Episode 16-Accessible Mentorship
0-0:12 Orthotonics Accessible as Gravity plays and fades out
0:13 Hello and welcome to Accessagogy a podcast about accessibility and pedagogy. I’m your host Ann Gagné and this podcast is recorded on land covered by the Upper Canada Treaties and within land protected by the Dish with One Spoon Wampum Agreement, which is the traditional territory of the Haudenosaunee and Anishinaabe peoples.
0:33 Welcome to episode sixteen. In this episode, I want to talk about mentorship, and what accessible mentorship could look like in academic spaces, for graduate students, but also in other situations in post-secondary education.
0:46 Mentorship is a key part to inclusion in higher education. It is also something that’s not a given in any space that one finds yourself in in post-secondary institutions, because mentorship, if done well and inclusively is something that requires building a lot of trust, understanding, as well as things that need time. And mentorship, like anything that we talk about in higher education when it comes to equity work, is not a checklist item. It is about community building, it’s about recognizing strengths, it’s about recognizing gaps and needs, and supporting all of those things in a way that is contextual to the mentee.
1:30 And I’m thinking about mentorship and the need to have more conversations about what accessible mentorship can be, because I take on a lot of mentorship roles in different ways. When I was in grad school, for example, we had a program where the upper level PhD candidates would help support the Master’s students and acted as a guide for those newer students. This varied from relationship to relationship, but it meant anything from, showing folk where different building were on campus, to introducing them to people that they needed to know for human resources, or union folk, or any other social support needs. Or even having conversations about books or articles that could be helpful to the research that they were doing.
2:16 Mentorship models like this can be one way to increase accessibility, especially if there is the kind of relationship built in where the mentorship model can be about real conversations about feeling stuck, needing different kinds of supports like health or community supports, or even discussions of a pedagogical nature about strategies that support engagement in tutorials or labs, activities that have worked well in different ways.
2:44 Where I am based there is a proposal for post-secondary accessibility standards which at the provincial level which have been finalized, but they have not been enacted by the government as of yet. And one of the recommendations of those post-secondary accessibility standards is about graduate supervision, and it states “postsecondary institutions shall mandate that all faculties of graduate studies and graduate departments have explicit policies, practices and guidelines on accessibility and accommodation for graduate students with disabilities, which are developed with the consultative committee. Policies should include consideration of disclosure, accommodation, student supervision and graduate assessments (for example, comprehensive exams and thesis defenses), a respectful environment and dignity of the student, and take into account the roles of graduate students as academic/research staff and university employees.”
3:44 So there’s a lot there and a lot of it is of course very important. Having mentorship models like what I mentioned previously that do exist in some ways in some departments and in some institutions is one way to start that supporting of accessibility. But it is of course much more than this. Even the assessment piece that’s mentioned there in terms of the types of typical assessments that happen in graduate studies, like seminar pedagogy for example, which involves facilitation and presentation often for an hour or more at a time, definitely needs review in terms of how that could look differently from a universal design for learning framework for example.
4:30 There is a real actionable way where mentorship can be supportive of accessibility here too, using one’s lived experience, knowledge, and positionality to consult and support changes and being open from moving away from a normative expectation and experience that is openly hostile to crip time and highly contextual to discipline and advisee advisor dynamics that often happen in grad school.
4:58 Mentorship is of course different than supervisory work and positionality. Being someone’s supervisor does not necessarily mean that you’re acting as someone’s mentor right? And this is even more true when there are conversations that happen about supervisory lineage, you know, this often happens in STEM fields, where the supervisory role is talked about in some sort of familial way, you know, oh I was so and so’s great grand advisee because I supervised so and so and they went on to supervise such and such. And it sounds ridiculous, but you know that it happens, right?
5:36 Accessible mentorship is not lineage, and is often not linear. Accessible mentoring can come and open up spaces and other connections, to other communities, where connections, even more connections can happen. It is more rhizomatic that linear. And as such there will never be a checklist of things that one should do to ensure accessible mentorship, because, of course, as with everything in terms of accessibility it’s always context dependent. However, there are some things that we want to think about if one is looking to foster an accessible mentorship environment. And so I have a few here that I want to note.
6:19 One is talk, a lot. Keep those lines of communication open and have a set of communication guidelines that take into account the need for boundaries, the need for being honest about feelings, and feedback mechanisms for identifying what is and is not working. It should also include communication preferences and accessible communication options. So for example, not everyone likes emails, not everyone is a texter, not everyone is on Whatsapp, not everyone uses Facebook Messenger. And so having regular check ins is good, but accessible mentoring also notes that those check-ins may need to be moved or done in a different way. Having a guide to how and how often those connection points happen is great, but also having flexibility is super important.
7:10 Two, mentorship is not based on the need for disclosure. In some cases if a level of trust is built, then there might be some disclosure of disability or other socio-cultural positionalities, and often that is how those mentorship relationships are built in the first place, but that does not need to be premised on that. So disclosure doesn’t necessarily have to happen in order for mentorship to happen.
7:37 Three, accessible mentorship is often not time bound. Yes, there can be set meetings, yes there can be resources shared, maybe even deliverables if you’re supporting something in particular about next steps in the career search, or those kinds of things, like looking over drafts of portfolios, looking over letters, but often inclusive mentorship is often one that spans many years. And if those lines of communication are open as I note before, then both parties will be able to identify when mentorship has reached its end.
8:13 Too often in organized mentorships, like the one that I mentioned previously that happened in my grad school experience, folk would only stay in touch for about 8 months and then never speak again because they felt well the first year is over I have no responsibility to this person anymore. And this is also seen in discussions about that sense of abandonment that PhD candidates can feel, by their advisor or their committee, after they defend their dissertation.
8:41 For some mentees with disabilities, this end of regular communication can be incredibly activating, and so accessible mentorship is about taking time to talk about boundaries and time boundaries that organized mentorship programs presuppose, right? When those who are meant to be mentored are just neglected by those in the mentor position, that can have a real impact on if they choose to continue in that discipline that they’re working in, or even choose to continue to be in academe.
9:12 Lately I’ve seen so many situations where instead of mentoring, the mentor just withdrew without thinking about what other supports could be put in place if they truly felt that they could not continue mentoring someone. And these are really important things to consider at the outset because you don’t want to have these mentoring situations become harmful or hurtful and do the exact opposite of what inclusive mentoring situation is meant to do. If you want to encourage someone to continue in a field, not communicating or not having different ways to give each other feedback and thus end a mentor mentee relationship can start seeding doubt and reaffirm normative kinds of power, privilege, and positionality dynamics. You know, we are going into Sara Ahmed categories here, like you do not belong here, who belongs here? Right? So we really want to think about what we can put in place in that mentor relationship so that that doesn’t happen.
10:08 Four, accessible mentorship is not judgmental. If a topic or skill comes up that the mentee doesn’t know or doesn’t have experience with, this is a great time to use more Universal Design for Learning principles and see if there’s different means of expressing or representing that topic or skill to support. Higher education, as we know, is filled with “this is how we do this” isms that are simply inaccessible to many. An accessible mentorship model identifies those “how we do this” isms and gives space for differences and support. This includes the tools that institutions use that are often inaccessible to folk because of inaccessible procurement practices. See inaccessibility all the way down.
10:55 Five, and finally, the need for accessible mentorship can be part of a lot of different situations and we need to be more open to these opportunities. Those in leadership positions have the opportunity to mentor others in many different ways, and how exciting could that be if they help co-create what those mentorship terms could be instead of being forced to be in these sign-up programs with elaborate tell me more about yourself forms that are often inaccessible to both mentees and mentors.
11:28 The most accessible mentorship situations often happen spontaneously and then mentor and the mentee create a space that is inclusive to the both of them. Accessible mentorship situations can happen when folk are open to that happening, instead of being reluctant to engage when there hasn’t been some sort of formal vetting process, right? So remember that anything that requires a 3 to 4 page form to fill out to even participate will often necessarily exclude many disabled folk both as mentors and mentees. And chances are the system used to sign people up will also be not inclusive to assistive technology. So think about who you are interacting with, and what real opportunities there are to informally start mentoring someone in an inclusive way.
12:18 So, before I end today I also wanted to give a shout out to Danielle Dubien who commented on episode 13 by providing great plain language resources. She shared a nice group of resources and links in the comments to episode 13, which I will also link to here, and this might be a good place for folk working on plain language and you want to look at some of these, these are really great resources.
12:43 So that’s it, that’s episode 16 of Accessagogy, with a discussion of things that we can think about to make mentorship more accessible in academe.
12:51 Remember as well that I also want this to be a space where you can ask questions and share concepts that you would like me to discuss. So if there’s anything that I mentioned here, that you would like me to clarify, please ask.
13:02 As always if you have any ideas or aspects of your pedagogy that you would like me to address in this podcast, please feel free to send me an email at Accessagogy so that’s acc e ss a gogy at gmail dot com. I will try to include as many suggestions as possible in the podcast because ultimately, this podcast is for you. So that’s it, that’s episode 16 of Accessagogy, thanks so much for following along and asking how can I make my space more accessible today? Have a great week!