Renée Echols is completely blind. She has a seeing-eye dog to navigate the University’s campus. She’s also a GSI.

Her stories of struggle with the current administrative system are extensive. In her first semesters as an English GSI in 2007, Echols verbally asked her department supervisor for an aide to assist her with students the classroom, but her request was ignored.

The incident inspired her to become an active member in the University’s Graduate Employee Organization — a labor union that has lobbied for GSI rights since 1976. Echols is now the lead negotiator for the organization and is an extremely active member in contract bargaining processes with the University.

Teaching a room full of undergraduate students can be a daunting responsibility for a graduate student, but that task can become even more of a challenge for a GSI with a disability.

Currently, GSIs with disabilities don’t know to address issues concerning their disability with the University administration. This is a problem that has come on the radar within the last two or three years and has led to a partnership of disabled GSIs and GEO.

Echols, who attends the bargaining meeting with University representatives every week, said there has been a more concerted effort in the last few years to figure out what problems disabled GSIs are facing.

“This is something organized labor has not taken on before,” Echols said. “To understand job accommodations as a right is a fairly new concept.”

Echols said because the GEO is such a strong union, it has been using its power to focus on social justice issues, not just financial parity issues. Echols calls GEO’s disability concerns “groundbreaking” and “historic” because no other union is tackling such topics.

GEO President Rob Gillezeau also expressed pride in the organization’s actions.

“In a lot of unions, it wouldn’t come to the forefront of their bargaining platform just because it doesn’t affect most people,” Gillezeau said. “But GEO is different from a lot of union locals … disability access has been at the top or very near to the top of our priority issues.

“When I taught, I understood exactly what to do when a student had a disability, I knew the process. If I had a disability, I would have no idea what to do.”

GEO’s main concern is equal treatment for people of all identities, especially those with disabilities. Other issues include providing female GSIs with a longer paid leave of absence during and after pregnancy. Receiving adequate childcare subsidies is a constant struggle for GSIs, as the University is always concerned about the cost of these accommodations.

Another issue GEO hopes to resolve is graduate student research assistants’ eligibility for union membership. If they were eligible to join, GEO would double its representation by gaining twice as many members.

Looking for solutions

Echols’s first attempt to verbally contact her departmental supervisor left her with unsatisfactory answers on how to address her need of an aide to assist her in the classroom. The University told her that her accommodation would simply be too costly and such an addition would undermine her authority in the classroom. The situation left Echols feeling frustrated and disrespected.

In the required 100-level English classes, GSIs must design their own course; they don’t rely on a professor’s lecture for teaching material. In Echols’s freshman English classes, students were disorderly — they blatantly passed notes, left during class, used their cell phones openly and even napped at their desk.

Her experience teaching English 124 and 125 was disheartening. Echols didn’t know how she could adequately teach when her students had no respect for her and her disability.

Her second attempt for an aide consisted of drafting a formal letter to the University with help from the GEO, and after weeks with no reply, the University said she should talk to other instructors with vision impairment to see how they handled their situation. This obstacle eventually forced Echols to leave lower-level English classes and begin assisting as a GSI for Great Books, which had a reputation for having more disciplined students.

In order to grade exams, Echols needs her students’ Blue Books to be read aloud to her. Professors often offer to read the exams to her, but when professors don’t offer, Echols is forced to ask her fellow GSIs for help.

“I’m stuck in this awkward situation where I have to ask the other GSIs to read me exams, and that’s just more work for them,” Echols said.

She believes the University should make an effort to actively recruit and consider employees with disabilities.