Agile Academic Podcast Interviews Cawthon on Disability Advocacy

The Agile Academic, a podcast for women in higher education hosted by Dr. Rebecca Pope-Ruark, invited Dr. Stephanie Cawthon for a conversation about disability advocacy, the importance of connection, and establishing initiatives that have an impact. 

Tune In

The episode is online with a transcript and is also on Apple podcasts. Dr. Cawthon used American Sign Language (ASL) for the interview and was joined by her ASL interpreter, Amanda Ford Katz, whose voice listeners hear in the audio. 

Finding Purpose in Connection  

When asked by Dr. Pope-Ruarkin what is the focus of her purpose in higher education — compassion, connection, or balance — Dr. Cawthon responded:   

Of those, my purpose is building connections 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 education need to be connected to themselves and their journey and how they're taking that journey on an individual level. 

The second thing is a connection to the content — ideas and concepts, theories, data. I'm a researcher by nature, 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 to think about building off of a historical perspective and new ideas and how we can relate to and connect to that. And I'm including administration when I speak of this because it's everyone in higher ed, and these are new concepts, and we're all learning. 

[It’s] also a connection to other people and in the community. And that definition is really broad. It could be other people within the university, which for me is The University of Texas at Austin. But it’s also other people just outside of those spaces, different audiences or stakeholders, like when you're presenting [at a conference]. That information goes out to a lot of different people, and [they engage with] a lot of different perspectives. 

It's engaging with self, content, and others, and it's always intentional for me — each meeting agenda that I plan, or when I develop a course, or [propose] a policy recommendation, or any social media post that [I write] — it's always those three things that I try to cover. And that's really what drives me in any of those spaces. 

Dr. Pope-Ruark is the director of the Office of Faculty Professional Development at the Georgia Institute of Technology. She is the author of Unraveling Faculty Burnout: Pathways to Reckoning and Renewal and Agile Faculty: Practical Strategies for Managing Research, Service, and Teaching. 

Visit the Media Room for more insights and interviews with Dr. Cawthon.