STEM Education Social Hour – Disability in STEM

How can we as faculty/staff members increase access in courses for students with a variety of embodiments?  How do we think about disability as an underrepresented identity in STEM?  How do we find new approaches to representing disability in STEM?  How do we recognize and address ableism in STEM?  How can disability be a generative source of new ideas for pedagogy?  Join us to discuss and share challenges, advances, and best practices in science education with respect to disability and STEM with disability studies scholar Dr. Ann Fox (ENG).

No preparation is required, though STEM faculty/staff members are encouraged to reflect on these prompts in advance:

• How can we minimize ableism in the language/terms we select?
  (example: referring to CREs rather than CUREs for course-based (undergraduate) research experiences)
• How can we demonstrate that disability history intersects with STEM history and knowledge?
  (examples: environmental justice aligns with disability justice; How might we point out the prior presumptions about “abnormality” and “cure” undergirding outmoded medical treatments?)
• How have we create more accessible pedagogies, both in lectures & lab/field work?
  (example: avoiding diagrams that assume all viewers can distinguish red and green)

Refreshments will be served.

Contact Debbie Thurtle-Schmidt (dethurtleschmidt@davidson.edu), Ann Fox (anfox@davidson.edu), and/or Barbara Lom (balom@davidson.edu) for more information.

Links to handouts: