A Recap of the 2/6/23 Interview with UConn Professor Kimberly Bergendahl

Written by Madison Bigelow with support from the DAC team.

***The link to the interview transcript can be found here 

Within the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (CLAS) at the University of Connecticut, a new program that funds faculty or staff fellowships aimed at expanding accessibility across campus has been underway. As an initiative, the program encourages fellows to focus on pedagogy, existing structures on campus, culture, and graduate affairs as they pertain to issues of access, inclusion, and justice on campus. Recently, the DAC blog team was lucky enough to sit down with Professor Bergendahl, one of three CLAS Accessibility Fellows, and talk about her interest in graduate education and accessibility at UConn. 

Who is Professor Kimberly Bergendahl?

Dr. Kimberly Bergendahl is an Associate Professor in Residence of Political Science, where she teaches courses in Public Law, Criminal Justice, and Political Theory. She has been at UConn since her enrollment in the Department of Political Science as a graduate student; having obtained her Master’s and Phd. from UConn, Professor Bergendahl has experienced some of the many successes and failures of access on campus as both a student and faculty member. 

As a graduate student, Professor Bergendahl recalls her visit to the Center for Students with Disabilities in 1991: 

“I went to the Wilbur Cross Building, and there was just one room for students with disabilities. I wear a prosthesis on my right leg, so I already have the understanding [of] what it’s like to navigate through institutions with a disability… so my request was just to get accommodations for parking and the housing in the graduate residencies.” 

Since her initial visit and the passing of the Americans with Disabilities Act in the 90s, she has specifically witnessed UConn’s CSD greatly expand over the past thirty years. 

What does Professor Bergendahl hope to accomplish as a CLAS Accessibility Fellow?

At its core, she hopes to examine issues that arise for graduate students as it pertains to obtaining and maintaining access and accommodations. For one, the research that has been done on disability and graduate studies show that graduate students are less likely to disclose a documented disability in comparison to undergraduate students due to fears of stigma, “fear that it’s going to impact their performance in graduate programs, [and] also how that might impact their ability to make that transition into the workforce.” 

Additionally, there are many graduate students that take on the dual role of student and employee when they enroll in their programs. As a result, oftentimes there is a “dual dilemma” that arises for graduate students with “documented disabilit[ies] in need of an accommodation [if they] have to go through both the center for students with disabilities but also human resources.” While this is one instance of the many unique challenges that graduate students face, Professor Bergendahl looks to uncover these experiences as a Fellow. 

Why is this work specifically focused on graduate students? Why not faculty or undergraduates?

During her thirty years at UConn, Professor Bergendahl reflects that while she has seen great change in the environment and resources available to undergraduate students with disabilities, those changes have been relatively absent for graduate students. She “want[s] to learn more about graduate students because it just seems like not much does come up even for [faculty members].” While she does not consider herself to be an authority in disability studies, “it’s always been an interest of [her’s]” and something she wanted to pursue further than the current conversations that appear in her Law and Popular Culture course. In other words, she believes that it’s time for graduate students to have a seat at the table that they’ve long been excluded from. 

We’d like to thank Professor Kimberly Bergendahl for sitting down to discuss her research with us. If you’re interested in our extended interview, you can access the transcript here and the video/audio here.