Stephanie Cawthon on Connection and Disability Advocacy in Higher Ed

On season 4 episode 5 of the agile academic, I talk with Dr. Stephanie Cawthon, professor of education at the University of Texas Austin, leader, educator, and disability advocate. We discuss the importance of connection, disability in higher ed, and founding things that matter.

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<Note: Dr. Cawthon is deaf and was interviewed via zoom. The voice you hear is her ASL interpreter. Special thanks to Dr. Cawthon’s ASL interpreters who made this interview possible: Amanda Katz and Liz Weston. 

On season 4 episode 5 of the agile academic, I talk with Dr. Stephanie Cawthon, professor of education at the University of Texas Austin, leader, educator, and disability advocate. We discuss the importance of connection, disability in higher ed, and founding things that matter.

Welcome to The Agile Academic - a podcast for women in and around higher education. In each episode, we tackle topics from career vitality to burnout and everything in between. Join me as I chat with inspiring women about their experiences pursuing purpose, making change, and driving culture in the academy and beyond. I’m your host, Dr. Rebecca Pope-Ruark.

Rebecca Pope-Ruark: Thanks for being on the show, Stephanie. 

Stephanie Cawthon: Well, thank you so much for having me. 

RPR: I'm really excited to talk to you today. So why don't you tell the audience just a little bit about yourself and the work that you do? 

SC: So, I always like to say that I have many hats that I wear in inside academia and outside of that space and within the academic realm. My role is officially that I am a faculty member in the Department of Educational Psychology, which is my primary appointment. I have a courtesy appointment in addition to that, um, in the Department of Special Education. So I serve in both spaces. The second thing people typically ask me is, what do you teach? And so right now I'm teaching a course related to disability and culture. Uh, and it's really the goal is that I can teach the, any, anyone at the university, at any level. It's not specific to one department or only an education student. It really goes across the different colleges. And anyone can take that course, which is really interesting to see a mix of students within that space in that class. 

And then another thing that I do is a lot of service. Right now, I'm old and old people need to serve. So that's what I'm busy doing. I'm a graduate student advisor. And my responsibility there is in the graduate program, in the master's degree or doctoral students, as they move through those programs, mental health issues, uh, courses that they need to take degree completion, there's really a lot of, uh, paperwork and policy development and also resources and just how to best support students in their journey. And so right now I'm seeing a lot of students who are struggling, and I feel like that's really a critical piece of my work and to really take care of those students. And I also have a lot of service through different organizations. I'm on multiple boards and, uh, technical advisory committees, different issues related to access and assessments is typically where I spend my time. So those are my hats. There's a lot of them. And that's kinda how I spend my time right now. 

RPR: Great. Thank you for sharing that and for, for the important work that you do for your institution and for higher education writ large as well. So on the show, I like to really kind of jump in and focus on four areas that I think are the kind of best pieces of higher education, purpose, compassion, connection, and balance. So what would you say your purpose in higher education is 

SC: About those four words? The one that really gets me to my purpose is building connection and relationships. I think about building those connections in three different ways. The first of which is creating a space for people to connect with themselves. Everyone needs that. All people involved in higher eds needs to be con, need to be connected to themselves and their journey and how they're taking that journey on an individual level. 

The second thing is connection to the content or ideas and concepts, theories, data. I'm a researcher by nature, and so that is super important to me and I can't forget about the research ever. And then the third piece for me is really how think about, think about what we're doing, um, in terms of building off of a historical perspective and new ideas and how we can relate to and connect to that. And I'm all, I'm including administration when, when I speak of this because it's everyone in higher ed and these are new concepts and we're all learning. 

And then also connection to other people and in the community. And that definition is really broad. It could be other people within the university. For me it's the University of Texas at Austin. And, but also other people just outside of those spaces, different audiences or stakeholders, uh, when you're presenting, it goes out. That information goes out to a lot of different people and a lot engage in a lot of different perspectives. And so just engaging in each thing that I do, it's really those things. It's engage with self, content, and others, and it's always intentional for me, each meeting agenda that I plan or propose when I develop a course, a policy recommendation, any social media post that I'm involved with, it's always those three things that I try to cover. And that's really what drives me in any of those spaces. 

RPR: I hear a lot from faculty these days that connection is a big challenge. Whether that's connecting to your students, that's connecting to your colleagues post covid, as much as we could call it post covid, that there's still kind of gaps and we're still missing each other in different ways. So how do you see that playing out in your community? 

SC: I definitely see it and, uh, I do not believe that we are finished with the impacts of COVID by any stretch. Graduate students, especially here, you know, they're here for years and years, right? Six years, sometimes seven, eight years. And those two years impacted them and each in a different way is what I'm seeing. And it's harder to set up face-to-face opportunities for interactions. People are still hesitant or just tired. I think a lot of folks are just literally exhausted. Um, and those are some long lasting impacts. And so I think that's key. It's energy levels and trying to capitalize on the energy efficiency as best we can without overwhelming people. And time management is harder, I think, and opportunities for really being intentional with our time. And when you're inviting people to face-to-face meetings, what, what's the intention behind that? What's the why? I think we can't just call a meeting anymore just for the sake of a meeting. 

I don't feel like it's like that. Just like students engaging in activities. I think we need to think through why we are asking people to do the thing, because time is not available in the same way as it was pre covid. Our, our energy levels are no longer the same. I think our energy levels are really depleted still. Time feels exhausting now. And so I think people first it is important. And just thinking about that now, online learning is huge and it's still an important consideration. When we got to Covid, being online was not planned. Uh, we were not prepared. That structure was not put in place. So we're still playing catch up, I feel like, um, most of us. And then, but then the question in terms of how to do a hybrid course or a space that's, that's still elusive. But I also believe that we're not going back to pre covid times in terms of classroom settings. 

We have arrived in a new era and it's, it was definitely affected by Covid and having to go online, um, without another choice. So for example, Texas has some weather issues. Sometimes we had ice <laugh> that was rare and it, but it was a two week situation where we had no power. So then, okay, what do we do with students in terms of flexibility, our syllabus, uh, you can't drive to campus now, what do your timelines look like? So I do feel like jumping headlong into Covid and how we were gonna manage classrooms and scheduling is really, is still affecting us, but it's got us thinking about how we're gonna do it and what that looks like. 

RPR: Yeah. Things that we needed to be thinking about, but we weren't at the time, right? We were very taken, taken by surprise by what happened. And we're still, as you said, dealing with those consequences. And what does that look like? And I think it's true among colleagues as well. How do we, how are we connecting to our colleagues in ways that used to be very common by bumping into each other in the hallway or seeing each other for coffee? Those are very intentional decisions now, right? If I'm going to be in the office and in the hallway, if I'm going to ask someone to, to go to lunch or to go to coffee, those are, those are definitely more, take, more intention than they had in the past. 

SC: For sure. For sure. And people are counting time and hours in very different ways. Everyone, we now wanna weigh the cost or the benefit for the effort it takes to do things. Mm-hmm. These days. I, I just think it's a different perspective. 

RPR: Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, you do extensive work around disability access and ableism. So can you tell the audience a little bit more about where that passion comes from and how it impacts your perspective on higher education? 

SC: I am deaf myself. I grew up before the laws protected disabled people. And so I have firsthand experience of what it looks like without support, with no structure, with no, you name it, comments from faculty are always, uh, kind of have a negative bias. That was my experience, right? A negative connotation about disability. So I have direct personal experience in that arena, but it's really interesting. Um, my research started with the language development and what happens with language development and how is it different than a typical acquisition, not bad, but different, but, and how do we d understand that development? So my background is really in human development and how people become grown folks, right? How, how do we grow up? How do we learn the things? And so I'm very personally connected with the disabled community for sure. And then, but that's part of diversity. 

And then what does that mean to any or all of us? You know, one in five people at any given time has a disability, but the gaps are huge. Even in this research, in our understanding, we don't typically think about disabled people within diversity. That's not always our first thought. So how do we design and figure out educational environments with really acknowledging and recognizing, addressing those gaps? And so for me, it's huge. That has just grown so much for me over time, within the 20 years, the evolution and changes that I've seen. The underlining key though is, has been the same and those gaps. And how are we addressing those? 

RPR: What are some of the big culture shifts that you have seen that you think are important for us to recognize and continue? 

SC: That's interesting. That comes up in fact, last week in a presentation to health communications people at the university, people who are involved in healthcare. Someone asked me, I had given the presentation, and they said, so they asked me, okay, people with disabilities as a phrase versus disabled people, most people in their room had similar characteristics, maybe older, in their forties and fifties, much like myself, they were white and did not experience a disability typically. That that is sort of what the room held that day. And it really felt like disabled people. They were like, uh, they're not uncomfortable. They were very uncomfortable using that phrase, disabled people. So I reminded them. Young people have a very different approach to identity. They're more accepting, more clearly defining things and more direct saying, my identity is that I am a disabled person. Don't take that from me. 

So if I say I am a disabled person, that's the end of the sentence. And your opinion, like as a person from the outside looking in, kind of doesn't matter. And so generations are really different in terms of how they feel about that phrasing. Academic language will still be based on the legal ease, the legal language, people with disability, person first language. But if you're out in the community in that space, it's often quite different. And if you're speaking directly to a student, an undergrad student, a young person, I feel like we, it's very important that we are mindful of their own disability and how they identify how they phrase it, and then honor that. 

RPR: What are some important changes that we need to make in the culture of higher, higher education to be less ableist and to be more accessible? 

SC: So that basic question was the goal of a recent project for me with Microsoft, Microsoft technology funded, uh, project called, it's a Collaborative for Access and Equity, again, teaming with Microsoft. And really the foundation of how to identify what needs to happen in higher ed was, was the premise of said project. And the process was so important. It was really nice to have a checklist. We, we had checklists. Those are great. That wasn't the point. That was sort of an outcome. It was a strategy of how to get there. Going back to the basics, as we found what was so important is to ga engage with disabled students, staff, faculty, the people within the i r ed on your campus who have disabilities. Give them the power. Let them lead and, and drive those conversations. Don't start with the legal piece and, and the min the basic minimum, right? 

Oh, we have to, we have to start with the legal requirements. I beg you to not start there. We need to grow to be successful and to achieve our goals, start with the people. That's a different question. That's a different approach. And so having people with disabilities lead is absolutely critical. That's key. And then the second thing I would say is not to ask the cost. Don't lead with that. Don't, don't, don't bring that in early on. Later, for sure. I have a budget. Everybody's got a budget, we've got a plan. We have to be fiscally responsible. Please do talk about it. But not right off the bat. If we start with the cost and say, well, only if we've met the minimum requirement, we're good. That's not setting anyone up for the goal of success or equity, which is really meant to be the intention. 

We need to figure out how, what we need to do, what the needs are. And we'll talk about the budget later. We can work that out with other initiatives, other projects and programs on campus. There are hundreds of ways to help students and faculty succeed that we can kind of bring those things in. But often what you'll see is people start with the cost, which is super frustrating because that attitude is really hard to get around, and it really negatively impacts the culture of the people who experience disabilities in those spaces. The third thing I would say is to recognize identi and identify, identify disabled people in a positive way. Often as a faculty person, you know, see student with disability, with a disability, they are requesting an accommodation and it will be viewed as well. They wanna cheat, they want to have an advantage, they're cheating. 

This is the issue. That's the first concern. Versus, oh, you've requested an accommodation. Ah, let me take a look at the design of my course. I'd like to provide access for all. Let's make that an equitable experience on the front side. Let me improve the design of my course. That's a great way to approach that versus, oh, you're, you, you want an advantage, you're gonna cheat. Ma. That is a wildly different approach to that same piece, the access. And then lastly, sure. Have a checklist. It's good that, yeah, I have an example for you, like, uh, it's kind of on a basic level, you know, get a pdf. Those documents are not often accessible. They're labeled that you can't really change them. Libraries often have to, uh, get involved to, so to find an accessible pdf, d f or how to make it more accessible. 

So you've gotta, you, but you gotta partner with people, right? You can't do it alone. And I know faculty often feel isolated when trying to make these accommodations, but if we can get folks outta their silos, get together, figure out the issues, and fix them on a more global scale, I think that, that, that would help, um, access and accommodations. And also if you can just kind of embed these things in what faculty do. For example, when I'm teaching and doing student evaluations, rarely is there a question about access on set evaluations. If there's less access, they don't review that. But people talk about the teaching. It doesn't really see, people don't really seem interested in accessible teaching practices or high quality in that arena. So how can we embed that in our evaluation process to make sure access is in the forefront of our minds, right? To how faculty are, are evaluated by students, by their peers, by their department chairs. Let's put access in there. If there's a question about that, I think it's gonna help show that it's a priority for the institution at large. If we put that in, even into a basic level, like I say, an evaluation at that question, it gets us all thinking about it on every level. 

RPR: Thanks so much for those practical tips, I think so much to possibly dig into. But that, that last piece about really thinking about where we're adding those questions so that we can make them part of the ch the, the, just the typical process makes so much sense. So thank you for sharing those perspectives. I wanna shift gears just a little bit, not too much, but I'm curious in terms of, I like to ask people about what your, what your values are, and I'm curious how your values show up in the work that you do. 

SC: My values are really related to people's success and building spaces. I intentionally build spaces for other people to grow. I mean, that's just me from the beginning. And, and so I, I don't know why, but, but that is, that is me. And so the University of Texas at Austin has some resources to support that. It's a research based institution, so they really support, uh, the research. And that's an important way for me to maybe debunk some myths that, that surround disability, uh, with evidence-based practices. It's not an opinion. It's evidence and research based. And so that's very critical for me to have that and have some more concrete things versus just something that sounds good that I made up that day in my head. So I do appreciate that my li you know, living and working at a research-based institution is important. High quality writing and research and that type of evidence-based practice is really important to me. 

And, and I know that's a buzzword these days, evidence-based, but for me, evidence can mean a lot of different things. A personal experience, a story, an anecdote, an ex an example, numbers, statistics, and it's just a matter of learning how to use that. And then it's also a place to train the next generation of people how to do that. And that's important to me, supporting and training other people to follow their goals and also how it can impact their success. And undergraduate students, I'm able to live out those values in teaching in the classroom most often, but also researching and developing, uh, and even my personal development and those relationships with them, I, I think all faculty have interest in, in people and developing people and ideas. I mean, if not, I'm not actually sure what they're doing as a <laugh> in a higher education space, but, uh, I think systemic changes are, are good. It's hard to do. And academic institutions, um, much like any other ac uh, institutional organization, it, it's hard to make those shifts and changes, but we don't address barriers and systemic issues. We stay the same and we just keep repeating history. And so my goal is to create a way to do just that related to what people need and those gaps and filling in those gaps within the system to shift the systems and really, um, help people work within their abilities to make that happen. 

RPR: What are some of the ways that you're doing that? 

SC: I would say about five, maybe six years ago, I was the founding director of National Deaf Center for Post Secondary Outcomes. The federally funded center, uh, was the first time that the University of Texas had really built a center. And it was a $20 million grant. It was a lot of funding for us. I directed that with the purpose of shifting the focus to more audience centered work, uh, and also a place for deaf people to work themselves. It was accessible, it was culturally sensitive, culturally responsive, and a role model for young people. And again, it went back to evidence-based practice, which is, you know, years and years of work in that area. And we were finding that we were not represented and, and serving out in the field. So that center was meant to kind of bridge the gap. And so that was a recent really practical example. 

And then secondly, right now I am, uh, the co co-chair and founding person. You notice that founding is, is a word that comes up quite a bit. That, so I'm building things. I find things anywhere where, where I go, I found, I found them, I build them, and I'm on the, uh, Council for Disability and Equity for Faculty. And I'm a co-founder of that. Before we didn't have disabled faculty representation in terms of decision making for faculty issues, hiring, retention, evaluation, promotion, we weren't represented. And so now we've got a place where we're represented. And that role is very important when you consider what that means, um, in terms of ongoing faculty representation at a public institution specifically. So those are a handful of examples of things that I've done, um, in the recent past. 

RPR: Thank you so much for sharing that work that you're doing. I'm curious, one of the things I also like to talk about really is how we build vital careers in higher education. And I'm curious, what has your career trajectory been and how do you keep up or how do you keep and state keep a vital career? 

SC: That one, that can become maybe a little tricky over time, because, so for me, I've been here 17 years, it feels like really brief in an academic setting, right? I feel young academically speaking other fields, companies, businesses, that would've been forever, right? Oh, you've been there 17 years, who knew? But here, it feels normal. And not just that, but like, kind of short and early. It's like, I'm arriving just now, you know, and I'm, I'm in an administrative role. So vital is, you know, sticking around for quite a while and long-term employment and, and staying in those spaces a long time is critical. I think the thing that helps me to have some resiliency from negative and or toxic attitudes and comments, it may be unintentional, but there have been some things specifically related to disability over the years. I've had people directly tell me, if you want to be successful in academia, don't do things related to disability. 

And so for me, I'm like, okay, then now what? So, uh, trying to overcome that with, you know, triple the funding. I've got triple the publications, you know, I, I would now be considered an overachiever. So showing people proof that I was worthwhile, I was worth it by doing triple the work. That's not sustainable obviously, right? So vital for me was proving myself in the first 10 years and now the second decade is building things, creating things. So now that's what I'm doing. I know I can, and I will, that's where I'm at now for the future. I feel like maybe learning from those experiences, it might be a different shift in the future. It's hard to predict. So I, I guess we'll see where I'm going. 

RPR: How do you share your work with the, with the public? How can higher ed at large find your work? 

SC: I, I intentionally built a website for myself about five years ago. The website that we have at the university is not very robust. It's kind of brief. And I felt like I needed more because my work was impacting multiple different groups and stakeholders outside of academia. So I built my website for more public consumption. I've got a blog I still post every two weeks on. I've got a newsletter that I send out monthly. That newsletter is really important for me to build those relationships with people outside of academia. I have a heavy LinkedIn presence. I post every day and I miss my academic colleagues. I wish they were there with me more. I'm like, Hey, where are my people on LinkedIn? I see some on Twitter, but that's not real content focused or specific. Whereas LinkedIn and maybe some other places, that is, there's a lot of benefit for faculty, uh, that I think they might be missing out on. Cuz there, there's not a lot on LinkedIn. So this is kind of a call for my people to, to engage and, and, um, to chat there. Um, another thing that I try to do is my students, I give them their, you know, second, third year graduate students. I give them a website to design. It's an assignment and they do, it's a personal design, personally design, they name it. I encourage them to really build their brand, their identity online to kind of expand the community of academia to get out there while they're training with me. This is what we're doing, this is what you're gonna have, you're gonna be out in the world. And so I kind of stay out in the world through my graduate students as well. So I of, that's how I extend my influence, I guess. Yeah, 

RPR: We'll be sure to link to those in the show notes so that folks have access to that and can follow your blog and your newsletter. So thank you for sharing. So one last question, and this is a question that I like to ask every one of my guests. Um, uh, the primary audience for the, for the podcast is women in and around higher education. So what's one thing you wish all women in or around higher education knew or practiced? 

SC: I may maybe to provide two answers to that one question. <laugh>, one thing I wish we didn't have to say it, but we still do have to say often is like some, how we can best figure out how to express ourselves, our thoughts and emotions in meetings in a professional space. I struggle to this day with that very thing. So us just even having to think so much about it and give it so much energy and how can I show my whole self within a professional space or a meeting. I think really thinking that through is one thing and, and I wish I didn't have to say it. I wish we didn't have to, but that is one thing. It's, it's still there. We, we need to, to think about that. And the second thing is really about finding your mentor again. You know, I feel like that's a common theme. Find your people, find a good mentor. Do, don't do things in isolation. Don't do things alone. Maybe not even at your institution. Find someone at a different university. I don't know that it necessarily has to be a faculty member where you work, but find your people that you can get together, gather your troops, have a conversation with, and really walk through things. I think that's key. I think that's key. 

RPR: Well, thank you so much for chatting me with me today. Stephanie. It's been lovely to get to know you a little bit and know about your work. I also wanna thank your interpreters, Amanda and Liz for being here with us and allowing this conversation to be really, um, really beneficial and successful. So thank you so much for your time today. 

SC: Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it.

Thanks for listening to this episode of The Agile Academic podcast for women in and around higher ed. I hope you enjoyed this conversation as much as I did. To make sure you don’t miss an episode, follow the show on Apple, Google, or Spotify podcasting apps, and be sure to leave a review. You’ll find each episode, a transcript, and show notes at theagileacademic.buzzsprout.com.

Take care, and stay well.