[Nfb-science] qualifying exam accommodations

[Stephanie Hirst]

Thank you all for the insightful comments.  This listserv has been
very helpful to me, and I love how it's so progressive and
encouraging.  It's nice to be finally be in contact with such
resourceful people who can understand being visual impaired.

I do admit that I'm only 25 and therefore have a lot of things to
learn in this life.  I have never, at least form my own perspective,
tried to use my visual impairment as an excuse to make things easier
for me or to get people to feel sorry for me.  In fact, it rarely
comes up in conversation, and people with whom I interact even admit
that they forget I'm VI in the first place.  One could even argue that
this is a bad thing or a good thing, but really, I've just gotten so
accustomed to adapting myself to the world around me instead of vice
versa.  I am not blaming my failure on the exam on the idea that it
was unfair.  I do think that I was at a slight disadvantage that may
have played a role, but there certainly were other factors that had
nothing to do with my vision leading to the resulting failure.

I work very hard, even to the point of the sacrifice of my well-being.
 If I did not work hard, I wouldn't have been first in my class in
high school, or graduated with honors in chemistry in college, or been
accepted to one of the best structural biology programs in the
country.   I recently got a manuscript accepted as a second-year
graduate student.  This is an accomplishment for anyone, even someone
without a disability.

The truth is, though, that being albino does play a huge role in my
life.  It is part of who I am, and it affects my day-to-day living and
functioning in a sighted world.  For example, I actually accommodate
myself to other people normally by making powerpoint presentations and
posters, even though these things take me much longer to prepare than
someone with good vision.  I cannot see my own presentations very
well, but I do them for the audience's sake.

The trick here is to accept that the visual impairment does cause a
person to be at a disadvantage in at least a lot of cases, but to not
let it become an excuse to get what you want.  I strive to not make
excuses for myself and to be considered equal to everyone else.
Still, sometimes people need assistance and accommodations to make
their goals achievable.  Structural biology is a field of science that
is centered around being able to visualize things.  I do have enough
vision to do this, but it's difficult even for a completely sighted
person.   I do not make blindness a topic of conversation, but I'm
only now really acknowledging that it actually does affect how I do
things.  It is difficult to understand why I am slower at doing some
things than my sighted peers until I realize that it is because they
can see better.  Then, I am not feeling inferior, slower, or dumber.
I just understand that I struggle with some things more than others,
and that this is fine.  It's life.  They do not look down upon me or
pity me, and I do not pity myself.

everyone has a different perspective, and this is my own.  It's
starting to work for me, too =)

~ Stephanie

On Mon, Oct 4, 2010 at 11:18 PM, David Hertweck
<david.hertweck at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> I am blind with a lot worse vision than what you discribed.  This sounds a
> lot like my master thesis defense.  Presenting my research and having a
> board of Dr. in the field pose Qs for as long as they want.  I have also
> worked at the University of Cincinnati for almost 10 years.  I have seen
> many defenses of both masters and DRs.  For the last 10 years I have worked
> in an R&D division with very chalenging people.  I do not bye the statement
> that the test was unfair an oral exam is one of the most fare tests one can
> have.  Even if you do not get the visual Qs a test like this will prepare
> you for real world challenges.  Reading body language can also be auditory ,
> IE. People moving around or loud breathing.  A truly intrested group does
> not move aroun much. What has served me well is to not blame things on "not
> fair" and do not make blindness an issue, when I do this people treat me as
> a peer.  Even if test are unfair all test are unfair to one group or
> another.



> I do not know very many blind people but the few I know seem to bring up the
> fact that they are blind in more than half of the conversations they have.
> I do not understand this. I never bring the topic up unless I am asked.  In
> the last 10 years I think the topic has only come up once at work.  If it is
> never brought up as a problem then it will not become one.
>
> Some advice.
> 1. work hard, work some more, then work some more.
> 2. Do not give up from what you stated you are doing super, do not let one
> setback stop you.
> 2. Let your record do the talking.  My eyes look very strange and I have had
> many job interviews that have went very well over the phone and when we meet
> in person and they see me the interview ends very quickly.  That is there
> loss and I do not want to work for some one like that.  Now that I have a
> long record of achievement this is no longer a problem.
> 3. now that I have a high level position I do not have to prove myself any
> more than anyone else.  Just starting out everyone must prove them selves,
> some more than others but that is OK.
> 4. Is not fare does not cut it in the real world.  Every thing is unfair in
> its own way so do not get depressed or hung up on that.  Go to the testers
> and asked what did I do or not do to not pass.  Do not make blindness a
> topic and I think you will find that it is not a problem.
>
> Pleas keep going if you want to do somethin go for it.  Remember most people
> that can see could not do what you are doing.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: nfb-science-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:nfb-science-bounces at nfbnet.org]
> On Behalf Of Stephanie Hirst
> Sent: Friday, October 01, 2010 1:56 PM
> To: NFB Science and Engineering Division List
> Subject: [Nfb-science] qualifying exam accommodations
>
> Hello,
>
> As a listserv of fellow blind/visually impaired scientists and
> engineers, I was hoping some of hou may have some advice for me.  I am
> currently in the beginning of my third yar               in the Vanderbilt
> University Chemical and Physical Biology graduate program where I am
> in the lab of Jens Meiler doing computational protein structure
> prediction.  My visual acuity is about 20/400 and is basically
> non-correctable (I have oculocutaneous albinism).  My glasses only
> help somewhat, but even with them, I'm still legally blind.
>
> Anyway, I recently took my qualifying exam, which one needs to pass in
> order to be considered a qualified PhD candidate.  While I, my peers,
> my exam committee, and my mentor (PI) all agree that I'm actually
> quite qualified to work for my doctoral degree, I did not pass my
> exam.  This was to the surprise and shock of everyone, including
> myself, because I seemed to do very well in my mock exam beforehand.
> I am quite knowledgeable about my proposed research and most of the
> background, but the committee did not like the things I was proposing,
> but that is beside the point of the email,.
>
> Among other things, it was brought to my attention that the exam
> format may be somewhat unfair for visually impaired students.  It is a
> 90-minute oral exam, but you do now know beforehand what they are
> going to ask.  One can anticipate a little, but I anticipated wrong!
> The format is basically like this:
>    Two weeks before the exam, you submit an NIH style proposal of your
> thesis research that you want to do to your committee.  They are
> supposed to read this before the exam.
>    On the day of the exam, you have 5 minutes to present 3 powerpoint
> slides describing what you want to do for your research.
>    After the 5 minutes, they ask you open-ended, somewhat
> unpredictable questions for 90 minutes based on the proposal and the
> background concerning your research.  This is to test the student's
> ability to defend their proposed research and to see if they hve
> adequate background to do it.
>    The exam is pretty discussion-based, and there is a lot of give and
> take.  The committee members (there are 4) tend to feed off of each
> other, and often new questions stem from questions asked previously.
>
> One idea is that I had a hard time with this discussion-based format
> because I cannot erad visual cues, such as facial expressions, hand
> movements, signs of irritations or disappointment, etc.  I also get no
> positive feedback.  I also memorized my power point slides because I
> personally can't see them.  In this case they were more for the
> committee than myself, even though other students tell me they used
> them to kind of jog their memory if they get stuck on a subject.  For
> me, it's just more morization and things to remember and worry about.
>
> The person who proposed the idea that the exam format may have been a
> problem for me as a visually impaired student has a masters in special
> education.  She says:
>
> "Hi Steph, my thought was that when a sighted person goes to a
> committee qualifying exam, they rely heavily on visual cues and body
> language cues from the faces of the committee members. For example,
> the sighted person can tell when they should provide more information
> at a particular juncture, after noticing that two of the committee
> members clearly require more information.  They also know when to stop
> talking about something, if the committee members are displaying
> fidgeting or exchanging glances etc.  The low-vision student may not
> be able to benefit from those cues.  So, it would be reasonable for
> someone to sit with the student, and perhaps suggest "Dr. Y seems to
> be looking for more information on that topic."  or "The committee
> appears to have heard enough on that slide and you can move on."  The
> second thing is that from what I understand you do not read your
> slides - so the slides are not useful to you but only serve as a
> visual cue for the committee?  You memorize your slides and the places
> to put your pointer?  Correct?  Well, I think that having a person
> with you to help with those visual things would be helpful. The person
> would have to be someone trained to work with low vision people."
>
> So I was wondering if any of you have experience anything similar to
> this and would have suggestions on how to handle this situation.  Do
> you think it is fair to ask for accommodations to make the exam more
> fair?  Or do you think the exam is already fair?  Remember that this
> is no normal oral exam where they have a written test that they just
> read the questions out to you.  These questions are extremely hard, if
> not impossible, to predict, are very open ended, and are mostly based
> on the discussion occurring around them in the room.  We had some
> ideas on possible accommodations.  1) Instead of 90-minutes of open
> ended questions, give a 45-minute presentation with a shorter period
> of questioning, 2) meet one on one with each committee member for 20
> minutes so they can ask questions, instead of having all four sit at
> the end of a table and ask questions at the same time, 3) have the
> same format as before but with a mediator (perhaps someone from DSS)
> who can help provide more verbal cues that I don't get visually.  Do
> you guys have any other ideas?  How do you handle such situations?  I
> have spoken with the disability services people here, but this is
> quite a unique case (not too many VI/blind people in chemistry PhD
> programs here), and I think they know about as much as I do.
>
> Of course I'm not trying to get out of taking the exam or cheat, and I
> know I will need more practice.  I wonder if this is a valid thing
> that will be important if future disabled students come along, though.
>  Thoughts?
>
> Thanks and looking forward to hearing from you,
>
> Stephanie Hirst
>
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