Paul Jarmin- Queen Mary College, University of London

My name is Paul and I am the Learning Development Officer of Disabilities at Queen Mary College, University of London .  I have a long history of loyalty to Queen Mary, which is probably why I got my current job.  The university was actually formed partly as an amalgamation of two colleges: Queen Mary and the old Westfield College , which is now closed.  I did my first degree at Westfield , then I came here to do a PhD.  I just finished the MPhil.  I’m just to be the first totally blind student to receive a PhD in English literature in the UK .  As if that is not a challenge enough, I’m doing my PhD in late eighteenth-century handwritten manuscripts.  It causes a few eyebrows to be raised when I talk to people about that and how I actually work that out.  I collect the manuscripts of a poet, which are scattered throughout the US , UK and Canada and I transcribe photocopies into the computer.  I transcribe it again with a second reader and correlate the results to learn more about the differences.

Interview Transcript

Please tell us more about the university. At Queen Mary, in the late 1990’s, we became one of the leading colleges in offering very novel services for students with disabilities.  To back track, the first Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) came into force in Britain in 1995.  At that time, the education services were exempt from that act.  The first act for education came in 1999, and that was when education was brought under the act as a whole.  What that has meant was that students with disabilities in the UK had to be offered a level playing field on which they could compete with their fellow students at a university-level academic study.  Even before the act came into effect, we were already beginning to set up a project for disabled students to receive particular services.  We were able to set up these services thanks to a grant from the Higher Education Fund of England.  Through the funding, we set up one of the first specialty disability units in the UK .  We offer a wide range of services, but the main thrust is that every disabled student has his or her needs assessed prior to coming to the college. The student is then met by the college’s disability coordinator, Val Morgan, and then the student is then referred to me.  What is your role at Queen Mary? I run the Learning Support Services, and it is my job to assign them a support worker, who can take on a vast array of roles according to the needs of each particular student.  Those roles can range widely, from visually impaired student or one with difficulty using their hands could utilize a note-taker for lectures and seminars.  A vision-impaired student may also need help getting around the campus.   A student with hearing disabilities may require a sign language interpreter, though that is more specialist than most of our students can offer, though we do still offer it anyway, or may also need a note-taker.  Each individual disabled student can have one or more education support service workers assigned to assist them with their work.  It seems to work very well.  If possible, give as much advance warning about a student’s disability and the courses they may want to take.  The more notice we have, the better the chances to get good services.  The first thing I do, is presuming I have warning, is go to the senior tutor in the Academic Faculty Concern.   We let them know that we have a particular disabled student coming, and that in some cases that there may be adjustments needed.  It is impossible to say what the adjustments are due to the wide range of disabilities out there.  If a student is blind, we try to find out how the modules are run and if they are heavily visually based.  It is not always obvious from a syllabus if a course has a very high vision content.  We had a blind student from Barnard College last year; she gave us the four modules far in advance.  I went to each module leader and explained her lack of sight and asked if I could check about visual content.  One had particularly high visual input and it was felt that while the student needs to be offered the chance to take any course, it was felt that it would be a good idea to let her know about potential problems.  It enabled her to change modules, which I feel contributed to her success over here.  We often either try to make slight adjustments in the course or try to suggest a comparable module that may be more suitable.  One of my own personal reasons for trying to increase our numbers of disabled students and international disabled students is that by coming here you will improve the facilities we have here.  Disabled students who come from other countries bring completely different cultural expectations.  While I think what is happening in the UK is very positive and progressive, there is always the danger that we become quite insular in that we are actually providing for our own students.  It is positive to have the input of students from other countries about their disabilities and the facilities they are expecting from us.  As with everything, there is always going to be a certain amount of battling between those of us that provide services for the disabled and university authorities; it is not at all smooth running.  The more students we have here with disabilities, the greater will be the demand for our services, and that puts more ammunition in the hands of people, like myself, that run the disability support services.  We can go to the college authorities to say that our numbers are increasing, and therefore our services need to get better, as do our resources.  Any university in Britain will only provide funding for disabled services providing that there is a real demand for it.  By increasing our numbers of international students, it is a very good weapon for us to say that now we are attracting these students, the resources and finances have to be increased accordingly to provide the level of service that they would expect.      How are the accommodations for students with disabilities? We are very lucky at Queen Mary as a campus with geographic advantages.  As with all universities, we have quite a number of old buildings, but we do have a predominantly flat campus, which makes wheelchair particularly good.  Generally speaking, we have an accessible campus.  We are always undergoing improvements, and the final part of the disability act came into effect in October 2005.  The act mostly dealt with the accessibility and physical environment of university campuses.  We are striving to meet all of our obligations under the act.  As you can appreciate, it can be a long and difficult process, but we’ve made a lot of improvements over the last few years.  One of the things that makes this college a particularly good place to be is that we are able to offer so many on-site accommodations for our students.  For students, wherever they are coming from, there is a very good chance they will receive on-site accommodation in residences that are very close to the campus.  This makes mobility very easy and it also enables them to be on and off campus quite quickly.  At the same time, we’re not very far from central London , so it offers the student the chance to be in the center of town in 15 minutes to enjoy the city.  If you’re going to consider studying abroad in London or any big city, one of the big problems I keep coming back to is what is the definition of disability?  That is where often you have clashes.  What is suitable for one group of disabled people can be unsuitable for another group of disabled people.  Striking the balance is one of the major problems facing any organizers trying to set up an environment where disabled students can study and live. If I can give you one very basic example of this, London now has more dropped curbs to make the sidewalks more accessible for wheelchair users.  It is a fantastic thing for wheelchair users, but it is difficult for blind students.  It is hard to train seeing-eye dogs when you don’t have actual, physical curbs that dogs depend on as something to look for.  It often means that someone like myself, who is totally blind, that if I’m not absolutely careful because everything is flattened out, you find yourself crossing a main road without realizing it. Again, what suits some, does not suit others.  Another difficulty in the accessibility of London is in transport terms, London offers a terrific amount of independence.   We have an excellent transport system with the Tube, and also a number of overground systems that connect all parts of London .  For someone with a visual impairment such as myself, it offers a tremendous amount of independence.  Many people have said to me, “How do you live in London when you are totally blind?” but the answer is that London is probably the easiest place I’ve lived at all because once you get outside the city, the transport system leaves a lot to be desired if you’re not a car-owner. It is quite a different matter if you are a wheelchair user, because the tube system here is very wheelchair-unfriendly.  With such an old system in place, most of which is since the late Victorian period, its very hard to know how that can possibly be changed in the foreseeable future.  There does not seem to be any plan that would suggest that is going to change.  There are pluses and minuses, but I would also say that is true of all capital cities that I have ever been to, including the Paris metro.  Having said that, the other very important thing that we offer here at Queen Mary is a number of specialist parking bays for disabled students.  If wheelchair users are car drivers as well, they are allocated a free space to allow them to drive in and access their classes easily.  Believe me, those free spaces are precious in London !  There are also plenty of taxis in the area, and certain funds that can bring students to and from the campus.  As I’ve already said, with regard to the actual studies, there would be very much hope that any student with a disability would be lodged on campus so they do not have to worry about transport to campus.  One popular place to live is the Student Village , which is within 5 minutes from the campus itself.  Would you describe the services for students with psychological disorders? One of the strongest that Queen Mary has always been able to offer is a personal service for those students with dyslexia.  The pattern is very similar to that which I’ve described earlier, which once someone is assessed as having dyslexia, they go through a screening process with our disability coordinator and they are referred to the dyslexic senior tutor.  From that moment, they are entitled to a given number of hours per week of one-to-one personal tuition every single week for all periods they are studying with us, even if they are with us for three years.  That personal tuition covers a whole range of areas, including assistance in acquiring and utilizing the latest technology for students with dyslexia.  A dyslexic student would be shown how to use these technology packages and be assisted with funding so that they may acquire their own package.  We also provide for students with other kinds of learning difficulties with a mentoring system.  If a student is having particular forms of psychological learning difficulties, we offer that student a mentor to work with him or her on a weekly basis.  We recruit the mentors from a post-graduate level.  I always try to ensure that the mentors come from the same subject area that the student is actually studying.  For example, I have two students requiring mentors in law, and both of those are being given weekly special one-to-one tutorials with post-graduate law students.  The system seems to work reasonably well, though there is a theory that we should be employing permanent mentors, non-subject specific.  That is a debate that is raging across the scholastic community in the UK , as related to which service works best. Are there medical professionals in the vicinity that would be able to work with students who may be, for instance, bipolar or have another psychological disorder? We do have a advising counsel service and a health service on the campus.  Any British or EU student that attends school in the UK is now entitled to what is called DSA, which is Disabled Students Allowance.  The DSA has been in place for about eight or nine years.  It is divided into three constituent parts, and each of those parts is designed to cover student needs in a particular way.  One example is called the equipment grant, and that means a student can be allocated in his or her first year a given amount of resources to fund buying any necessary special needs equipment.  At the moment, that grant can run up to 11,000 pounds, or $18,000.  Obviously, the DSA is not in place for international students to come and study here, but because we want to attract international students, we as a college have put aside a special needs budget for international students.  Essentially, what this means is that students who come here from outside the European Union will be given certain amounts of assistance to guarantee they have access to equal opportunities.  For example, if I set up a student with an educational support worker as described earlier, it is absolutely guaranteed that the funds needed for the worker will be met directly by the college from our budget.  The same would be true for the one-to-one mentors for dyslexic students.  What would you say to students who had doubts about studying abroad due to their disabilities?  Coming to London can be a daunting experience, but it can also be very exciting.  London is an extremely diverse city, and very modern.  It has an awful lot going on.  It has some terrific theaters and concert halls.  It is very historical, and a great place to have fun and do some research.  If you’re coming as a post-graduate, the British Library in London is definitely one of the best in the world.  I think that we’re very well placed; we’ve got an awful lot to offer just being on the fringes of London .  We’re not right in the heart of it, but very close.  You can get in on the Tube to the center in under fifteen minutes, which I think is very good.  As for preparation, once you’ve set your mind on actually coming to our university, have a look at our website.  Look at the modules that you think may interest you.  There are some modules in each department that may not be open to international students.  The only reason for that is because they run for the whole year and cannot be picked up halfway through the year.  Just be absolutely sure that you’ve picked modules that work best for you.  Have a look at the syllabus, and assess whether as a disabled student it is going to give you any particular problems.  If you think it is, don’t just dismiss it.  Let us know that you want to come for a certain module but you have certain doubts.  Then we can work directly with the tutor on that module and discuss it before coming back to you to let you know that we can work with you with some adjustments.  Simply put, try and do as much advance preparation as possible.  If you don’t have enough information, feel free to email disability services or the faculty administrator of your desired department directly.