“Pooling our strengths to address the needs of the disabled more effectively”

PSL: How would you characterize the university’s success at accommodating disabled students and employees?

A. Devulder: Addressing and acknowledging disabilities is still a fairly recent phenomenon in French culture and in higher education and research in particular. But since France adopted its law on equal opportunity for people with disabilities, back in 2005, universities have started to address the issue. At PSL, for example, schools like Dauphine-PSL and ENS-PSL have established master plans on disability policy, while some of our other member institutions have taken concrete steps to recruit or accommodate disabled students and personnel, even if they haven’t adopted an official policy. Upon creating Université PSL, we had a responsibility to pool our strengths to address the needs of the disabled at the university more effectively. The first step was to appoint student and employee disability officers in PSL member institutions that didn’t yet have them. That led to our drafting a multiyear master plan on disability policy for 2019-2022. That master plan, which grew out of a team effort by all of our disability officers, was unanimously adopted by the PSL Board of Directors in December of last year. The disability officers are available to students and university employees alike to provide support in handling a variety of requests and procedures, such as getting official recognition of a disability or making alternative arrangements so that students or employees can do their school or office work more effectively.

PSL: What are the primary strategic objectives in the 2019-2022 master plan on disability policy?

A. Devulder: We’ve drawn on previous master plans to define five strategic objectives that cover a wide range of actions:

• Promote a path to success for students living with a disability, including placement in the workforce.
• Improve accessibility to the campus and campus locations and to services and resources for the disabled.
• Improve the information we provide to students, university personnel and users and raise awareness among those groups.
• Increase the number of disabled persons we recruit and employ and improve the services we provide to disabled employees.
• Encourage reserved procurement.

For each of those strategic priorities, we have defined objectives, concrete measures, key personnel and performance indicators. The disability officers meet on a quarterly basis to discuss the various actions to be taken.

PSL: What actions will receive priority now that the 2019-2022 master plan has been approved?

A. Devulder: Our first step was to appoint disability officers for the schools that didn’t have one. We’ll be following up with campaigns to educate our staff and students about disability issues. It’s still a taboo subject and not very well understood. The 2005 law adopted in France, which was expanded in 2018, offers a clear definition: “Pursuant to this act, a disability is any limitation on activity or restriction on participation in community life that a person experiences in his or her environment because of a substantial, long-term or permanent alteration in one or more physical, sensory, mental, cognitive or psychological functions, multiple disabilities, or an incapacitating physical disorder.” So I feel it’s very important that we raise awareness in our community about “invisible” forms of disability so that people feel free to speak out and we can improve the way we address those disabilities. It’s an issue that’s connected with other important topics in university life, such as well-being in the workplace and physical and psychological health (for which we have a new facility about to open). The University has various opportunities throughout the year (the start of the school year in September, the weeks we devote to specific topics, our training programs) to convey that message.

PSL: As students begin the process of applying to enter undergraduate and Master’s degree programs, can you offer some advice to disabled students, both current and future, about what steps they should take?

A. Devulder: The first thing they should do is contact the disability officer for their school. There’s virtually no such thing as a typical problem; every request needs to be handled individually. The disability officers are trained and they’re in the best position to suggest an appropriate solution. All conversations with the disability officers are confidential, and any decision about using a note-taker or some other solution is and will always be up to the students themselves. In addition, students can enlist the help of an occupational health physician (médecin de prévention) who has been certified by the departmental office for the disabled (MDPH). A health services center will be opening very soon in the center of campus, and that facility will also be able to provide advice and support to students living with a disability.

PSL: The schools at PSL operate out of some very old buildings. How does the university plan to make those buildings more accessible?

A. Devulder: Université PSL has an impressive heritage: our oldest institution dates back 500 years, while the youngest is 50 years old. We’re very much aware that accessibility to some of those buildings could be improved. That can’t be done in a day, but those concerns are being incorporated into every building renovation project we undertake on campus.

PSL: One of the provisions in the disability act adopted in 2005 was that disabled workers must comprise at least 6% of the workforce in French institutions. What actions will the university be taking to ensure that more persons with disabilities are hired and to assist those employees with disabilities?

A. Devulder: France’s disability legislation from 2005 and 2018 sets out a path for us to follow, and that’s one of the strategic objectives in our multiyear master plan for disability policy. Bear in mind that the overall unemployment rate for disabled workers is twice the national average (about 19% in 2018), and while the public sector doesn’t have a perfect record, it’s committed to remedying that situation. It’s an area where we need to make continued progress. On one hand, we’re stepping up our hiring efforts among the disabled (by announcing job vacancies at websites for the disabled and taking part in job forums), but we’re also enhancing our support for our current employees with disabilities. As I said, it’s still a taboo, misunderstood topic, and we’re convinced that many of the university’s staff members have never had the courage to speak up about themselves and the problems they encounter, or it’s never occurred to them. In order to remove some of those obstacles, we’ll be launching a communications campaign in February across all of PSL’s member institutions about the RQTH form for being formally recognized as a disabled worker. In addition, our in-house training facility will be continuing the training sessions that began in late 2019, including a workshop to raise manager awareness of these issues.