00:00:00:00 - 00:00:56:01 Unknown Awesome. So I'm really excited to welcome everybody today to this event, which is featuring Michelle Freed, Nora, Ruth Osorio and Victor Wong. And we're so glad that all of you could be here today. You'd think together with us as we offer welcoming remarks for this event. We're going to have slides in the background for a good portion of our discussion, and this current slide features the title of the event, as well as logos for the disco network, the Digital Studies Institute, and the Digital Accessible Futures Lab, which are event sponsors. 00:00:56:03 - 00:01:29:08 Unknown And while we're also waiting for others to join, we're going to just give a few guidelines for today's discussion. So first, if you have an access or technology related concern or question, you can direct message or chat. Giselle Mills, who is one of the co-hosts on Zoom. If you have a question, you can put it in the chat or if the Q&A feature is populating on your end, you can use that as well. 00:01:29:10 - 00:02:02:11 Unknown We do ask that just respect everybody's privacy on the call that folks don't record on their own or live tweet anything that we kind of keep things situated in this space. So at that, I'm going to temporarily turn the baton over to David Edelman. Hello, everyone. So we're going to begin with the land acknowledgment. The University of Michigan is built on the ancestral, traditional and contemporary land, but the rest of it becomes over. 00:02:02:11 - 00:02:35:07 Unknown Three fires, the Darling Ojibway and Boulder warming as well as the Wyandotte. Today we benefit from access to land and resources originally gained through a coercive treaty that was supposed to restore reciprocity, mutual respect and access to education. Disability justice necessarily includes dismantling settler colonialism and white supremacy. It means dismantling the racist and ableist belief that the white settler body mind is the most capable and valuable. 00:02:35:09 - 00:03:06:03 Unknown We also want to begin today by attending to access. We'd like to take a few moments to turn to access in this very difficult space. These communities as you are and feel free to enter and exit the space as you need to. You can access cart and real time captioning by clicking on the keeping the CC button at the bottom and you of zoom during the search scuffing later. 00:03:06:05 - 00:03:39:08 Unknown Those of you on zoom can enter your questions in the Q&A feature of the platform. This event has been organized by the Digital Accessible Futures Lab and discovered Network, which receives funding from the Moe bill and then the auction. The discourse stands for Digital Inquiry Speculation Collaboration and Optimism. The disco network integrates critical humanistic social science and artistic approaches to digital studies, advocating questions about the cultural implications of technology. 00:03:39:10 - 00:04:14:19 Unknown Do you envision a new anti-racist and driverless digital future? If you like, you can learn more about disco at disco network dot org or locate the digital network on Twitter as well. The Digital Accessible Futures Lab focuses on pressing issues at the intersection of disability liberation, techno idealism, neuro queer activism, and critical accessibility studies. Our URL is HTP, backslash, backslash, accessible features, dot net, and we will now transition to introducing today's wonderful speakers. 00:04:14:19 - 00:04:51:19 Unknown Thank you again. Hello. This is from me speaking again. So I have the really great pleasure of introducing our panelists. So first is Michelle Sweetener, who is a professor and chair in the Department of Comparative Human Development at the University of Chicago. Michelle is a medical anthropologist and works at the intersections of medical anthropology, science and technology studies, disability studies, deaf studies and sensory studies. 00:04:51:21 - 00:05:23:06 Unknown Her most recent book is Sensory Futures Deafness and Cochlear Implant Infrastructures, and she's excited to talk about the sensory and other infrastructures of academic conferences. And then the alt text for Michelle's headshot on the screen reads A middle aged white woman with reddish hair in a black jacket stands in front of a slightly fuzzy purple flowered tree, making a lopsided power pose. 00:05:23:08 - 00:05:56:04 Unknown Next is Ruth Osorio, who is an associate professor of English and women's and gender studies at Old Dominion University. Ruth is a feminist rhetorician who researches disability activism, critical access, literacies and feminist historiography. She has researched and participated in disability access advocacy at the Conference on College Composition and Communication, also known as the Forces and the Feminisms and Rhetoric Conference. 00:05:56:06 - 00:06:29:19 Unknown Outside of work, she's a trip leader for a large LGBTQ eye, a affirming Girl Scout troop in Norfolk. An avid reader of novels and a lover of nature. And then the art text for Ruth's headshot on the screen is a white, middle aged woman stands in front of a full bookshelf and smiles at someone off to the side and then next, we have one song, Victor Zhuang, who is an assistant professor in Disability Communication in the Wee Kim. 00:06:29:19 - 00:07:07:02 Unknown We school of Communication and Information at Nanyang Technical University, Singapore. Victor is a disability studies scholar working at the Intersections of disability, media, cultural and communication studies, and his research focuses on disability and inclusion in contemporary societies such as Singapore. He's also exploring questions of digital inclusion, in particular the socio technical imaginaries of disability in emerging tech and the intersections of sustainable futures and disability in smart cities. 00:07:07:04 - 00:07:41:17 Unknown And then the art text for Victor's headshot is an Asian presenting man with black hair, smiling at the camera. He is wearing a pair of metal rimmed spectacles and a gray sweater over a white collared shirt. So now I'm just going to briefly take a moment to describe the discussion format for today. So we're going to begin the roundtable discussion by posing a few questions, and panelists will take some time to respond and discuss with each other. 00:07:41:19 - 00:08:07:09 Unknown I should note that these questions were generated by students as well as early career faculty, and they're meant to get our conversation jump started. From there, we want to move to a broader conversation with all of you who are attending. So as we go, you can use the chat. If the Q&A feature is showing for you, you can use that as well to pose any questions you'd like the panelists to take up in conversation. 00:08:07:11 - 00:08:31:21 Unknown And we'll keep a record of what people are asking as we go, and we'll do our best to move through as many questions as we can in the allotted time. You can also use the chat to discuss and ask things with each other as well. So that for our first question, I'm going to turn things over to David and our panelists. 00:08:31:23 - 00:08:59:08 Unknown So thank you again. So our first question that I would like to pose for the panel and I'm very excited about this is how do you think about disability and accessibility in your work defined broadly. So, for example, activism, scholarship, creative work, teaching more community care. What are some ways of thinking about disability that have guided your practice, your work, your scholarship? 00:08:59:10 - 00:09:10:00 Unknown Thank you. 00:09:10:02 - 00:09:36:01 Unknown This is Ruth. Shall I go first? Okay. Hi, everybody. Good morning. I want to start just by thanking all of the, folks, the disco folks. I'm really excited to be here. I was meant to be at a disco talk in 2023, and I couldn't make it. And so this feels actually like very healing. And it's really great to be to be here today. 00:09:36:03 - 00:10:06:22 Unknown I love this first question. So my I would like to study and research and think about disability activism. And so a lot of my understanding of accessibility doesn't come from the legal realm or the educational realm, but instead how activists talk about themselves, their lived experiences and how they feel a sense of accessibility and that intimacy that me and Mingus talks about as well. 00:10:06:24 - 00:10:31:14 Unknown So I think of disability as a lived experience and a source of knowledge making and how that relates to conferences. I guess we'll talk about that soon, but is that conferences are such an exciting, generative space for people to come and share ideas and every one who has cool ideas should be able to share, and we all benefit when we can learn from each other. 00:10:31:16 - 00:11:02:11 Unknown I think about accessibility and disability through a lot of the lenses of the activist So city nothing about us without us, which is like a core mantra of disability rights. The idea that disabled people are the experts of what is accessibility, what is access, what their mind bodies need to feel, not just able to access a space, but also to participate in ways that they feel that everyone feels like they can participate in how they choose. 00:11:02:13 - 00:11:37:12 Unknown Whether that is engaging, observing, leading co-leading. So that's a big, big part of it. I also think about disability through an intersectional lens, and I think about it especially with expansive access at a conference that the forces which was mentioned earlier, that is the conference on College Composition and Communication, there was an issue in the 2024 conference in which Black Seeds members were racially profiled at the entrance. 00:11:37:14 - 00:12:19:19 Unknown And that to me is a accessibility issue because some people were not able to access the space in the same ways that their white counterparts were. And so thinking about bathroom access, which impacts disabled people, caregivers and trans and non-binary folks, so thinking about access, really intersectional and expansively, and I also going back to the activist, thinking about community care and collective care as ways to create access when our institutions fail, which they do. 00:12:19:21 - 00:12:59:00 Unknown So, okay, I'm Victor and thank you, Michelle. Go and take your group. I wanted to also start by acknowledging and thanking guys in labor that goes into making the conference possible. So going to be Gisele, Patricia, Debbie Chavis and that our commission to do so much work in getting and organizing and having captions and I mean this are just unseen labor and I think a lot of it that guides my thinking about how conferences can be accessible, how I think about disability. 00:12:59:00 - 00:13:25:02 Unknown My work is about labor, isn't it? And I'm saying this also because I recognize that at other times a lot of the organizing goes on behind the scenes, but we don't see it. But that's important to think about. So acknowledging that day, but acknowledging the care that goes into the labor right is important. And that is something that also takes my practice. 00:13:25:04 - 00:13:57:23 Unknown I think a lot of my own sort of thinking about disability comes from my own journey interaction with folks at that. At the Department of Human Development and Disability, at the University of Illinois, at Chicago, where I started my Ph.D. with then activist in 2017. And I acknowledge that when I started in the fall of 2017, I don't think I knew a lot about disability and accessibility and the ways that we are talking about now. 00:13:58:00 - 00:14:49:23 Unknown So I must trace that origin to the work I've done as a teaching assistant for an undergraduate course, which was tied to the 1 to 1 disability in US society, taught by Nicole Benjamin and also now connects Ski so that I've be and she knew me and Nicole and human and now Comiskey and alkyl and E, C and Y so we can now had done a complete redesign of the course and they attempted to center a disability in pedagogy for fall 2017 that you're joining and they've written an article published in the Journal of Teaching Disabilities Teaching Disability Studies, which I was shown, and they showed me. 00:14:50:04 - 00:15:20:16 Unknown So actually a lot of the fundamental thinking about disability and accessibility to my involvement with this course, which I was a part of for I think four semesters. And I think if there is one principle that I will hold to in thinking about accessibility in conferences and I'm sure that talk about that is that I would say that we shouldn't pretend to know everything, that accessibility shouldn't be standard that we aspire to. 00:15:20:18 - 00:15:57:08 Unknown It should be the baseline from which we all start from. So we need to be thinking about how we can move on from that baseline and be supportive, be accommodated, accessible, be open to folks access needs, and to talk about how we can resolve issues from there that let's talk about. Some of these issues are, in my experience, trying to organize international conferences, which brings in a whole different ballgame altogether. 00:15:57:10 - 00:16:30:23 Unknown Okay, should I go now? Okay. Thank you. It's so nice to follow Rick, who I known for a while from his days at UIC. And it's nice to meet you with and thank you so much to all the the the coordinators of this. And I also want to say I love the way that you guys started this, this webinar and this mentoring session in terms of like welcoming that, welcoming us to the space and about the access statement. 00:16:30:23 - 00:16:58:14 Unknown So thank you so much for that. So in terms of thinking about disability and accessibility in my work, so I work mostly as an anthropologist. I work in India and Pakistan. Most recently and you know, and I work with parents and I work with medical providers and speech and language therapists. And so it's really been interesting for me to think about how do I think about access in these spaces. 00:16:58:14 - 00:17:27:03 Unknown And something that I really like to think about is so, for example, I attended a conference as part of my work, so it was a conference on cochlear Implant and India. It was sponsored by the Cochlear Implant Group of India and I was the only deaf person at that conference. There were no other cochlear implant users and that conference was largely inaccessible to me. 00:17:27:03 - 00:17:52:21 Unknown And I'm saying it in quote in the center. I had no idea for the most part what people were saying during their panel presentation. I mean, if I sat in the front and looked at the PowerPoint and so on, I could follow. This was in 2018, so it was before our AI and those other devices were our other apps were quite sort of present. 00:17:52:23 - 00:18:25:01 Unknown And so and I thought a lot about, you know, what would happen if I brought an ASL interpreter or another interpreter to this conference. What kinds of access might be ruptured? If I brought the interpreter, what kind of access would be for clothes? And I decided, okay, fine, you know, I'm going to go to this conference. And, you know, I brought a student with me from New Chicago, and we would meet in between the presentations and compare notes, and I recorded some of the sessions and got them transcribed. 00:18:25:07 - 00:18:52:19 Unknown But this was a really interesting example of me foregoing access and perhaps to normative dissent in order to form other forms of access with people at the conference during the breaks and doing the reception, you know. And then there was another time when I went to a parent meeting for an organization, and this organization was a organization for deaf children that was profoundly, completely all. 00:18:52:19 - 00:19:15:22 Unknown They did not support or encourage the use of Indian sign language or any sign language at all. And I actually wanted to bring an interpreter to that event for me, you know. And so I went to the director of that organization and said, Can I bring an interpreter to the event? And he said, Yes, you can. But to be clear, that interpreter is only for you, not for anyone else, you know? 00:19:15:24 - 00:19:35:02 Unknown So I said, Fine, you know, and I brought the interpreter and this to me was a really interesting example of, okay, so I'm kind of sneaking in the interpreter and the parents who are at this workshop or at this meeting are going to see the interpreter. Maybe it'll plant a seed that there are other things that are possible, you know, for their kids. 00:19:35:04 - 00:20:04:16 Unknown So I feel like I think a lot about access, you know, access to myself and access for other people when I'm in the field on my last trip to Pakistan was my first and only and last trip to Pakistan in December, I did something which I really enjoyed, which was I actually because I had these meetings with who the influential people and and the in terms of deaf and hard of hearing health care and early intervention for deaf children. 00:20:04:18 - 00:20:33:09 Unknown And so I decided that I was going to ask the head of a deaf school in Karachi to go with to all of the meetings with me and to sort of tag team because he had an agenda, which I supported his agenda was to, you know, increase awareness and to increase resources going to Pakistani sign language. And so I brought him with me and we went to all the meetings together, and it was super fun actually, to tag team. 00:20:33:09 - 00:20:54:16 Unknown And I felt like, you know, I was able to, you know, help him also formulate relationship for people, which I really appreciated. So I think, you know, just to go to the question, you know, like, I feel like working in contacts in which the way that we think about accessibility in the US is not the norm is something that I often have to negotiate. 00:20:54:17 - 00:21:23:07 Unknown Like when do I foreground my own individual access, when do I background yet when do I make demands on research participant and organizations? When do I not? And again, this is all very much, you know, bundled up with the fact that I do have a listening and speaking privileges. You know, there are people and I've talked with other deaf researchers. 00:21:23:09 - 00:21:50:09 Unknown There are researchers who would not be able to do that, and that would not be an option for them. And I'm very aware of that. So, yeah, and that was a groundbreaking answer ever. Thank you. This is Remi speaking. No, not rambling at all. And thank you, Michelle, Vik and Ruth for kicking us off. So I am just going to pose question number two, which has a couple of different parts from participants. 00:21:50:11 - 00:22:28:03 Unknown So when it comes to presenting at conferences, what strategies have you used to create access? What suggestions do you have for those who are working to make their conference presentations more accessible? And how can we overall improve accessible in virtual conference spaces? So I'd be happy to start if that's okay, because I just finished a thank you. So first of all, I just want to say I hate conferences for the most part, and I have had lots of really terrible experiences with conferences starting from when I was a grad student. 00:22:28:09 - 00:23:03:03 Unknown I had lots and lots of fights, literal fights with MIT applied. So the Society for Applied Anthropology and the American Anthropological Association around providing access at conferences. And I think both companies have gotten better over time in terms of providing access. What's interesting is that the Triple A's, the American Anthropological Association, is now super top down and it's really cheeky and it's really interesting to to see who is actually doing the labor and who isn't. 00:23:03:05 - 00:23:30:24 Unknown And so, yeah, so I hate conferences and when I go to conferences, I do not have high expectations and I think of conferences as places to go and see people who I want to see and to make new connections. So I think of a conference very differently than as the conference is intended. You know, I was talking recently with a colleague and she's like, I really like to just pick new panels and go and sit in those panels and learn new things. 00:23:30:24 - 00:23:47:22 Unknown And I was like, Ha, that is not something that I've ever done at a conference. You know, I have to be very strategic about what panels I go to. I need to contact the panel with in advance, see if they're going to have access copies, you know, get there, get the access copies, sit in the front of the room. 00:23:47:22 - 00:24:18:19 Unknown You know, it takes a lot of work. And so instead, what I've been doing is I've been thinking, okay, who do I want to meet at this conference? What do I want to do? Who do I want to hang out with? You know, and it's not networking per say, because networking sounds really soulless and opportunistic to me, but it's more like using the space of this conference as an opportunity to make connections with people who I want, wanted to make connections with, and people who I've thought about meeting for a while, you know? 00:24:18:21 - 00:24:54:09 Unknown So for me, I do not approach a conference as a conference, you know, And I really do think that the constraints of traditional carpenters are such that make them inherently inaccessible. So my strategies are to not think of them as, you know, they're supposed to be used for. And then in terms of making spaces or conference facilitation more accessible, I think we need to radically rethink what we mean by presentation and quote, you know, in my discipline and anthropology, people tend to read papers and there's also, you know, a reason why people do that in terms of accessibility. 00:24:54:09 - 00:25:28:18 Unknown Just reading a paper can potentially be more accessible for the person reading it. If English isn't their first language, if they are experiencing other types of challenges or ways of engaging that don't, you know, go well with talking off the cuff, you know? But for me, you know, I really think we need to rethink what we do in a conference presentation and that that means not taking a chapter and trying to read it and mean not, you know, trying to do so much. 00:25:28:18 - 00:25:51:04 Unknown And I think it really means that we have to rethink about how we engage with people. So I have been trying really hard in my own work. A not to read be to be realistic about what it is that I can convey in that time and then see, you know, I think it's really important to approach the conference presentation as something that you do prepare for. 00:25:51:06 - 00:26:11:23 Unknown You know, there's a joke about how we sit on the plane and we write our talk. You know. But no, I really think that's deeply problematic. And we do need to do things where they're in advance, you know, in order to take it seriously, which I believe might be totally contradictory or totally contradicting what I said in my first part about not going to presentations. 00:26:11:23 - 00:26:40:05 Unknown But yeah, take our presentation seriously. And then in terms of virtual spaces, I think virtual spaces are often the most accessible spaces for me in terms of actual content representation in the sense that the speaker is right there. You know, we have at least audio captions. You know, they are manageable in a way. But then again, you know, they're not accessible in a lot of other ways in terms of engaging with people. 00:26:40:07 - 00:27:21:12 Unknown So, yeah, that was again, a rambling response. Yes, I hate conferences. Maybe I can go next to Michelle. There's a speaker speaking. So I thought we addressed the third part of the question, which is how can we improve accessibility in virtual conference spaces, more like hybrid and drawing from my experience, trying to organize a hybrid conference recently so that the International Communications Association for the past three years, 2020. 00:27:21:12 - 00:27:54:10 Unknown So for the past two years or so, a group of disability scholars have been trying to come together and try to organize around disability. And I see International Clubs Association. And so I've been delighted to be working with disability scholars. Jared Goggin, Katie Ellis, Alper Lewis, as you saw, that has a very as well maybe a group and many others. 00:27:54:12 - 00:28:37:09 Unknown And I think the challenge for us is that one I see is an international organization is it's a huge organization. It's more like 13, 15, 20 some organizations within one big umbrella organization, and the membership is from across the world. So when we decided to organize it on disability, we wanted to try to bring in disability principles of hybrid options for folks because, as I said, coming to the Gold Coast for this year's conference in June 2024 was going to be expensive to folks. 00:28:37:11 - 00:29:06:16 Unknown So so that was what we set up to do, right? We wanted to make it low cost accessible, but I think for us there was a lot of labor that went into trying to meet that and a lot of the credit must go to to graduate students. When she was at UC, well, Carol Ramos was at one of us that does some data. 00:29:06:18 - 00:29:33:17 Unknown I need to I check it out and I put it in the check. I'm so sorry for not getting up. So both of them look very hard to try to one find out once we got the participants radio, I'd for the free conference for that for the hybrid conference we went to folks and asked them to give the timezones that they were going to be presenting in if they were not going to be on the Gold Coast in person. 00:29:33:19 - 00:29:59:22 Unknown So we had, I think across 30 presenters, I think at last count nine different timezones that we had to juggle with. So basically it was a matter of starting folks in to the right time organizing, trying to ensure that folks were in present day at 2 a.m. in the morning, 5 a.m. in the morning will get that kind of day. 00:29:59:22 - 00:30:34:19 Unknown And when we really couldn't and had to schedule people at six and we offered folks the option of pre-recording and then just zooming in at the same time. So I think that's fundamental. Right. Checking in with people, making sure that people are engaged, meeting the access needs. And that is sort of key in improving accessibility in virtual office spaces, especially when you do with an international audience group. 00:30:34:23 - 00:31:03:10 Unknown Over to you. Thank you, Rick, This is Ruth. Hi. I approach this question in a couple of ways, and I think in some ways I'm going to be crabby contrarian, which very much suits my cheerful personality. Okay, So I want to I think just like very practically when I looked at this question, I was like, here are some best practices that I use when I am preparing for a conference. 00:31:03:12 - 00:31:30:13 Unknown Very much like the wonderful folks at Disco Modeled, I love an access invitation in the beginning of a panel to invite people to utilize the space and ways that feel nurturing for their mind body. And I think that's something that's I really like hearing that in virtual spaces, too. Even just the permission, like, Hey, you can turn off your video and I won't be offended or, you know, those kind of invitations to name it. 00:31:30:15 - 00:32:05:19 Unknown I do do access copies. And in fact, something I started giving myself permission for permission to do is to not make if I have limited time, focus on the access copy and not making a pretty slide. I used to feel like I had to have a really pretty slide show to go with it and then I found that to my attention being kind of divided between the two in person, always using mikes, describing visuals so as thinking about this in terms of just very practical elements. 00:32:05:24 - 00:32:30:15 Unknown But I also want to think about it more largely and speaking to some of the themes that Michelle brought up, which is, okay, I wrote it down because I like to jot down, so I'm putting up an index card with hearts and cursive messaging, and in order to explode the conference presentation, we need to explode larger notions of what counts as knowledge making. 00:32:30:21 - 00:32:53:04 Unknown And I'm sorry, this is going to be like my soapbox, but conferences are in this larger ecosystem of what counts as knowledge making. And so I think about this question about how to present, how to approach. It's going to be different for graduate students who are thinking about going on the job market, pre tenure, people who these are really high stakes situations. 00:32:53:04 - 00:33:30:16 Unknown And for people to feel comfortable to explode and create and be weird and divergent in these spaces, we also need to rethink about how we have conversations now that I now that I'm tenured as of July, when you're sitting on the hiring committee, are you thinking about creative works and personal writing and weird divergence of maybe presentations or performances in the same way that you're thinking about reading from a paper talks? 00:33:30:18 - 00:34:13:24 Unknown And I think until we do that work and also on the tenure committees as well, until we do that work of rethinking what counts as knowledge making, it can be risky to take these risks and the conference space. And so when we think about conferences there, there are specific and unique challenges. Market price, PR, I see talks about these as chaotic spaces where it's chaotic, it's k a i, r t, I see so chaotic spaces in that it may seem like it's informal, especially like in between sessions when you're just moving from one space to another. 00:34:14:01 - 00:34:39:22 Unknown But actually it's all high stakes because we are being in some ways it feels like observed by future colleagues, by future chairs and so on. So much of the work I feel like we have to do is to just just continue rethinking and what counts as knowledge in in academia. And I think that would help a lot in making it accessible. 00:34:39:24 - 00:35:04:11 Unknown And then also my other thing I like to I've been thinking a lot about is I do think there's an assumption that accessibility, virtual spaces are inherently more accessible. And I want to complicate that too. And it's for so many different reasons. For so many people, it is more accessible, especially financially. If you have limited travel funds or if you travel with a companion. 00:35:04:13 - 00:35:30:03 Unknown Travel in itself is an accessibility issue and virtual helps mitigate that. But on the other hand, there are other accessibility issues that come from the virtual experience. I have two young children at home, and so whenever there's a virtual conference, I don't have space to like go and actually like check in. I do have an office, but it's windowless. 00:35:30:03 - 00:36:00:01 Unknown And so I don't like to be in here for more than 2 hours because otherwise I get sad. So, you know, for me during those, you know, those days of virtual conferences, I'm so happy there was some way to engage during those lockdown and quarantine times. But at the same time, it was really hard for me to lock in and focus with the chaos of children who like just have so many needs. 00:36:00:01 - 00:36:25:03 Unknown They had so many. And so for me, actually physically going to another space helps a lot. And then also I have audio processing disorders. So conferences in general are just a challenge for me to hear the whole part of sitting and just listening. And so I really appreciate and this can be done virtually to access copies and different ways where I can more visually follow along. 00:36:25:03 - 00:36:57:23 Unknown So I have my captions on. I'm so grateful for those. So also rambly, but rethink what counts as knowledge, learning and practice the best practices. I'll put a link to the chat composing access, which has just a wealth of resources about preparing your presentation and then also just doing that hard work at. So this is David speaking and with our next question. 00:36:58:00 - 00:37:37:07 Unknown So what suggestions do you have for disabled folks who are navigating conference attendance? And in accessibility, how does one navigate in accessibility in the high stakes terrain that is often the conference for many of the same reasons that Ruth just laid out for us. So I would say this is Michelle. So I'm speaking as somebody with Kenya and again, as a white, you know, listening and speaking deaf person who increasingly identifies as deaf disabled for other reasons. 00:37:37:09 - 00:38:05:02 Unknown So I think it's really important to pick your battles. So as a graduate student and as a pretend you're a faculty, I really was in these fights with the society, the site, the Society for Applied Anthropology and with the American Anthropological Association. And those fights were super stressful and did not feel very good. And I still have a lot of anger directed at the organizations. 00:38:05:04 - 00:38:28:11 Unknown And so I think it's really important here to pick your battles and to really think about what are the aspects of our conference that will feel most important and nourishing and productive for you. So if there is a panel that you really want to go to, you know, focus on that, you know, if there are those people that you really want to meet, breath, prioritize that. 00:38:28:13 - 00:39:11:23 Unknown So I really do think that it's it's about prioritizing. And also realizing and setting yourself up for the fact that you are going to be going into a space that isn't entirely accessible. And I just wanted to share something that I found really interesting. So last year I went to the to the for asked the Society for the Social Studies of Science Convention and the organizers had put together this beautiful booklet, but it was in Hawaii and they had put together this beautiful booklet about how to do appropriate land acknowledgments and then also how to do accessible panels and presentation. 00:39:12:00 - 00:39:37:10 Unknown It was super thoughtful and in many ways, and nobody the only panels that actually did this stuff where the disability panels on the panel that specifically had people working on disability as part of the panels, the rest of them just completely ignored it. And it's interesting to think about, you know, who monitors this and who does the work of making sure that these things happen. 00:39:37:12 - 00:40:02:12 Unknown And I was just thinking about what Ruth was saying about, you know, putting in the work and what Victor was also saying about labor. So there are so many different kinds of labor that go into creating these conference spaces. And I guess the question of like, what do we do as academics more broadly to recognize that labor and to ourselves put in the labor of working to make these spaces more accessible? 00:40:02:14 - 00:40:28:08 Unknown So my suggestions are to manage expectations and to fight for the things that you think are important and and really strategized. And I think for me, navigating inaccessibility and high tech. So, you know, I've walked out of panels, I've just said these are not accessible and I've walked out and I did do that as a pre tenure person. 00:40:28:10 - 00:41:05:16 Unknown And I've also, you know, made the time to just say, okay, I'm going to go and find a really cool restaurant in the city and go to that restaurant or I'm going to go for a walk or I'm going to do something else other than the conference. So I gave myself breaks and I gave myself permission to take those breaks, you know, And I will say, you know, it's interesting because we do talk about these conferences as high stakes spaces and and they are high stakes in the sense of sometimes job interviews can take place. 00:41:05:16 - 00:41:39:10 Unknown You know, they're high stakes in the sense that, you know, a senior person can come and see your, you know, presentation. There are high stakes in the sense that you could somehow fuck up so badly that people are going to remember forever. But, you know, but what I have found is, you know, especially in the larger conferences, this these places where people are really anonymous and it's really hard actually to to to be recognized or to be noticed. 00:41:39:10 - 00:41:58:15 Unknown And so what I've been trying to do is to not them as high stakes. But I know, again, it's easy for easier for some people to do and not others. And I think going to what Ruth were saying about how expensive, if it is, to go to a conference, you know, there are all kinds of costs that are involved. 00:41:58:17 - 00:42:32:07 Unknown Yes. Does this Victor speaking I was just going to second Michelle's idea or suggestion of or advice to go for dinner. I do that all the time. So it's just really stunning to me that I feel because, like I also hear conferences, I see big and large crowds. I just don't know what to do in that. Of course, I'm happy to meet one one at a time. 00:42:32:09 - 00:43:03:09 Unknown Let's go to say that also, maybe we like to think of conferences as being over, Greta. So taking the show's advice that conferences are not that high school, and also thinking about my own experience getting a job in academia, I think a lot of my opportunities that came about came about not because of me presenting at conferences, but because I've been so pretty shameless in writing emails. 00:43:03:12 - 00:43:45:19 Unknown People to say at this conference, Can we go for coffee? Can we be 1 to 1? And I function better in one on one meetings than in one to kind of speaking engagements. So it's it's kind of weird. I'm here today, too, but so the thing that I was going to say is this question of I think as Michelle and Drew was speaking and sort of going back to Michelle's earlier point of thinking about being sort of international and comparing that to the American experience. 00:43:45:21 - 00:44:14:01 Unknown So for me, as a non-American, I think a lot of times there's no recourse to legislation or rights or ADR. So I would think that a lot of times the way to navigate conference would be to ask and not to fight. So I think it's not commonplace for me right when I when I see issues, we don't fight, we ask nicely. 00:44:14:01 - 00:44:42:14 Unknown And sometimes that happens and sometimes people might offer access just because we ask and we never knows. I think it's problematic, of course, that we need to ask, but in the lack of recourse of rights and legislation, sometimes we just have to work with whatever tools we have. So I think that's one advice. I would do this smell. 00:44:42:16 - 00:45:14:19 Unknown Thank you. This is Ruth. I am putting that resource in the chat. Thank you, Kristie, for the nudge. I would say my Yes, yes, yes. Echo all of this. And I appreciate, Michel, what you said, because I will say it feels really high stakes. I remember as a graduate student and as someone who now mentors graduate students, I think a lot of students go to conferences and feel like they have to do all the things and you do not. 00:45:14:21 - 00:45:41:17 Unknown I. I never go to more than one or two panels a day. I take lots of breaks. And I think giving yourself permission to do that is really key. And the big thing I was going to say that Michelle mentioned in the chat is find your people. Find your people. The first time I went to CS, that's the big writing studies conference, it was so, so overwhelming. 00:45:41:19 - 00:46:07:15 Unknown I didn't identify as disabled, but I had my newborn with me and my partner. We all traveled together and I remember walking into the Disability Studies standing group and immediately when the invitation that access invitation was read, just feeling so at home, which is such a rare experience at conferences, and it was the first time I felt comfortable. 00:46:07:15 - 00:46:44:19 Unknown I just nursed my baby, look at the space, because even though, you know, we were talking about disability access, it just felt like a space for belonging, for multiple forms of access. And it was really so great. And when you find your people, whether that is, you know, finding the Disability Studies Caucus or group, if there is one in a larger conference, I mean, it's great to have this shared academic interest, but it also means that you can Crip hack access as needed. 00:46:44:19 - 00:47:26:22 Unknown So when the institution fails, community prevails. And so when you find your people and you go and even at a well-meaning conference where there is carte but it's just not working at that time, friends can help set up order or in other forms of technology, when you are not trying to find a restroom that matches your gender identity and you want to feel safe having a friend who will be there and keep watch or just just these ways of of creating access together and then a more intimate small group setting. 00:47:26:24 - 00:47:58:04 Unknown And that is, I think, my biggest recommendation, because even well-meaning conference organizations, they can't decide on the space they can take. They can't create the virtual infrastructure. And so when you have your people and then the question is, how do I find them? Like I like disability studies, subgroups are great. Back before Twitter was overrun by back when Twitter was Twitter, that was a great place to make meet people. 00:47:58:06 - 00:48:27:10 Unknown If anyone here ever goes to Fauci's or Ben Rhodes, I can be your people talking to your mentors and having them introduce you to people. These are all ways to create community so that when you go to do go to the spaces and you do ask or let's say you've asked or you fought for your access from the organizers and it's still not where it needs to be for you to feel fully included. 00:48:27:12 - 00:48:38:02 Unknown You can still have a sense of belonging with your people. 00:48:38:04 - 00:49:15:00 Unknown Hello, this is David. To get up with our most our next question, rather. And that is what is the most innovative accessibility feature you have ever come across at a conference or otherwise, just in general. And if it is just in general, how do you think we can integrate these accessibility practices into conference spaces? Thank you. So this is not an accessibility feature per se. 00:49:15:03 - 00:49:50:15 Unknown Maybe it's a practice, but I remember being at a talk at NYU where the microphones weren't working very well and the cappuccino button set up or something like that, and it was like Claire who was talking, and you guys said, okay, we're going to pause. We're not going to continue until access is set up. And to me, that was so important because it was you know, it was really modeling and demonstrating the importance of access and also saying, you know, there are some things that are more important. 00:49:50:17 - 00:50:17:12 Unknown Then there's talk that I'm going to get into. I really appreciate it that, and I think that's something that people can do more broadly. And I think access check in at the beginning of talks is super important. At the beginning of panels. You know, I think the organizers can really set the mood. So again, we're working within our conference space. 00:50:17:14 - 00:50:36:17 Unknown We don't get to choose the room, right? We don't get to choose the lighting, we don't get to choose the sound. But we do get to choose how we proceed and don't proceed. And we can take the time to at least try to set things up as best as we can. I mean, I think this question that attaches, we can. 00:50:36:19 - 00:51:00:05 Unknown And then what do we do when it's not enough? I mean, this is something that I struggle with a lot like you just not continue. Do you do something else entirely? I mean, this goes back to the high stakes, you know, nature of things. And like, when do you decide not to continue or when do you decide to do something else completely? 00:51:00:05 - 00:51:29:17 Unknown You know, I don't have an answer for that. And there's something that I think a lot about. It's just going to disrespect us speaking is just pick the point that Michelle make about that. Like Claire Présentation, right? Where you're like, Stop. I was thinking about our own experiences organizing that pre comment and how we're going to do it, make you feel as well and be cool with it. 00:51:29:20 - 00:52:01:00 Unknown But and I think that the challenge for me she's not quite answering the question about innovative accessibility thing sure. But I think it's something that would be great if we can get around the issue because I kind of feel that from organizing perspective, like you have to sloppiness in your speakers in this only that much time you can work with that much space. 00:52:01:02 - 00:52:22:14 Unknown So I think time and space is a premium. We and I don't know how we can get around it, most of how we can do this. So I think for next year's conference we try to tone back and do things in a more laid back manner and have less speakers small time. But I think the challenge is also new. 00:52:22:17 - 00:52:53:03 Unknown How do we ensure that postgraduate students, early career scholars, have time to do the things they need to do in high state conferences like this? But yeah, I'm not sure how we can do this, but I think the challenge that I see as a conference organizer is time and space, and I would love to see suggestions on how we can do that. 00:52:53:05 - 00:53:33:18 Unknown This is true. So I am going to show a picture that I think is a really neat accessibility feature, but it hasn't been framed as that. So let me just then also responds to one of Christi's questions in the chats. I will give some context and then do an image description here. So in the 2019 CS Conference, the organization put up a rather tall, I think maybe five foot tall sign, banner sign that said, the CS convention is accessible. 00:53:33:20 - 00:54:26:19 Unknown The CS convention has accessibility guides for the convention, quiet lactation and family rooms at conference sites, child care grants, gender neutral bathrooms. And as a group of us were sitting in the I'm, I don't think they're always there as an interpreter. Sorry, my caption was blocking the last word. So that's all printed on the sign In a meeting with the Committee on Disability Issues and College Composition, people felt really heard and unseen by this sign because while these accessibility features were offered this posturing of, Hey, look, we're accessible, it invalidated and erased the experiences of inaccessibility that a lot of the conference goers were having an experience saying. 00:54:26:21 - 00:54:58:24 Unknown So a really cool technology is the Post-it note, and we collected in that meeting people wrote their experiences and frustrations with accessibility at the conference and then we moved to the sign and posted them. People who walked by then participated did, and so some of the signs read there must be microphones for questions. Captioning and interpreting are not cos they're necessities. 00:54:59:01 - 00:55:34:15 Unknown The app the conference app is cumbersome and frequently crashes. Speakers aren't providing access copies of their talks. I as well not attend card. That opening session was inaccessible offsite events and not provide access to information. When people talk so fast, the interpreter captioned or can't do their job. And there's and there's more. And the reason I'm describing this as an accessibility feature, it goes back to what I was saying earlier about collective care and activism as a form of access. 00:55:34:17 - 00:56:09:09 Unknown So what I was really, really moved by in seeing this and at this point, I can say being a part of this was that we came together as a group and, disrupted the dominant discourse of accessibility by the organization and foregrounded the lived experiences of disabled people and sick people and other other forms of kind of vulnerability at the conference by plastering these on the site. 00:56:09:09 - 00:56:58:12 Unknown And so I wanted to find a place to share this. And I'm like, This is a good time. I'm going to call this an accessibility feature, because the accessibility feature is that group, that group activism, that collective storytelling, that testifying and testimony. That to me is what helps make changes for future conferences, that kind of collective organizing. And so I find in my research on conference accessibility guides and just accessibility at conferences, I find myself more and more interested in what people are doing to create access versus what the organizations are doing or not doing because they just we have different priorities institutions. 00:56:58:12 - 00:57:26:23 Unknown They're very focused on membership and profits. It's just it is what it is. We live in capitalism. Sorry, I don't know what I'm saying. Sorry. As if I'm personally responsible for this work and so so that's what they're that's third and goal. And then but the people, the members often have a different end goal and that's a sense of community and sharing knowledge and sharing stories. 00:57:27:00 - 00:58:12:23 Unknown And how do we as scholars, early mid, late career scholars and makers of knowledge, create the space for us to do that? Thank you so much. That was a great example. This is Pratiksha speaking. I'm going to share one of the attendee questions, which is how can we consider language differences, especially of non-native English speakers as part of accessibility conversations? 00:58:13:00 - 00:58:37:14 Unknown I mean, I say I feel like I'm going first to me, so please somebody jump in. I actually think about this a lot and I do think it is an accessibility issue, you know, and I think it can go in multiple ways. So this is an example where having access copies can really be helpful. You know, it's also an example where slowing down help everybody. 00:58:37:14 - 00:59:04:09 Unknown You know, we're thinking about the jargon that we use is helpful. And I think it goes back to what Ruth said so brilliantly earlier, which is, you know, thinking about what knowledge is and how we disseminate that knowledge in our content presentation and then how do we unpack or distract or explode the category of the conference presentation to make it as accessible to all people, you know? 00:59:04:11 - 00:59:28:16 Unknown So that's my take on that. And yes, I think absolutely it's much a part of broader access accessibility. And again, I really like the way that the deaf labs in statement included other kinds of access in the way that Ruth also brought this up. And so this is a perfect example of, you know, how we do need to think more broadly. 00:59:28:16 - 00:59:57:15 Unknown So thank you is just going through the speaker speaking and just kind of added dimension to what Michelle was saying, just because we were talking about this issue when we were doing the Gold Coast Conference. So I think one of the questions that came out among the organizers, the organizing committee for the Disability Pre conference was on sign language interpreters. 00:59:57:17 - 01:00:23:17 Unknown Why should we hire and should we have signed interpreters right from the start as a form of access? And then the other question that came up because of that was what language. Should the sign language interpreter speak? And so I mean for American based companies conference, it's easy but it's also they don't have to build that for international cultures. 01:00:23:19 - 01:00:52:03 Unknown What language should it be in? Should be in Auslan where it's happening because that's where glucose is. But then, you know, our speakers don't speak that right? Or is our wife and then speaker comes out. So we saying, well, maybe we can try and see whether they are so speakers, must be the speakers actually. But the AIS, our interpreters based in Australia who could be on site. 01:00:52:05 - 01:01:12:13 Unknown So we approached a couple of there was this that and nobody would play. And I think in the end we went with the approach that if people had access needs for interpreters, we would then offer. And I think that would be the kind of push we would take for Sangre English interpreters, for the disability media and comms Precogs. 01:01:12:15 - 01:01:40:21 Unknown But I just want to say that they are a date because intentions of what name, which we all smell, especially when it comes to interpreters. I think this is Ruth again. I'm so glad you mentioned that because I was thinking about how when we think about communication access, oftentimes it's framed in terms of cards and ASL cell, the United States that they use interpreters, but ASL is a distinct language. 01:01:40:23 - 01:02:08:18 Unknown It's not English sign, which I'm sure this group knows this, But so it's interesting how one form of language access is covered by, you know, the Americans with Disabilities Act and not necessarily in practice. It's not like there's AC interpreters everywhere, but other forms of languages are not. And so something I just was thinking about and it would be really neat to see some more solidarity between different groups who I mean, it's all under the umbrella of communication access. 01:02:08:18 - 01:02:40:18 Unknown So I would be really interested to know more if that is something that has happened before, where different non-native English speakers of English or just people who are multilingual, whether that is English in ASL or English and Spanish or English and something else can collaborate and build solidarity and advocating for this. And the other thing I was thinking about is names, something I really appreciated before everyone hopped on is Remi had all of us pronounce our names and spell them phonetically. 01:02:40:18 - 01:03:10:23 Unknown I have been to multiple conferences where a non-Western were not just mispronounced. I think humans are human but mispronounce and then kind of out of embarrassment, the person laughed or said, I'm so sorry. and actually draw attention to it, which is a form of I mean that if we think of access as creating culture of belonging, that does not foster a culture of belonging, to be made to feel so othered. 01:03:10:23 - 01:03:54:09 Unknown And so that was where my mind went when I heard this question is names and how can organizers and presenters make sure that they are pronouncing names correctly and not drawing attention to non-Western or non kind of white names of awardees or presenters, etc.? So Remi speaking. So I just want to thank all three of you. What we're going to give it to now are questions from attendees. 01:03:54:09 - 01:04:20:22 Unknown So we've been keeping a record of things people have typed in the chat, but we also had some questions come in through the registration form as well. So for folks who are attending, please feel free to go ahead and type other questions in the chat. If you'd like us to call on you. If you'd like to verbalize your answer like my dog in the background is doing right now, feel free to use the hand raise function and we can call on you, but to get us kicked off. 01:04:20:22 - 01:05:00:03 Unknown I'm just going to pull one question that I think hasn't been addressed yet, and the question is passing out copies of the presentation paper is one method, but people often have concerns about research theft. How do we balance and address those concerns? I think that's a big concern because people can record a talk, you know, people can do all kinds of things and there are ways to, you know, you can give out copies and ask to have them back. 01:05:00:05 - 01:05:31:06 Unknown You can put a QR code or a link and then take it down. So these concerns about that and the craft being specifically attached to the access copy as opposed to the talk in general seem to be very misguided to me. This is Ruth and I want to echo and also go, Hey, no face, I see your no face avatar Studio Ghibli fan. 01:05:31:08 - 01:05:59:12 Unknown But yeah, I completely agree because there's so many ways. Something I do as I do, right? my access copy is drop like draft or, you know, do not circulate. But that's also just because usually it's a really early draft and I don't necessarily like it's for not because I'm worried about stuff, it's because I'm just worried about awkward wording and like, you know, not wanting someone to quote something or cite something that hasn't been really polished or thought through yet. 01:05:59:14 - 01:06:49:24 Unknown So that's something. But again, that's less about preventing theft and more about me just saying this is a very rough draft, so I appreciate the space to develop it and I totally get there. I totally get that people feel vulnerable and especially if they're presenting work in progress, you know, it can feel scary. I can give out copies, you know, And I think, again, you know, leaning into that vulnerability and not using access copies as the hinge or the thing that you're is that that's the limit If you are truly problematic to me, this little speaker I was just going to say also echoes Michel's point, but also to say that I've stopped worrying about 01:06:50:01 - 01:07:31:21 Unknown research, Tash Also because I've been moving my talk away from you dense, theoretical academic research to more writing and speaking notes rather than research articles in a sense, even in just one. So I think I'm just less worried about that when I write in that form. And also to join to Michel's earlier point about preparing for presentations in a way that it's less about to folks, So writing them, speaking those instead of fooling jot articles, that lays a lot of fear from one's self. 01:07:31:21 - 01:08:02:15 Unknown I still and this is Rami speaking, so Rami from Detroit Disability Power has a hand up. Hi, my name Brownie. I am a light brown non-binary person with a mustache wearing sunglasses, have cropped a short black hair and I'm wearing a plaid over shirt under my gray shirt. And I just wanted to say thank you so much. I learned so much from the three of you today. 01:08:02:17 - 01:08:47:09 Unknown Just was over here snapping and twiddling my fingers with my camera off as I multitask through my work takes ADHD. You were a lovely second screen of knowledge, so you all, you know, spoke a lot to this thing that, like some of us don't like, which is conferences and and the way like that, they need to be. Obviously, like I'm just restating the whole idea that they need to be radically redesigned and I wonder like, like in many instances of like social change, at what point do we just say abolish and like this way of sharing information with each other is not conducive at all. 01:08:47:09 - 01:09:18:12 Unknown And it's going to be on disabled people realistically to do most of the labor of like making conferences accessible so that non-disabled people can have an even more comfortable totally taking it for granted and kind of like invisible izing the great access they have and well, you know, what a lovely time they're now having. You know, I often see that on the other end of access committees are disabled people who, like aren't getting their needs met on the committee to design access. 01:09:18:12 - 01:09:57:07 Unknown So I wonder, like what does this do for you politically? Like what are the power implications here, especially in this political moment? You know, I think disabled people aren't seen as a powerful constituency by many elected people, or at least we don't get message to in the way other constituencies get message to. So what is this what has this experience of being a disabled person constantly having your access needs not met at these conferences done for you politically and or you can answer one of these two, but it's like the same thing in a different package. 01:09:57:09 - 01:10:42:24 Unknown What does an accessible conference post about this way of conferencing look like? Like what is your preferred way of meeting with ears of your study and exchanging information that excites each other and then parting, because I'm guessing that's what a conference was intended to do. But then in optics being like a masturbatory facet of like funders getting, you know, whatever, I'm rambling, but I think the question and anyone can take can this is Ruth I'll I'll go first on this one and I don't mean to just be like like I said earlier, but like, I really think this goes back to that idea of something that I've taken away is that we have to reimagine 01:10:42:24 - 01:11:14:09 Unknown the entire ecosystem of knowledge and academia because I will also say a dirty little secret. I like conferences. I get I like I like being in person. I think it is brazen. I like having because I do have a little bit of travel fund. I like being able to go and be in person with people who I don't usually see and explore new parts and new new parts of the country. 01:11:14:11 - 01:11:34:11 Unknown So I do like conferences, but also I acknowledge all the problems. And so but I think this goes back to if we bachelors conferences what and we go back I love what you were saying to like what is the core? Why do we do this? And that's to share knowledge and how can we rebuild it in a way it really is. 01:11:34:11 - 01:12:00:06 Unknown Sharing works in progress. We're not just chucking a checkbox, we're sharing it with people that we care about and that care about us and that are going to give us good feedback. We also need to destroy the idea of rigor because I think part of what it is so, you know, forces is the premier conference and it's considered it's like I think has a, I don't know, 25 to 33% acceptance rate. 01:12:00:08 - 01:12:34:03 Unknown And so hiring committees and tenure committees are going to put more value on that than on me hanging out with my friends, spitballing ideas, even though, that is actually going to be more generative and more knowledge making. So this goes back to this entire ecosystem has to change because this idea that exclusivity means more knowledge, more rigor is white supremacist ableist, all of this, right? 01:12:34:03 - 01:12:56:18 Unknown This whole idea that we have to be selective for it to really count. And so that but to go back to that for people who are you know so the reason I'm still even invested in forces is that I do know that when people go on job markets and when people go up for tenure people are looking at those conferences name, did they go to the major conferences and their field. 01:12:56:24 - 01:13:46:07 Unknown And until I can like make sure that all of those committees and all of metrics of evaluating knowledge are updated and revised and abolished, then these places still carry so much weight. And politically that makes me want to burn it down and also rebuild. And so I think that's what I have to say about that. This is Victor speaking totally agree group is good at that in Singapore my intake tends to view that it's one of the top 20 schools and they want to compete with the Ivy Leagues. 01:13:46:07 - 01:14:21:18 Unknown They want to be recognized as the best Ivy League. So the key metrics that the President talks about every year is the U.S. ranking must the other one I don't remember, but it's relative, I guess that whether don't know they are listening to that gains and I think that the reason address why just to add to that the talk about abolishing conferences which is to say that the reason we just talked about one thing academics faculty to only publish in the top 20% of journals. 01:14:21:20 - 01:14:55:05 Unknown So I think the question of abolishing conferences must be linked to the question of what do journals to as well, because they are all interrelated, right? It's not just about the top conferences, but also about quote unquote, the top journals. That's about this is Remi's speaking. So I think we probably have time for one more question. And I'm actually going to bundle together a couple of questions that had similar themes. 01:14:55:05 - 01:15:41:20 Unknown So Emily in the chat asked a question about access. In an era of continuing COVID surges. As someone working with my local mask block, it's something I think and care about a lot, but I feel like there's been a lot of resistance to even making suggestions for best practices and related question to that was we also had a question asking about what the most requested but often forgotten support needs are for disabled people, attending conferences. 01:15:41:22 - 01:16:11:05 Unknown Maybe I'll start giggling again. I'll stop bouncing this second question, which is what is the article forecasted and most requested access. They're coming from Organizing International Conference and I would say my thanks to the community also for checking in with me on what time works best for me. So I think before they even start the check in with me and ask me whether I prefer to like to have this in the morning or for night. 01:16:11:05 - 01:16:37:09 Unknown And also all night is fine for me because the baby's asleep. So I'm happy to be in it. And I think that access need like when you're organizing internet, should a hybrid all go to a conference where people what time people are presenting. That's an important question that we often neglect. And I think for me, for all organizer, I think that's the question that a lot of people will come to me and I'm glad that we manage to do that. 01:16:37:11 - 01:17:13:22 Unknown Also saying this because I've once presented at a conference in the States at 2 a.m. in Singapore and I'm just like, I'm not functioning at that time. So and nobody asked me at all whether or not that time worked for me. So I could say the mask issue is such an important one. So I'm really glad that this came up and I really liked again, going back to your booths, are very quotable quote Know when the institution fails, community prevails. 01:17:13:22 - 01:17:46:20 Unknown Because I do think, you know, thinking institutionally is very hard to imagine some of these large conference organizations agreeing to have a mask mandate, you know, and then becomes about how do we create, you know, communities of care and communities of accountability with people in in those conferences. This is not about the mask. But I remember at a recent conference, I tried to go to a keynote and. 01:17:46:22 - 01:18:23:13 Unknown There was no captioning and I just couldn't, you know, and I was leaving. And then my co-host, colleague and friend Asari Diplomacy, who many of you probably know said, Well, you know, if you can't go, I'm not going to go either, you know. And we went out for ice cream and we had an amazing conversation about ideas, you know and this goes to what was I saying to you about the the importance of conference being about the kind of infrastructure that we create with each other and the kind of ideas that we share with each other and how that does make our work better. 01:18:23:15 - 01:18:55:13 Unknown So I do think, you know, thinking about what know going into the mask issue and corporate synergies, it's, you know, what is what are we comfortable with and who will be bringing into our community to work with us on this? This is true. Thank you. Yes. Yes. I was thinking about so thinking about masking something that is also just being where you can sneak in. 01:18:55:15 - 01:19:25:05 Unknown So, again, Fauci's sorry, they have, you know, the statement that was very like, we welcome any individual who chooses to wear a mask this kind of you know, but and then so for the accessibility guide, which the committee was in charge of, we copy that. But then we also added in bolded. But because many of our members are high risk, the committee encourages masking as an act of care, shared responsibility and protection. 01:19:25:07 - 01:19:44:18 Unknown So finding ways that we can kind of sneak in that language. But I also think something I was going to mention, this is an accessibility feature, bringing masks to conferences, having it be available. I can't tell you how many times when people who not wearing a mask see me wearing a mask and go, I should be masking. 01:19:44:18 - 01:20:07:09 Unknown And then actually being able to be like, Here, here's a mask, or just go the accessibility table. There's a mask there. So it's another form of, like Michelle was saying, creating the infrastructure with each other that we need. It does suck to be the only person mask. And then I was thinking about this question of access needs that are often not acknowledged. 01:20:07:10 - 01:20:34:06 Unknown I think that second part, and I don't know if it's always requested, but something I have noticed is food issues around food Are are gluten free options available for folks with celiac And are is food also just available onsite throughout the entire period for people who just need it for like blood sugar reasons? And you know, is there a grocery store close by? 01:20:34:06 - 01:21:04:11 Unknown There wasn't a grocery store close by at Seasons Spokane. And so if people wanted to stock up on snacks, which is important for a variety of disabilities and also just like basic human survival, that was a real challenge. And then also thinking about how many social events revolve around alcohol at conferences. And so I think something that's really often overlooked are the accessibility needs of people in recovery and dealing with drug and substance abuse disorders. 01:21:04:13 - 01:21:33:13 Unknown And so how can we create social events and networking and publisher parties that don't entirely revolve around alcohol and drinking? And so that's something I'm trying to work on. Am I campus? We usually have or the Women's Caucus has a social a bar, and I'm like, How about we do it at the women's basketball game instead? And people were really excited about that. 01:21:33:13 - 01:21:53:15 Unknown And there will be alcohol, but it's not like the space. The venue is revolving around that and. This is really big. I think in conference spaces at a lot of the parties and social events that are happening is there at bars and whatnot. So those are some overlooked access issues that I would love to. and religious holidays. 01:21:53:16 - 01:22:39:17 Unknown Okay. Thank you. And this this Remi's speaking. So I have two quick questions for our panelists. One is, there was a question in the chat, if if you're comfortable sharing your social media handles or email addresses in case anyone wants to follow up. And I think the other is we're just about a time out of time. So I'm wondering if any of you might have like quick 32nd last minute things that you are burning to share before we disembark. 01:22:39:19 - 01:23:09:06 Unknown This is really I think the last thing I want to share is one of the most powerful we can do is create the kind of spaces that we want to be in. And that is a lot of labor to Victor's point earlier. And it's a labor of love. It it's the labor. So I want to and just by thanking disco for modeling the kind of accessibility with these multiple forms of this multiple practices, making sure our names are pronounced correctly the the captioning in the zoom but also in a separate link. 01:23:09:08 - 01:23:28:21 Unknown I just really want to say I see that I know it takes a lot to do that. So thank you for creating the spaces that we want to see and want to be a part of and modeling that just I'm really, really grateful to be here. I agree with everything that we've said in terms of the work that you guys do. 01:23:28:21 - 01:23:59:01 Unknown You meaning me? Patricia David Andrews to model what accessible webinar conferencing looks like. So thank you so much for that. I would say I really think, you know, we need to sort of think about, you know, our expectations contractors and, you know, I think what we have said in terms of finding your people and also thinking about how we create para spaces within conference that are nourishing and productive for us, I think that's really important. 01:23:59:01 - 01:24:29:05 Unknown And also thinking about, you know, what it is that we're using compensates for and. It's okay to not use conferences for going to panels and sitting and listening to papers for every offer any of the time, you know, use the conferences in ways that make sense for you. This is speaking I think by last 32nd speaker would be to say that. 01:24:29:07 - 01:25:00:13 Unknown I mean, it feels like I'm just about what I'm doing. But I tried to make this a couple of times throughout. What I'm saying today is that a lot of the work that goes organizing that at see cannot happen without all the others who are supporting and working together. So this kind of labor, this kind of interdependence seems, like relying on each other, supporting each other as we organize, I think that's important to recognize as well. 01:25:00:15 - 01:25:36:20 Unknown This is for me speaking. So I'm hoping we can all give the virtual equivalent of applause for Victor, Ruth and Michelle. We are going to save and collect the resources in the chat and because folks have registered, I believe will be able to send those resources out to the full Bell Group as well. So I just want to thank everyone for attending and also, again, profuse thanks to Vic, Ruth and Michelle for just taking the time and sharing your wisdom with us. 01:25:36:22 - 01:26:17:21 Unknown And I hope to be at a conference with everybody sometime soon. Yeah, cool. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks so much. Was so fun Here. And I hope we get to see all of you soon at some point. Yeah. And I would love to learn more. I'm going to go look at the deaf lab now because it seems so fabulous. 01:26:17:21 - 01:26:50:08 Unknown So thank you. Thank you. I feel like what? What? What was also really lovely about this conversation was it was a combination of folks attending from U of M staff, students and faculty and students at the grad and undergrad level. But we also had folks from other universities attending as well, as well as local disability organizations. So I just want to thank you all for talking with with us so fruitful. 01:26:50:10 - 01:27:02:13 Unknown Thank you. Thank you so much. Have a good rest of your day. Thank you. And in fact, would you like to stay?