The Latest: We are the Champions 🌟
👋 Welcome to the March 2023 issue of The Latest, which thinks “March Madness” describes much more than basketball right now. 🥴
This month’s newsletter is 742 words — about a 4-minute read.
👉 The Main Takeaway: Champion a Meeting Mindset Shift
I recently had the opportunity to co-present at the Columbia University DEIJ Symposium, where it was great to see DEI spaces include disability.
My main takeaway from the experience was their eagerness to do meetings and events better — and how that must begin as a mindset shift.
When planning a meeting, the default RSVP often says, "Let us know what your disability-related needs are.” That's a lot of burden on the disabled person to make access happen.
Remember: Most people do not disclose their disability. Try this instead:
This event is… Describe the time, format, and resources.
We will have… List the accessibility options you will make standard.
Then ask… What would help you participate fully?
This is welcoming and proactive, focused on equal participation, not on the disability category.
Make accessibility transparent and intentional if it is a priority to you and your organization. Here are five more ways to do that with your events, conferences, and meetings:
Focusing on diversity? Include disability.
Showing a video? Include edited captions.
Providing presentation guidelines? Include accessibility details and FAQs.
Forming a planning team? Include accessibility and disabled expertise.
Inviting a keynote speaker? Include disabled and intersectional perspectives.
Access for all!
📚 The Urgent Life
I highly recommend a new addition to my bookshelf: The Urgent Life: My Story of Love, Loss, and Survival by Bozoma Saint John.
It’s a deep dive into the complexity of relationships and how we are who we are.
🧐 What Is Your Relationship to Disability?
That’s the question I asked in a recent poll of my LinkedIn followers as I seek to learn more about general perspectives on disability for the book I am writing.
We each come to disability with a different lens. This poll was a reminder of how that contributes to our experience.
A whopping 72% of the 85 respondents said that disability was part of their personal experience — a reflection of its overwhelming impact on our daily lives.
“Part of my job” and “part of my family” were tied with 11% of the votes, and 7% selected “other” — with the unanimous comment that it was because “all of the above” was not an option!
🌀 The Wrap-Up
🙏 Accessibility Champion: I am so honored to receive this recognition from UT Austin — especially because it came from a student nomination.
💡 The Data Mine: I’m also thrilled to be doing the evaluation and advising an innovative data analytics project at Purdue University that will include deaf students in their large-scale data learning community. The evaluation will be similar in many ways to our Collaborative for Access & Equity, with surveys, focus groups, and a report to show evidence, feature team spotlights, and tell the story of them and their grant.
▶️ Press Play: I just posted a few short videos on my YouTube channel — Disability Tax and Grow Together — that are overviews of some popular concepts I’ve recently shared on LinkedIn. They are presented in ASL with voiceover and English captions. Check them out!
☕️ And Finally…
I was having a conversation with a wise woman. We were talking about time scarcity.
It feels like there’s never enough time.
We Americans are especially starved for quality time that is nourishing and restorative. Here’s what she shared:
Find the time between the time.
Yes, we can block off those big chunks of dedicated time. If you’re like me, an hour once a week isn’t sustainable. Nor is it a week twice a year. I also need the little moments that make a day whole and not just exhausting.
How I found the time? A quick text to a friend after responding to an urgent email. An extra break outside to breathe deeply before doing laundry. A glass of water before diving into the next thing on the to-do list.
Short rests make the hamster wheel seem less daunting.
Close-up of a white cappuccino cup on a wood grain table. Coffee foam has a small white heart.