Contemplating DisAbility in Schools and Society by Connor David J.;
Author:Connor, David J.;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lexington Books/Fortress Academic
Chapter 5
College Professor
Becoming a tenure-track college professor in New York City is highly competitive. Thereâs a huge surplus of applicants for any position. I was encouraged to submit applications elsewhere, but I could only ever imagine living in NYC. Besides, John and I had a cozy apartment in Chelsea and he would not move anywhere else either. Hunter was my first choice because Iâd graduated from a strong teacher training program there, believed in it as an institution, and had subsequently worked there for five years as an adjunct professor. Professor Kate Garnett was my adviser, and the first person to suggest I consider entering a doctoral program. She was eager to have me apply for a temporary one-year position as a full-time substitute while a tenure-track line opened up. The usual mix of contradictory feelings washed over me when I temporarily joined the faculty in the Department of Special Education. I was still on a natural high after completing my dissertation and finishing my doctoral degree, yet realized Iâd slain one dragon only to find myself looking in the jaws of another in the form of obtaining, and then successfully securing, a tenure-track line.
As much as I felt drawn to Hunter, I did have some misgivings. The Department of Special Education was quite traditional, and within a range of disability-specific programs, several were not particularly inclusion friendly. I recall one colleague disparaging Dorothy Lipsky and Alan Gartner, both pro-inclusion educators who taught within CUNY and authors of a book that influenced my own thinking in terms of hopeâInclusion and School Reform: Transforming Americaâs Classrooms (1997), something I documented in later years (Connor, 2015a). These respected scholars were referred to as âthose two,â followed by a dialogue about âthe damage they have done.â In fact, their book had a major influence on me, providing an epiphanic moment. How? It was the first volume I read that was openly critical about the exclusionary nature of schools toward kids with disabilities, and by extension, to society in general regarding people with disabilities. Filled with facts, figures, stories, and solid evidence as to how we should strive to be a more inclusive society, the book struck a chord deep within me. The actual epiphany was the self-knowledge about being ready to enter a doctoral program. I knew because I had read the book over a few days on the beach while traveling to the far-flung Comoros Islands in the Indian Ocean, proving that if the content was right for me, I could appreciate reading an academic book even on vacation. The point Iâm attempting to make (albeit in a longwinded way) is that part of me had hoped to work in an inclusive department, or at least in a special education department that wasnât so distinctly categorical in disability programs, along with a fair amount of resistance to inclusive education.
Hunterâs special education department had formed some time ago because special education faculty believed their programs needed their own governance structure, claiming general education did not quite understand the nuances involved in specialized programs.
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