This advisor has acted a mentor to me in my time at Owens thus far and he has been able to offer me guidance and push me out of my comfort zone. This advisor is partially deaf.
I will be referring to this advisor as "Dan". When I was first introduced to Dan, I found that I had a hard time understanding him, in most part due to his deafness and how he's speaks as a cause of that. When I first started to sit in on appointments with Dan I was intimidated and worried that I wouldn't be able to understand him. From this first impression, I thought about how students perceive Dan and how they are able to communicate with him. It was obvious that Dan was hearing impaired because he wore hearing aids and his speech (which some may see as a sign of having a hearing problem). From my first impression, I was extremely curious to see how appoints would go.
Would he be an advisor that would listen (literally and figuratively) to the student and really show that he cared?
Would he make appointments short and sweet as to not do a lot of talking?
Would he be a good advisor?
I learned quickly how my worry was silly. Dan is one of the most amazing advisors I have ever say in with. Not only does Dan listen to the student, he worked to make sure that *I* was receiving the experiences I needed to experience for a true advising experience from the advisors perspective. I learned more than I could have imagined
I felt silly to have worried about how Dan's hearing would affect the appointment, and overlooked all the amazing attributes of this advisor. Besides that, who's to say that his hearing is a NEGATIVE attribute. I'm sure that the amazing skills he's obtained, and trials he has faced because of his hearing have only made him into a better person/advisor.
Regardless of MY thoughts, which have changed and I have learned from. Where do students fit in? When they realize that they are meeting with an advisor that is hard of hearing and may be difficult to understand at first... how does that make them feel? Maybe students don't realize how great of an advisor Dan is at first. Maybe the feel they are being let down or neglected. Maybe they will change advisors before realizing that Dan will do anything to help a student. Maybe the student won't listen to Dan or meet with any advisor again.
These things may APPEAR to be the non-verbal messages that Owens is sending to students that meet with him. This is obviously wrong and there needs to be a way to communicate that to these students before they don't give Dan a chance.
Dan is the most compassionate advisors and he will go out of his way to help students in the best way he can. I rarely see other advisors go out of their way like Dan does.
There are a lot if misconceptions about people with disabilities. And when these people with disabilities are part of the professional human aggregate at an institution, newcomers may view a postive experience like a negative one.
food for thought.
D. Smith (email communication, September, 2011)R. Smith (email communication, September, 2011)
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