Navigating a Conflict with Your School’s Administration About Discrimination and Inaccessibility: A Guide for Health Trainees

Essay Nine of Ten in the “Mad at/in Public Health Education” Essay Collection

Introduction

Navigating a conflict with your school’s administration can be extremely exhausting and place a large mental health burden on you. This essay includes some suggestions about how to navigate a conflict with your PhD program or training fellowship that I gathered from my experience navigating the conflict with my PhD program described in this essay series.

8 Suggestions for Navigating a Conflict:

1. Start Taking Notes and Documenting Your Experiences Early, Even If You’re Not Yet Sure About the Seriousness of the Problems

I suggest that whenever you experience an event that you feel is problematic (even if the event alone isn’t enough to take action on), you document it so that you have a record of it if a pattern emerges. One effective way to document is to send an email to yourself describing the incident (using your personal email). Emails list the date, which makes them preferable to just taking notes on paper or in a document.

2. Speak to Other Colleagues, Trainees, and Students Early On to See if Anyone Else Is Facing the Same Concerns

While it is often difficult to take action on an incident when only one person is experiencing an issue, the case for taking action becomes much stronger if you can show that the issue is affecting others in your program. I recommend speaking to other trainees that you trust early on to see what their experiences are and whether they may be having issues like yours.

3. For All Contact with University Instructors and Staff Related to Your Concern, Directly Inquire Whether Your Communications Are Private Before Sharing Details About Your Experience

When speaking to faculty and staff about your concerns (especially those who are not your primary mentors), ask whether your communications will be kept private prior to sharing details about your experience. This is particularly important when sharing information by email. You should try to maintain control of how and when your story is told, as how and when you share your story could significantly impact your outcomes.

4. For Meetings with Administration, Ask for Permission for a Peer or Colleague to Accompany You to Provide Emotional Support and to Take Notes for You during the Meeting

Administrators will behave differently if more than one person is present, and it will help to balance the power differential between you. The peer or colleague should state at the beginning of the meeting that they are there simply to listen and take notes so that you can focus on the meeting.

5. For Disabled, Neurodivergent, and Mad Trainees Funded by Federal Fellowships, Your Disability Accommodations Do Apply in Meetings with Administration

The protections provided under the Rehabilitation Act cover all meetings related to the training fellowship, including those with administration. If you receive accommodations for participation in meetings, I recommend that you send these by email in advance of the meeting. If you do not hear back about them, you should reiterate them at the start of the meeting.

6. Be Aware That Administration Will Try to Tire You Out By Putting You Through Long Administrative Processes; For This Reason, It’s Best to Start with More Aggressive Action

If you feel you have sufficient documentation to log a complaint, I suggest going ahead with the complaint process, rather than engaging in other conflict resolution proceedings. These proceedings are designed to take up a large amount of your time — so that you will give up or get busy with other obligations and have no choice but to drop this issue.

7. Understand That Most Formal Institutional Processes for Resolving Discrimination and Inaccessibility Exist to Protect the University from Liability, Not You as a Trainee

Even if you have a positive relationship with administration, it is important to remember they are not on your side. Their role is to protect the institution from liability, not you as a trainee. For this reason, be skeptical of advice given to you from administration or efforts to make out like you are friends with administration. You are not. There is a significant power differential between you, and being friendly does not erase this. Do not feel guilty about standing up for yourself and your educational rights, even if you know it might create work and stress for administration.

8. Protect Your Mental Health; Actively Prepare Coping Mechanisms

Resolving a conflict with your PhD program or health training program is an exhausting activity and will inevitably take a toll on your mental health. It is important that you recognize this from the start and consider this when making the decision about whether to pursue the conflict further. If you do, actively schedule mental health care and self-care activities every day you are navigating the conflict. Make sure that you have a number of peers or other trusted people in your life who you can vent to and who you can discuss the situation with. Remember that at any point, you can withdraw your complaint, and doing so is not a failure on your end. The university’s systems are simplynot set up for students to easily resolve conflicts related to accessibility, discrimination, and related issues.

Footnotes:

Short Link for Sharing This Essay

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The Next Essay

The tenth essay in this series is entitled “Disability-Related Abstract.” There are 10 essays in this collection, covering distinct issues that are timely for exploration in public health education.

Essay Collection Goal

My purpose in launching this essay collection is to explore issues of access in public health and health care education for mad, disabled, and/or neurodivergent students and ideas to spur change in praxis and improve the experiences of students, staff, and faculty in these fields. I hope these essays will be generative, so I do hope folks will read, share, and discuss!

Essay Collection Disclaimer

All content expressed in this essay collection reflects my own views, perspectives and experiences and is not intended to reflect anyone else’s. Additionally, when discussing my own experiences, these essays solely reflect my own perceptions and memories of them.

About the Author

Read more about Dielle here.

Navigating a Conflict with Your School’s Administration About Discrimination and Inaccessibility: A Guide for Health Trainees — Essay Nine of Ten in the Mad at/in Public Health Education Essay Collection