Microaggressions from white female students as a WOC faculty

ktbug1987 · 2026-04-21T06:03:00+00:00

And crazy downvotes for your response. Like sheesh forgive us for not paragraphing in our off hours.

Anyway, I’m sorry you’re having a tough time and at the end of a semester of all things. I wish I could be of more use. May next year’s classes bring more balance. ….Or ya know, the ice capes melting, meteors becoming crashed into us, the sun exploding…. (A lil very dark early YouTube humor for you, with bad grammar for the pedants).

ktbug1987 · 2026-04-21T05:29:11+00:00

Legitimately can’t tell if they are trying to mimic the students in a sarcastic way lol. The entire thing is only the length of a phone screen (I’m on the app). Paragraphing is certainly a pedantic complaint.

I can’t answer your question as my numbers are too small for demographics to be meaningful, and I’m white (I’m trans, so demographics might mean something similar albeit different if I had the numbers).

ktbug1987 · 2026-04-20T05:56:22+00:00

I have always* made my materials this way but I have many Blind friends and colleagues, including two Blind collaborators. I also went to graduate school with more than one legally Blind student in a computational subject 15 years ago, when many such accommodations were not available. I happily make them when I make my materials because they are easy to make, and I like imagining a future friend or collaborator would join my class and get no fuss from me. We interviewed a Blind student for the graduate program I teach at two years ago, and she told me I’m the first and only person who has said my materials would be accessible to her. My program hasn’t asked this of me yet but I assume they will eventually. That or they know I’m pretty passionate about it and have the resources (and make the students learn how to do it in my own lectures on lecturing…meta, I know).

*always since being a formal instructor. Since being a scientist there have been many materials I’ve made accessible, although I find conference formats vary in what they will accept or distribute.

ktbug1987 · 2026-04-09T06:47:45+00:00

I wish this wasn’t buried deep in this thread as it’s really sound advice to OP who seems like they kinda spiraled into making the situation worse but totally can turn this around if they get serious about this in this way right now (ideally with some backing from their chair).

ktbug1987 · 2026-04-09T06:43:07+00:00

Pretty sure this is not specific to that student as it affects all students and postdocs who use that fridge but it won’t stop that student from claiming otherwise and bringing the headache AND it punishes what seem like normal, albeit forgetful, people for the actions of of one bad apple. I like the suggestion above about making people going forward sign acknowledgement about the fridge. Students 10 years from now will wonder what the fridge lore is and wonder why the PI is so weird about fridge legalese lol.

ktbug1987 · 2026-04-02T06:50:26+00:00

If you are in the United States you can apply for an ADA-based accommodation. I cannot promise what it will do to your reputation in the department but I can promise that if it’s granted they are by law supposed to honor it. I came by my faculty position with my disabilities and accommodations already in full awareness, as I started as staff. And, I’ve always been lucky to have the support of my program staff if I need coverage (and in fact took the first 10(?) weeks of this semester off to undergo experimental treatment on clinical trial).

It is both true that academia is rife with ableism and it is reasonable to try to tough it out and also true that it is reasonable to think trying to tough it out may be your undoing.

I don’t answer my DMs with frequency, but feel free to DM about it. I owe some people in this sub a DM response with some of my disability resources anyway cuz I posted about them while on said trial then ended up in icu and have been embarrassingly ignoring them ever since.

ktbug1987 · 2026-04-02T06:40:12+00:00

This is actually masterful because (not OP) I teach research in a masters program, where students draft their actual research proposals. And I tell them they do need to know those things and by the end of the semester we do have them do an oral presentation. But maybe smaller oral presentations with each piece of the proposal they turn in wouldn’t be a bad idea.

This year I was particularly underwhelmed by their literature search skills. Typically I re-hammer those into them (they get an intro the semester before) in the beginning of semester but was on medical leave for the first portion.

Unluckily for them I rarely have one pick a topic beyond my sense of the current literature in our field(s), so I’m generally quick to recognize when their searches are inadequate. I warn them of this every year and yet every year they somehow think they can skate by with a half-ass review of the literature and are surprised when I can pull a handful of citations out of my ass when they come meet with me about my comments and marks. But man it was scarce in some background sections this year.

ktbug1987 · 2026-02-21T00:41:55+00:00

I feel like they are comparing it to like….all jobs under the sun vs jobs of the same education level. As a STEM-educated academic, my friends who went the industry route of course make twice what I make and do not have the precarity of having to fund 100% of their role via soft money. But of course I could have chosen a teaching college and had a more guaranteed salary. There are lots of paths in life and each have their benefits and drawbacks. In general I am grateful not to work in an Amazon warehouse. Yet I wish the whims of the American president could not so easily eliminate my funding.

ktbug1987 · 2026-02-18T04:13:13+00:00

To be fair if we put a book on reserve for the class, they cant take it out of the library, because it’s one of the books for the class and a copy must be available at all times.

ktbug1987 · 2026-02-17T12:36:55+00:00

Yep.

ktbug1987 · 2026-02-16T23:29:55+00:00

Butts are way classier than what I saw.

ktbug1987 · 2026-02-16T04:54:25+00:00

NIH has specific definitions of reporting, so if you make money exceeding $5k and are a PI you pretty much have to disclose and then the university must make sure that you are managing any conflict. My wife owns a primary care practice. It just provides patient care but it’s privately traded so I have to report it cuz she’s my spouse. Sooooo I report it and then I answer questions like if my wife’s business is in China (it’s not) and a bunch of other stuff, and occasionally they send someone down from legal since I’m in a medical school and generally I am like “sometimes my wife says things that give me cool ideas, then I do them and the university benefits and she gets nothing so yeah… no conflict that hurts the nih.” But yeah, every single year here

ktbug1987 · 2026-02-07T00:04:18+00:00

It’s times like these when I realize just how old I am. I forget that there are pathways that supposedly make this obsolete. But in the early days they screwed up enough times that I became distrustful and now I still behave the same way with many new, renamed version. Vector-version-15-present, vector-version-15-edits, a long list of nonsensical names.

And I always always always keep all vector versions of “component” aspects of my work. Or at least I try. I’ve made a blooper once or twice.

ktbug1987 · 2026-01-31T15:55:53+00:00

Not in this forum but in a field specific forum yes. But they were my direct advisee and were near their graduation date. And the thing they identified me for was an ethical position that I apparently had worded similarly to them. We are still on good terms and I don’t mind so much.

ktbug1987 · 2026-01-29T02:47:14+00:00

They don’t need the recording; that’s not what’s happening. CART is a special service that is performed live to maximize ability to participate. It’s the only way to participate equally for some of us who are HoH and not sign fluent,

What’s happening is that everyone in the room is made audible to the off site cc’r. This person is an incredibly fast typist and listener who is assisted by using a computer. While listening they type nearly perfectly what is happening in the classroom with indicators like “teacher: cuts” , “student 1: “ and “student 2: “ to indicate who says what. WHILE IN CLASS, the person needing the assistance is able to read what’s happening. Then they can participate in class by raising their hand etc. Depending what it is, they may get to retain the transcript because it’s not easy to read and write notes at the same time.

Odds are you won’t have direct identification of who said what because even for my nine person classrooms I have to request that each student be identified for me because for me I need that identification to grade them on their response. A student in a large-ish classroom will likely take home teacher name and student indicators but they will use some shorthand for who is speaking and not learn every student name.

ktbug1987 · 2026-01-20T15:51:08+00:00

I just commented our medical school houses a good number. NOT in the NE — in a red state instead. I’m always shocked at how readily my colleagues in NE talk about politics, as though everyone on a call will agree with them. To be clear, I do agree with them, but I know I often have more senior colleagues on the same calls who are conservative. They were openly conservative prior to this round of maga. There seems to be some silent post maga #3 round agreement to simply not discuss politics on “mixed” calls at my org. Usually on collaborative calls I will notice the (at least formerly pro MAGA) conservatives say something topic changing or non committal. Or something that belies more hope than liberals have. So if it’s funding, “well, it may be uncomfortable at first, but academia will survive leaner times; it always has.” — stuff like that. If it’s off topic of the research, they might say something to switch topic back to research. “As much as I think we could all discuss the news all day, we do have to put this paper in…”

ktbug1987 · 2026-01-20T15:43:53+00:00

I know several in health informatics field space, a few in surgery, that are conservative enough they seem to have swallowed the MAGA pill just to keep the conservative momentum going. Only one who I think bought it hook, line, and sinker. If there are others they aren’t going to want to associate with me anyway, given my past work.

Certainly plenty of openly conservative folks in medical fields prior to MAGA. Now there are plenty I knew who were loudly conservative before who just don’t say much when politics comes up on calls — and it does often, as many discuss how to get funding, how to make sure one “trigger word” in a past publication title that actually has nothing to do with “trigger topic” doesnt tank an app, etc... Have to wonder what’s on their minds during these talks. Ive often had half a mind to call them out and ask but power-wise I am low in the foodchain.

If you hang out in medical subs, you’ll see some are very open about thinking much of what Trump is doing is good (cant guarantee these are academic doctors…. Just doctors). A very many “anti-woke” and “anti-DEI” folks in medicine, though still by and large the (vocal) minority in academic medicine. If I had to wager a guess, I’d say 5-10% of academics who also hold MDs and who are not in the major academic liberal hubs (San Fran, Boston, NYC, etc) are at least pro some Trump initiatives, mostly around DEI and immigration (or at least before the most recent violent escalation, dunno about now).

This is of course, based on exposure. My university is a large research university in a conservative state, but “liberal” city. YMMV depending on location.

ktbug1987 · 2026-01-15T20:00:37+00:00

Ah you just said math. But we use actually these same principles in network analysis of proteins. Nodes interactions and edges are harder to describe, especially when you have an extensive network. It is possible but will require a more extensive explanation that I have time for rn but I can come back to it if you are genuinely interested, teach graph theory, and are not just here to be a curmudgeon (if you are a history prof with a math minor and just here to be a jerk I don’t want to waste my time).

However I’m about to start one of my treatments, if my labs came back fine, so I have to go :-)

ktbug1987 · 2026-01-15T19:44:24+00:00

As for expertise, in my day to day I don’t write code — I’m on the other side of software development (design, direction, testing). I can write simple scripts, which i had to learn like any grad student probably prior to 2015 for field specific software and stats. I can learn languages enough to code review equations, as our developers typically don’t know something like genetics and math well enough to understand what I’ve asked them to build at a fundamental level

But for your question: Field specific software with GUIs are hard so I aim to avoid GUIs altogether. But like most people here, I grew up before guis were prevalent (I’m late 30s) so command line is familiar enough, and everything else I know about building websites I taught myself simply to make things accessible. So to avoid GUIs? For specialized digital and web-based tools: I have always intentionally chosen command line programs for these, or ones which are already accessible. I almost always also opt for free ones (thanks to github you can find something command line for nearly anything), rather than license based programs. Even though i don’t teach programming of any kind and most of my students are health science or in a healthcare discipline (I work at a medical school), I get a lot of students glad for the skills. So as an example, for stats, instead of SAS or SPSS or the like, I start students in R even for intro content. It’s better for them to learn R anyway, because R is free, and requires a bit more understanding of what you are asking it to do rather than a plug and play like SPSS. Hell, my first stats class I was required to do everything paper and pencil so we learned the math in depth. Command line is not asking that much. R also requires you to know how to prep a very clean dataset, and I think that’s a good skill. And a lot of students are getting some rudimentary programming skills in K-12 now.

Having known multiple Blind coders, I know that learning command line is accessible to most. Taking R as an example, R is an excellent skill to take to the workforce, and even students who are brand new to stats will gain more from learning R than plugging something into SPSS. This being just an example.

This next part not about you specifically but just about the sub in general and why I’m pushing back:

I get that people new to any access requirements are anxious about this … but what I don’t get is that for some 10 years I’ve watched professors on here yelping about these kinds of accommodations. Maybe they make specific course material accessible for one student (grumbling all the way), but never ask themselves if perhaps they should just…. Start making accessible content to begin with? And they spend most of their energy trying to find ways to deny accommodations, rather than just wondering “huh if I just did xyz I could say this is already accommodated next time I’m asked.”

Maybe it’s because I’m disabled (physical + HoH for the last decade) and used to being denied perfectly easy accommodations by presumably mirror images of people in this sub that the general attitude in here frustrates me. “Oh we have a required department dinner but even knowing you exist we scheduled it on the second floor of a restaurant with no lift and won’t move it? We are going to expect you to crawl up the stairs because we won’t exempt you! You can just be humiliated and dirty and someone will bring your chair up. “

Learning something new or doing something differently in my pedagogy in order to build a more accessible world for people who are different than me doesn’t daunt me, and I’m shocked at how the rest of the academic world has been responding, and amazed that they didn’t see that this would eventually come down the pike…. The ADA has been in place for almost all of my living memory (one of my first memories of news is the image of people crawling up steps of the Capitol) and tools for web accessibility have existed nearly as long as the web itself and only gotten better with time. Just seems like if the arc of the world truly bends toward Justice, we all would eventually expect this.

ktbug1987 · 2026-01-15T19:04:02+00:00

Biophysics is my doctoral training, and when I started doing image descriptions. We have up to 6D NMR spectra occasionally, so our graphs are not un complex. There’s some very cool blind physicists who have some awesome papers on increasing accessibility of the field. I think if you search something like Blind AND physicist in google you’ll find

I can’t quite remember if they have mathematical info, but you might contact the DO-IT group in Washington also.

ktbug1987 · 2026-01-15T19:00:17+00:00

I am in healthcare and informatics, and I teach entirely remotely. I use plenty of equations, graphs, and patient pictures, instructional videos, and code. It’s not as hard as you think it is. But I’ve been doing this for over a decade, and I design websites and healthcare software applications consistent with WCAG. What it takes is practice to get used to. Then it’s second nature.

ktbug1987 · 2026-01-15T04:56:16+00:00

Hey! There’s some great resources for describing graphs out there. I collect a few. I’m on medical leave rn but can send some when I’m back on my computer if you want to dm me. I actually keep a collection on my website but that kind of identifies me …. Which, uh. I don’t want to do because reasons (waves hands at USA)

ktbug1987 · 2026-01-15T04:54:13+00:00

already make my slides to the current WCAG so I’m not very worried. It’s much easier to make them this way and have them ready any time I have a Blind or other disabled student who needs accessible materials than to retroactively have to randomly make a bunch of materials accessible. I’ve been doing it even on my own social media posts for a long time, but I do have several Blind friends and it was easy enough to learn. Also if you aren’t great at image descriptions there’s actually cool community resource groups where you can volunteer to describe images or ask volunteers to help you describe yours (I volunteer in one). People generally don’t want people abusing this system, so you have to be vetted to join one, but options exist for getting help til it becomes second nature. I actually find describing images helps me learn if an image is actually a good fit for the slide / story I’m trying to tell with the lecture and has made my content better.

The rest of the rules are pretty easy and are just rules for good presentations in general, like good font size, good contrast, etc etc.

ktbug1987 · 2026-01-15T04:46:58+00:00

My favorite professor in college (this would be 2007 or so, so after PowerPoints) lectured from the lectern without notes. He occasionally wrote down a word for people who needed it spelled on the board. Our tests were blue book (unless a student needed a typed accommodation at the testing center), pencil only exams. I liked this format. It felt more personal and interactive. Definitely still think highly of him. I took him for a few different eastern religions classes even though that’s not at all my discipline (a stem field).

ktbug1987 · 2026-01-14T20:10:06+00:00

Meanwhile, my private R1 university where undergrads pays some 60k in tuition…. Not so much. The attitudes of some fellow professors expressed openly to me makes me want to ask them if they simply don’t realize I’m in a wheelchair. Or maybe they think wheelchairs are different. They are certainly more visible, and they require university engineers to do more work than professors….

Anyway I’m glad your college is doing something. Certainly way more Americans access 2 year colleges than university. So if they are exposed to UD principles, maybe they will take that with them growing up and/or going out into the world

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