Access to Advancement, Part 1: DO-IT
Allison Dunne: The University of Washington-based programs that make up DO-IT offer more than just academic studies in STEM, or science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. They work at instilling self-advocacy, and provide mentors and role models.
Emily Horwitz: DO-IT doesn't just do academics. DO-IT stresses becoming self-sufficient, independent, and an individual.
Allison Dunne: That was Emily Horwitz, who is a Phase Two DO-IT scholar. The DO-IT Scholars' programs are for high-school students with disabilities. She's already been through Phase One, and Phase Two requires that she attend a second summer study session at the University of Washington, for one week, and complete projects. She says DO-IT has been instrumental in helping her to gain confidence, and put her self-doubt in the past. This also was the case for former DO-IT scholar Jessie Schulman.
Jessie Shulman: It was really important for me as a participant because it was the first time that I was in a group, a peer group with people who had disabilities, that it was a setting in which I could talk openly about it. I didn't feel that way in my high school - it was sort of a taboo topic. So it was really, it was really great to just be in a group of people who had similar academic issues that I did, whether it be the same disability or not.
Allison Dunne: Shulman is now one of DO-IT's mentors, and Dr. Sheryl Burgstahler, who founded DO-IT with a National Science Foundation grant, says DO-IT makes a difference when it comes to mentoring.
Sheryl Burgstahler: We found that the most important mentors, the ones that students listen to the most, are ones that are just a year or two older, maybe up to five years. So we provide peer mentors, we call them, or near-peers, where they're just a little bit older. They're actually people in the project that are now growing up, and they've moved on to college, and maybe they started the program when they were in high school.
Allison Dunne: Jessie Shulman says it is incredibly important for women with disabilities going into STEM to have a mentor. And in DO-IT there is a lot of online mentoring. She says the in-person mentoring is for a short period of time - during the summer study sessions - but the glue is the online communities, and online chatting, which she describes:
Jessie Shulman: DO-IT has these discussion lists, and so I can see when younger Scholars come on and ask questions - it's like, Wow, I was in their shoes, you know, five years ago, so it's really nice to be able to step in and offer some advice.
Allison Dunne: DO-IT, which stands for Disabilities, Opportunities, Internetworking, and Technology, began as an experimental project to increase the participation of students with disabilities in STEM fields at the post-secondary level and beyond. Now, several grants and more than fifteen years later, Dr. Burgstahler's experimental project has evolved into a multi-layered program, one that has, throughout these layers, what Jessie Shulman says is an important component.
Jessie Shulman: A big piece of the DO-IT program is self-advocacy. And you get to practice that a little bit in high school, and then you get to own it in college, and, I think, helping make that transition to the work environment is really important, being able to do that yourself.
Allison Dunne: Shulman, a Seattle resident, has ADD, now known as ADHD, or Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. She works at a bank, where she builds reports on data warehousing applications. And her undergraduate degree is in Informatics, a hybrid of computer science and information science. She received DO-IT's Trailblazer Award in 2005 for her work as an advocate and mentor for women with learning disabilities.
High school junior Yomara Bedolla was accepted to the Phase One DO-IT Scholars Program. Bedolla says she was one of about 20 students accepted out of the hundreds who'd applied, and she couldn't believe it. Phase One scholars live in dorms at the University of Washington for a two-week summer study session. And it was the first time Bedolla, who is the first generation in her family to speak English and, to be headed for college, had ever been away from her mom, and with a caregiver she hardly knew.YcxC4A
Yomara Bedolla: Like, I felt liberated from my parents, but I also missed them a lot. And I just thought, if I can make it on my own for ten days, then I can do anything.
Allison Dunne: Phase One scholars receive peer and mentor support, and computer help in exploring their academic and career interests. Writing and math are Bedolla's two favorite subjects at her Seattle area - Lynnwood High School. She says she does not see herself so much as a professional in math, or engineering. Yet she admits she's not aware of any mathematics careers apart from teaching, but said she is open to hearing about the options.
Yomara Bedolla: If I could do writing and math, that would be, like, my dream.
Allison Dunne: Dr. Burgstahler says not all of DO-IT's scholars enter the program already interested in science, technology, engineering, or mathematics.
Sheryl Burgstahler: We don't specifically, in the case of the Scholars, recruit students interested in STEM, because we want to get some students that aren't in STEM, maybe interested in STEM. How we do that is in the summer program we have a lot of hands-on activities that we design to be motivating. We have the students working together in teams many times where their disabilities complement one another. And so a student who is blind working with a student who is quadriplegic - both of them can see how they can perform heart surgery on a sheep heart together, and neither one would be able to do it alone. We emphasize how they need to focus on what they can do, not on what they can't do.
Allison Dunne: Bedolla has spinal muscular atrophy, which affects a person's ability to voluntarily move her muscles. As a result, she uses a power wheelchair for mobility. She says meeting other students with disabilities in DO-IT was important in helping her to see there is so much she can do.
Yomara Bedolla: There was a guy there that was, like, totally paralyzed, and he could type with a, I don't know what it was called - it was a technology thing where it was in his mouth and he would blow. And it's just like, amazing. Like, that guy is motivated to do that. I mean, I should be able to motivate myself to do more things as well.
Allison Dunne: DO-IT Phase Two Scholar Emily Horwitz, meanwhile, says she fell in love with science in eighth grade, but when she got to Vashon Island High School, in an outlying area of Seattle, she found herself struggling with science and math because of her learning disability. Horwitz has dyslexia, a learning disability in reading, and dysgraphia, a learning disability in writing. She says DO-IT has introduced her to technology to help her learn in a way appropriate for her disability. And, she says DO-IT just might help her realize the dream she has had since she was three - becoming an astronaut.
Emily Horwitz: DO-IT can set me up with an internship to do NASA, and, I'm just like, can I skip Phase Two and go to that internship now please? But, I'm going to stick it out in DO-IT, but that's what I really, really, was really am looking forward to, because I didn't know about the internships until I was already here, and then I picked up a piece of paper and went, you're kidding, please!
Allison Dunne: Horwitz does plan to attend college. And, as DO-IT founder, Dr. Sheryl Burgstahler, explains, DO-IT focuses on transitions, as well as the individual.
Sheryl Burgstahler: One thing that's somewhat unique about our program, you don't find it very often, is the longitudinal nature of it. And, looking at the statistics, you can see that students with disabilities have a tremendous failure rate from high school to community college, or high school to a four-year school. They just don't make that transition successful. And then between two-year schools and four-year schools, and from college to employment. So it's real clear in looking at the data that the transition periods are critical. And most programs don't deal with the transition; they deal with the situation once you get somewhere. So you might have a great disability services office, but you have to get to that campus, and get started, and find them. And so I thought there was a real need for a program that actually, in a sense, attaches itself to the kid, and moves through life with that person, rather than have different people coming in and out of the program.
Allison Dunne: Dr. Burgstahler says DO-IT works with community and four-year college students with disabilities who are interested in STEM, and can help them get internships, and be part of DO-IT's online mentoring community. Bellevue College - which recently dropped "Community" from its name, and where Emily Horwitz will attend - is one such DO-IT collaborator. Through an AccessSTEM grant from the National Science Foundation, DO-IT is working closely with Bellevue College in helping disability services on campus, and providing outreach, especially to instructors about how to help them best teach students with disabilities.
Anna Golden is a student there. She's pursuing her two-year degree in Information Systems. She says her college has a great Disabilities Resource Center, one that helps with accommodations, such as for her class for PC configuration and analysis.
Anna Golden: I don't know if you've noticed, I'm sitting in a different chair than you see in the rest of the classroom. And, I suffer from chronic pain, and so I have a very big difficulty with sitting for long periods of time because I'm in so much pain. And they bring me this chair so that I'm able to sit for two hours at a time and attend class. So I just go to them each quarter and tell them where my classes will be, and they put a chair there for me.
Allison Dunne: The chair has arm rests, a high back, and is adjustable. Golden has a college degree in broadcasting she received after her 1988 auto accident. She said broadcasting just really didn't do it for her, and she realized she did not have to pick a career based on what she thought she could not do. Now, she has a 4-point-0 grade-point average, tutors in the business technology systems lab, and has been invited to join Phi Theta Kappa - the honor society for two-year college students. And while she's proud of these accomplishments, she says there's been one really big breakthrough.
Anna Golden: It took me a long time to realize that I am the only person that can put limitations on me.
Allison Dunne: Seattle resident Patricia Walsh works at Microsoft Corporation. She'd once been involved in a DO-IT program called AccessSTEM - or, Alliance for Students with Disabilities in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. She took advantage of a research opportunity via AccessSTEM, having to do with tactile graphics - how engineering and other STEM subjects could be more tactile for people with low vision or who are blind. She credits AccessSTEM with helping her get to where she is today.
Patricia Walsh: AccessSTEM definitely gave me the opportunity to build some skill sets that I do use every day today, and to play a leadership role, and to acknowledge that my own voice, and my opinions, and my sense of self has value in a professional workplace.
Allison Dunne: Walsh, who is blind, received her degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science in 2005 from Oregon State University. She is now a program manager at Microsoft, where she started as an intern. She says she does face challenges in the workplace, and is able to resolve any issues herself with a one-on-one discussion.
Patricia Walsh: Often people will write on the white board and I have had experiences with people getting really frustrated with me for not following, or not keeping up. And, when 90 percent of the information is on the white board, it gets very problematic to just continue to speak up, and continue to say, like I still can't see what you're writing and you're still not saying it; you need to tell me, and just be really, really persistent. There are times when you do struggle with that, and there are times when you feel like you are the weakest link and you feel like you are not meeting the bar. It's just a matter of having that ability to regroup, and having that ability to come back and say, okay, I'm here. I worked hard to get here. I deserve to be here, and I am bringing something unique to the table that no one else can, even if there are situations that are harder for me than others, and even if there are some communication barriers.
Allison Dunne: Mylene Padolina is senior outreach manager in the Global Diversity & Inclusion Group at Microsoft. She says Microsoft works to reach out to potential employees early.
Mylene Padolina: We realize that pipeline development is very important, and that to have a diverse workplace, we need to reach out to young women, students of color, students with disabilities, as well as economically disadvantaged students, to make them aware of the possibilities within this field, and that it is something that they can be a part of.
Allison Dunne: As for DO-IT, Dr. Sheryl Burgstahler has a big hope, one she says will only be realized when a big attitude switch occurs outside the programs.
Sheryl Burgstahler: I would like to get to the day when someone says, Oh, this is great, we have a blind student in the chemistry class, instead of, what accommodations do we need to provide. And so that's the day that I'm working toward, we're working toward in DO-IT, when we celebrate the differences, and we see that bringing someone who has what we label as a disability can bring a new perspective and actually enhance that field with that new perspective. That'd be cool, wouldn't it?
Allison Dunne: For The Best of Our Knowledge, I'm Allison Dunne.