I haven’t spoken or heard from any of them. And it saddens me. My only
crime was becoming chronically ill. Whether or not I could have made it as an
academic sociologist, we’ll never know. But the reason I didn’t try is because
I wasn’t encouraged, in fact, it was more the opposite. And as much as I am a
fighter and the more someone tells me “no”, the more likely I am to try and
prove them wrong, I didn’t have that kind of fight in me for myself.
I want to
fight for chronically ill students in higher education. I want to go to battle
for them like I hoped someone would have gone to battle for me. But it’s not
about changing individual departments and disciplines, it’s about changing the
institution of higher education. It’s about recognizing the unique issues that students
with chronic illnesses and disabilities face, and finding ways to make sure
they are successful in the academy in spite of that.
I wrote a
letter to the Dean of Rackham graduate school to tell him how I felt about the
report. I could have written the entire thing myself. I’m including it here in
the hopes that someone from Rackham will reach out to me. My experience at U of
M led me to Sarah Lawrence to study and focus on this issue specifically, so it’s
time to take this journey full circle, back to where it started.
Dear Dean Solomon,
I am a 2007 graduate from LSA and a
2013 graduate from Rackham. During my first year of graduate school, I was
diagnosed with multiple chronic illnesses. As you can imagine, this came as
quite a shock to me. I was in the graduate school “bubble” and imagined that
would be the main focus of the next few years of my life. Then life reared its
ugly head and I became chronically ill.
Amongst other things, I was told that I
would never make it in academia and would never make tenure if I stayed on an
academic track. I was also told that maybe I would be a "more empathetic
sociologist" because I was sick.
While in graduate school, I was as
active as I could be in advocating for graduate students with chronic illnesses
and disabilities. I still receive emails and today I read the Report from the
Committee on Graduate Student Experience with Disability Accommodations at the
University of Michigan in its entirety. To be honest, I could have written this
report. It saddens me that in almost eight years, so little has changed and the
same, if not more basic questions, are only now being answered.
When I went to SSD, I was met with
confusion. I was asking for accommodations that could potentially change often.
If I was feeling good, I would not need them. If I was feeling poor, I might. I
needed a contingency plan and no one was able to provide me with one. My
livelihood and health insurance were tied to me being a graduate student. The
prospect of becoming seriously ill and having all of that ripped away was
incredibly distressing. SSD wasn’t equipped to handle that; in fact, I
didn’t really find anyone that was equipped to handle my situation. When I
expressed concern about my preliminary exam, which would put me in front of a
computer for eight hours, the accommodation I was provided was that I
could take half of it the day before the scheduled exam and the other half the
following day. This was not ideal, but I had no other choice. I ended up in a
freezing computer lab, and by the end of the first four hours, my joints were
so stiff, I didn't know how I’d be able to walk home. That’s just one example
of many struggles I faced throughout my six years of graduate school at U
of M.
I know that my situation is unique as I
went from being a healthy undergraduate to being a chronically ill graduate
student in the same department. But the change in faculty members’ associations
with me were unmistakable and profoundly sad and disappointing. I know that
being a 22 year old chronically ill graduate student was not how I had
envisioned my graduate school years, but being shunned and looked down upon in
the same department that awarded me the award for the best undergraduate
honor's thesis, was almost too much to handle. I finished my PhD in six years and
was one of the first in my cohort to graduate, knowing that if I took more time
due to my illnesses, it would not have been looked at in a good light, even if
my peers took longer just because.
After completing my PhD, I went to
Sarah Lawrence College and received a master’s degree in Health Advocacy,
focusing on chronically ill students navigating and succeeding in higher
education. I miss the University of Michigan. I miss the intellectual growth
that I received. But no one empowered me to go the academic route and I was
conditioned to believe that if “I couldn’t hack it, I shouldn’t be there.”
Eight years later, the experiences I
had as a chronically ill graduate student at the University of Michigan remain
traumatic for me, and had a profound impact on what I have gone on to do (and
not do). I do not think that this is a phenomenon unique to the University of
Michigan, so please don’t take this email that way. I think this report is a
good, albeit long delayed, first step. I know that many of us have watched as
accommodations that we requested and were denied have been put into place for
the masses due to the pandemic. We now know that what we were asking for is not
so farfetched or impossible.
I hope you or someone reads this, and I
hope someone reaches out to me. The needs of chronically ill students are still
unmet and I fear that by focusing on the issue solely from a “disability” lens
will continue to marginalize and silence chronically ill students, many of
whom may not consider themselves disabled.
Sincerely (and in solidarity),
Leslie Rott Welsbacher, MA, MHA, PhD