Time to address disability inclusion for university staff

[RandomMess]

wonkhe.com/blogs/time-to-address-disability-inclusion-for-university-staff/

Interesting article including the mention that burn out & stress is higher in uni staff than the general population.

I used to work with someone who had a pretty serious mental illness, remitting & recurring, but he was in denial about it. I can tell you about stress and burnout of those around him, who had to be ready to jump in when after about 6 weeks of full-time work (teaching & admin) during term time, he'd have a minor or a major breakdown. That university expected everyone simply to pick up his work, and because he was in denial and either said he wasn't ill, or demanded very unreasonable accommodations, they did nothing. I left - 3 years as HoD managing this person almost made me ill.

I know this sounds very ableist but I think there's a real problem about the way universities expect other staff to make up for disabled staff - in my experience, that is.

I think there is a huge issue with an expectation to pick up any issue of any sort regardless of the self cost!

All about student feedback and rankings...

I think the neo liberal HE environment makes it difficult for anyone other than an ‘ideal’ worker (male, able bodied, wife at home to free them up to research, white…) to have a fair chance at succeeding

@AlwaysColdHands isn't that the truth!!

It’s part of the problem of running everything “efficiently” so there’s no slack in the system at all. If an academic is ill or needs accommodations that means they can’t do a “full” teaching load, that means someone else needs to step in or students won’t get taught. (And students absolutely won’t be understanding if they’re told “Prof X is unwell so we’re pulling this module” or “your marking will be returned ‘late’ because it takes Dr Y longer to read the papers”.) But there’s no recognition that people need a little bit of space in their workloads to cover for each other when needed - anything less than everyone being 100% busy at all times is “inefficient”.

We were discussing this today, if you go off sick all your work waits for you to return.

That's the way in most professional jobs.

Our place it's apparently putting a freeze on maternity cover which won't end in disaster at all.

@BarbaraHoward 😬🙄😱

Everything is so short term thinking.

@BarbaraHoward we’ve had issues around team members going on maternity before, being told at departmental level it wouldn’t be covered. We dug around and corresponded with HR direct who told us the contrary, as the majority of it was centrally funded. Also, if your institution holds any kind of Athena swan awards they could be on thin ice not fulfilling this very basic thing.

You would hope!

And students absolutely won’t be understanding if they’re told “Prof X is unwell so we’re pulling this module” or “your marking will be returned ‘late’ because it takes Dr Y longer to read the papers”.

Yes, I remember teaching with my dominant arm in a sling and exhausted and in pain that needed 4 hourly hospital strength painkillers. I was also HoD. The students complained about late return of essays.

This is a good point and I have seen similar scenarios. The accommodations provided by universities are very generous when compared to the private sector, but it’s done on the cheap.