Deafness in academia and the geosciences: challenges and solutions

Abstract

Deaf and hard-of-hearing people are no less capable of being geoscientists or working geoscience academics than are hearing people. However, deaf and hard-of-hearing individuals are represented in lower percentages in these fields, contributing to a lack of diversity. People with some form of hearing loss face stigmas and misconceptions, as well as microaggressions and ableism that may impede their recruitment and retention in the geosciences. This paper explores some of the barriers faced by deaf and hard-of-hearing scientists, some lived experiences, ways progress has been made to include people with hearing loss, and what more can be done.

Keywords:

• Deafness
• disability
• geosciences
• representation
• geoscience faculty

Introduction

Deafness is not widely referenced or recognized in higher education. Deaf individuals in postsecondary education face barriers to achievement, most notably in the area of communication. Deaf and hard-of-hearing individuals with Ph.D.s exist in numbers well below what would be expected in all fields; 1.17% of the total U.S. population has a Ph.D. but only 0.061% of deaf U.S. citizens have earned this degree (Garberoglio et al., 2019). In Earth and physical sciences, deaf and hard-of-hearing individuals with Ph.D.s only have half the representation of the general population with Ph.D.s (Cooke, 2019). According to the National Science Foundation, National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics (NCSES), only 9 people who were awarded Ph.D.s in the geosciences in 2019 had disclosed a hearing disability. The National Science Foundation, National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics (NCSES) surveyed nearly 30,000 recipients of STEM doctoral degrees and found only 1.4% of respondents in all STEM fields reported a hearing disability, a rate about half the number expected based on general demographics. Diversity among working geoscientists increases the strength of this field because of the different perspectives diverse individuals bring to this science (Huntoon & Lane, 2007).

Universities are making great efforts to make access and inclusion part of their cultures and as a result are becoming more diverse (Jayakumar et al., 2018; Sharma, 2019). However, the geosciences are one of the least diverse STEM fields (Dutt, 2020; Gonzales & Keane, 2020; Huntoon & Lane, 2007), and diversity in the geosciences has remained stagnant for the last 40 years (Dutt, 2020). It is also important to note that people with disabilities are the largest minority population in the United States (Carabajal et al., 2017). Deafness is considered to be a disability in our culture.

Deafness may be defined in a variety of ways. Individuals who are culturally Deaf are generally referred to as Deaf with a capital D. People who have hearing loss but are not culturally Deaf are represented by the word “deaf” with a lowercase d. People with some residual hearing may be technically deaf and use that term, while others may be referred to as hard-of-hearing (HOH). The term “hearing-impaired” is considered to be offensive to many and should not be used; it focuses on what people cannot do and implies there is something wrong with an individual that should be fixed (National Association of the Deaf (NAD), 2023a). Many deaf people do not consider themselves disabled (Ludden, 2018; Schmidt, 2017). Rather, deaf individuals, especially those born deaf and brought up in the Deaf culture, consider themselves to be more of a cultural minority than a disabled population (Leigh et al., 2018). For the sake of clarity in this paper, I will use the term deafness with a lowercase d to be all-encompassing and refer to individuals from all areas of the above-mentioned spectrum. My focus will be mainly on deaf individuals in the geosciences.

Disability and deafness in higher education

In the United States, 26% of adults have some type of disability; 5.9% of all adults identify as having a hearing disability (Okoro et al., 2018). In contrast, 14% of adults between the ages of 20 and 69 who are employed identify as having significant levels of hearing loss (Hoffman et al., 2017). In the United States, about 21.4% of people who identify as deaf have earned a bachelor’s degree or higher, in contrast with 36.9% of hearing people (National Deaf Center, 2021). Hearing loss is often referred to as an invisible disability because it may not be readily apparent initially upon meeting a deaf individual (Tidwell, 2004). This lack of awareness can foster misconceptions and a general lack of understanding of deafness by hearing communities, such as academia, that may have little experience with deafness.

Diversity has come to be recognized as an important value on college campuses, as greater diversity leads to better science (Nielsen et al., 2017). Many colleges and universities strive to attract a diverse student body, and commit to diverse faculty hires as well. Much of this focus has been on increasing gender diversity (Nielsen et al., 2017) and ethnic diversity (Davis & Fry, 2019), but even in this arena there is a discrepancy: in fall 2017 24% of postsecondary faculty were nonwhite, in contrast to 45% of students identifying as nonwhite (NCES, 2018). People with disabilities also contribute to the diversity found in higher education, and this gap in identity is greater for people with disabilities. About 11% of undergraduates at colleges and universities in the U.S. have a disability (NCES, 2018) but only about 4% of faculty are disabled (Grigely, 2017).

Numerous burdens faced by deaf people include dealing the stigma of having a disability, and the misconception that deaf individuals are somehow less capable than their hearing counterparts may lead to a lack of representation of deaf academics in general, but also in the geosciences. An additional burden is dealing with the microaggressions of various forms of ableism. Ableism, often ingrained in our culture (Yerbury & Yerbury, 2021), is when able-bodiedness is overvalued, and it may be overt, covert, or unintentional. Unintentional ableism arises when there is discrimination from an expectation of normality, a systemic assumption that everyone does things the same way (Murphy, 2021). Institutionalized ableism promotes privilege amongst the able-bodied and portrays disability as a problem or a tragedy to be avoided (Lalvani & Broderick, 2013; Smith, 2008). Ableism may spring from widespread belief that the medical model of deafness is the only way to see people who are deaf or hard-of-hearing. The medical model sees deafness as a problem that needs to be fixed, and it sees deaf people as having a condition requiring a cure (Morgan, 2022).

Most people do not understand basic facts about deafness and hearing loss (Woodcock et al., 2007). Institutionalized ableism leads many hearing people, upon first encountering a deaf or hard-of-hearing person, to inquire if the deaf individual reads lips, an implication that verbal communication must be the norm (Woodcock et al., 2007). Lipreading can be highly imprecise, and typically energy-draining on the part of the lipreader; it is approximated that only about 30% of spoken English can be correctly understood without other nonverbal cues (Demorest & Bernstein, 1997). If you consider technical, discipline-specific vocabulary that is frequently encountered in the geosciences, lipreading may be even less precise, even under ideal circumstances.

In order to be an effective scientist, one must be an effective communicator (Feliu-Mojer, 2015). Effective communication when deaf and hearing people are conversing ensures that everyone has the ability to share information equally, and that everyone can participate fully (National Deaf Center, 2021). Geoscientists already utilize multiple avenues of communication. In academia, scientists teach orally, present research at conferences, and publish articles in journals. Professional geoscientists outside of academia need to present results to city planning commissions and other entities. Colleges have entire communications majors. So why is accessible, effective communication not seen as everyone’s responsibilities when deaf or hard-of-hearing people are involved? The root of this may lie in ableism. Deaf geoscientists have ways of communicating and understanding communications but due to institutionalized ableism, they bear the burden of ensuring effective communication in what should be a multi-directional conversation.

Ableism is also when deafness is seen as a communication disorder. In fact, some U.S. colleges offer American Sign Language (ASL) classes under the communication disorders heading. A New York Times article has declared deafness to be an “annoying inconvenience” that “threatens mind, life, and limb” (Brody, 2018). Another article in the same paper warns us that “hearing loss may make you accident prone” (Bakalar, 2018). With attitudes such as these it is not surprising that the burden of fostering communication falls on the person with hearing loss (Carabajal et al., 2017), since they are the one who is perceived to have a problem that needs to be remedied. Breakdowns in communication with the hearing world fuel the concept of deafness as disability (Woodcock et al., 2007; Greenwald & Van Cleve, 2008). However, good communication should be the responsibility of all involved.

Currently for deaf students and academics, there is technology such as real-time captioning to assist with communication. Communication Action Real-time Translation (CART) is one such popular application that instantly translates spoken words to text (National Association of the Deaf (NAD), 2023b). In addition, there are sign language interpreters available for those who use this form of communication, but it is typically the responsibility of the deaf individual to arrange for this accommodation. However, these forms of access may be lacking in quality (Woodcock et al., 2007) due to specialized language in the geosciences for which there may not yet be a corresponding sign. There exists a signing Earth science dictionary (TERC, 2021) that may assist with reducing the need to finger spell many geoscience-specific words. Jargon and discipline-specific ASL not included in this dictionary may require fingerspelling long words. Regardless, interpreter burnout is high in these types of situations (Schwarber, 2021). In addition, captioning is often phonetic, resulting in poorly-translated words. CART, for example, tries to be 98% accurate but errors will occur (Captioning & CART, 2021). Even small errors are distracting at best and confusing at worst.

An integral component of the geosciences is field-based educational experiences (Whitmeyer & Mogk, 2009). The underrepresentation of students with disabilities within the geosciences is, in part, due to their traditional exclusion from opportunities to learn and work in the field (Atchison et al., 2019). Field environments may be challenging for deaf and hard-of-hearing individuals. There are unique circumstances faced by people with hearing loss when working in an outdoor environment. These can include not seeing people’s faces when they are talking due to engaging in field activities, and the poor acoustics of the outdoors. Some geoscience academics are finding ways to make field trips more accessible for people with all disabilities (Cooke et al., 1997), and there has been an increase in accessible outdoor experiences (Stokes & Atchison, 2015; Hendricks et al., 2017).

Another significant issue faced by deaf students and professors is the lack of access to spontaneous communication opportunities, such as exclusion from conversations in the classroom (Brown, 2021) and opportunities to engage in field collaborations (Atchison et al., 2019). For a deaf person this can mean an assumption on the part of their hearing peers that verbal communication must be the norm. As a result, deaf students may find themselves steered toward academic settings that are less communication-intense, regardless of whether or not they suit the person’s interests (Woodcock et al., 2007).

Communication issues for deaf people in the geosciences may also take other forms. A hallmark of geoscience education is collaborative or group work. Although the course instructor has the responsibility of ensuring that all students, including those with a hearing disability, have the opportunity to be fully engaged in the learning community (Carabajal et al., 2017), this often does not happen. Most, if not all, of the responsibility for engaging and making accommodations is placed on the shoulders of the deaf student, a disturbing occurrence that continues throughout all levels of academia (Carabajal et al., 2017).

Deaf individuals who do stay in their respective geoscience fields and go on to pursue graduate degrees and academic careers continue to face barriers related to communication. Deaf academics may choose not to attend professional events or activities where they will need to request accommodation such as interpretation or captioning (Woodcock et al., 2007), or may avoid certain types of research or classroom activities (Tidwell, 2004.)

Undergraduate education and deaf students

Deaf and hard-of-hearing people in the sciences may have interest in pursuing academic careers, but face a multitude of obstacles along the way, including when they are starting their undergraduate education. Laws such as the Americans with Disabilities Act (Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), 1990) are in place to support professionals with disabilities. However they will only support those who self-disclose (Ellingson, 2021; Carabajal et al., 2017), and not all deaf geoscientists choose to disclose their hearing loss. Few people with hearing loss request work accommodations, leading to feelings of isolation in academia (Cooke, 2019). This may feel like an uncomfortable option for many due to the stigma associated with deafness, as well as the expense involved in providing diagnosis of a disability. Hearing tests and professional medical evaluations all come with a cost.

Increasing the number of deaf individuals with Ph.D.s begins with addressing the needs of deaf undergraduates. The underrepresentation of students with disabilities within the geosciences is complex, but includes lack of field opportunites (Atchison et al., 2019), barriers due to ableism (Murphy, 2021), and feelings of inadequacy (McGill et al., 2021). Even as society is becoming more aware of some issues facing students with disabilities, students with invisible disabilities such as deafness have received far less attention (Sapir & Banai, 2023). Undergraduates who do not have the support and mentorship of disabled faculty may choose not to pursue the geosciences or continue in higher education. Connors (2023) found that minoritized undergraduates in the geosciences were more motived to stay and succeed in this field when they established friend groups, many of which were centered on a social identity. Likewise, minoritized students were more likely to feel they had a place in the geosciences when they saw faculty in their field with the same social identity (Connors, 2023). People will feel included when their identities are recognized and acknowledged (Dutt, 2020).

One study found that many undergraduate students with invisible disabilities often did not disclose that they had a disability because of past negative experiences involving stigma, shame, and social exclusion (Sapir & Banai, 2023). Students may also find they have difficulty acknowledging their experiences as people with disabilities because of a society that overwhelmingly views disability as a negative (Olney & Brockelman, 2003). In addition, many students discover that if they choose to disclose their invisible disability to their universities and colleges, the provided accommodations are often inadequate or inappropriate (Sapir & Banai, 2023).

Deafness is often dismissed or disregarded when examining inclusive pedagogies and ways of recruiting students into geosciences. One study states, “To address the challenges of teaching introductory courses, we must establish inclusive, adaptable pedagogies that work specifically within the structures of general education courses. Student-Produced Audio Narrative (SPAN) assignments achieve this through several approaches.” (Kraal et al., 2022). The researchers assert that this addresses equitable instruction, though it clearly is not accessible to many deaf/hard-of-hearing students due to the auditory nature of this approach. Authors make a note of this but dismissively suggest that deaf/hard-of-hearing individuals find ways to adapt this technique to fit their needs, again placing the burden of fitting in and making academe work on the person with the disability.

How individuals view their disability is influenced by a variety of factors, including social and social-psychological situations (Weinberger, 1980). Undergraduate students are still discovering and building their scientific abilities, identities, and sense of belonging in the STEM community; feelings of inferiority or exclusion can contribute to feelings of inferiority, or imposter syndrome (McGill et al., 2021). Although many academics have felt this at one point or another, it is known to be a reason students leave science fields, especially when those students belong to underrepresented groups (Arnold et al., 2020; Cokley et al., 2017; McGill et al., 2021). Therefore, it is critical that deaf undergraduates with an interest in the geosciences find allyship and mentorship whether from disabled or non-disabled faculty.

Deaf and hard-of-hearing faculty in the geosciences

It stands to reason that if deaf students face barriers to achievement in the geosciences, potentially leading them to drop out of geoscience programs, this will lead to fewer deaf individuals pursuing higher degrees and becoming geoscience faculty. In general, people with disabilities have historically been seen as misfits or outcasts (Garland-Thomson, 2011). Therefore it is not surprising that even after being hired, disabled faculty may choose not to disclose their disability if possible (Brown, 2021). However, there are times that accommodation is needed and it is necessary to explain a disability in order to access the required assistance. This makes the faculty member susceptible to discrimination through bias and stereotypes suggesting that their disability is a hindrance to a professional and competent job performance (Ellingson, 2021; Atchison & Libarkin, 2016). In fact, only 16% of deaf and hard-of-hearing people applying for postsecondary academic positions choose to identify their disability in the application materials (Caicedo, 2019; Brown, 2021). As noted earlier in this paper, professorships by definition have a large communication requirement as part of the job, and for many geoscience positions there is an expectation that some of that communication will take place in outdoor or other nontraditional settings. Social bias and misconceptions about how deaf and hard-of-hearing people communicate can greatly hinder applicants from this demographic finding employment.

Although geoscience hiring committees and university human resources departments may have a genuine commitment to hiring diverse faculty, there is also a stigma associated with wearing hearing aids (Cienkowski & Pimentel, 2001; Erler & Garstecki, 2002), and despite the fact that people of all ages can identify as having hearing loss, there may be an unconscious ageism bias (Southall et al., 2011). This leads some prospective faculty to not disclose their disability when possible (Brown, 2021) or to hide their hearing aids as best they can during any in-person job interviews. In addition, some faculty have fear that disclosing their hearing disability makes them appear weak (Brown & Leigh, 2018).

As an example of institutionalized ableism, the language present on academic job applications also fosters the misconception that disabled individuals must be considered deviants from accepted norms. For example, applicants have a choice whether or not to “disclose” their disability. This type of institutionalized ableism contributes to the most common barrier to disability disclosure: concerns about discrimination (Lindsay et al., 2018). The term “disclosure” is associated with stigma, since people with disabilities generally live in environments that dismiss and devalue them (Olney & Brockelman, 2003). Identifying oneself as having a disability requires facing a fear that employment may be rejected outright based on the disclosure, or of being seen as a disability rather than an academic during the job search (Brown & Leigh, 2018). There are stigma issues associated with hearing loss (Cienkowski & Pimentel, 2001; Erler & Garstecki, 2002; Brown, 2021), and in some circumstances deafness may be seen as a weakness (Raphael, 2006). When job candidates are invited to interview in academia, interview rooms that are friendly to people with hearing loss are not often provided (Raphael, 2006). There is a genuine risk that someone will be seen as the disability, and therefore an academic liability, rather than as someone with genuine ways to contribute to academia.

Identifying as an individual with a disability is more complex than is generally perceived by the non-disabled population. Higher education is often focused on achievement; disability in our culture is couched as a lack of ability to perform some critical life task or as having a deficit (McLemee, 2023), as even the Americans with Disabilities Act defines a disability as having “a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities” (Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), 1990). Some sub-fields of the geosciences involve rigorous outdoor work as well, and for deaf people, this can entail trying to hear or communicate in suboptimal conditions. Thus, the question arises among hiring committees for college and university faculty who have little experience with disability: is a person with a disability capable of performing the tasks of the job? In addition to this type of ableism, universities may simultaneously worry about any financial costs of accommodating faculty with a disability while enjoying the benefits of being able to tout a “diverse” faculty that includes professors who identify as disabled. Further, academics with disabilities have been found to be consistently funded at lower rates than their non-disabled peers, and the high expectations found in academia tend to marginalize anyone with a disability (Yerbury & Yerbury, 2021). These biases, whether implicit or not, give many deaf academics pause when applying for jobs.

Deafness and disability in higher education and the geosciences: Lived experiences

Despite the obstacles that may be faced in the hiring process, deaf Ph.D.s do get hired into academic positions in the geosciences. However, this does not mark the end of difficulties or institutionalized ableism in some cases. Many professors, who may have a range of hearing loss, will need to request an accommodation in order to do their jobs well.

Receiving an accommodation may not be a simple process once initiated. Although we can assume the majority of universities do not aim to make accommodation requests difficult, sometimes bureaucracy and red tape can turn this process into an ordeal. One professor documents that she needs to provide annual proof to her university that her leg is still missing due to an amputation in order to receive a handicapped parking placard (Ellingson, 2021).

I have engaged in a long process to get a human resources department to remove the requirement from an accommodation request that a medical professional sign off on it. I used this form to request temporary ASL interpreters when my hearing aids unexpectedly malfunctioned and needed to be replaced. One of the required questions was for a medical professional to tell the university what accommodations would be best for me, rather than allowing me to request the services I needed. I refused to fill out this form, engaged my supportive department chair in the fight, and got the language on this standard form changed. However, this serves as an example of one of the unnecessary obstacles people with disabilities face and is a classic illustration of how the medical model of disability misinforms university policies and promotes institutionalized ableism.

Invisible disabilities such as deafness have their own unique issues since people may not understand or believe that someone has a disability since it is not readily apparent. As an example, I once asked to be seated in the front row facing the sign language interpreters for a presentation held in a cavernous room in a convention center. I was told I could not sit there because those seats were reserved for disabled people.

As the COVID pandemic swept the globe, professional conferences moved to online formats. This format is in many ways an advantage for deaf and hard-of-hearing geoscience professionals. Online geoscience meeting conferencing allowed us to utilize captions and/or to control the volume of the speaker. However, some of us found that these platforms had a delay between spoken word and captioning or speech to text. Further, lack of visual cues led to a short delay in processing speech through a computer for some people. Even if we make our disability clear, many online conference attendees experience a lack of patience from those waiting a few extra seconds for us to respond. I was personally chastised for what was perceived as lack of readiness in this format while giving a presentation, despite evidence to the contrary.

These are just some examples of the numerous microaggressions experienced by deaf and hard-of-hearing people on a regular basis. Many of us who are hard-of-hearing and communicate verbally in many situations have been told “but you hear fine” when we disclose our disability in conversation in the hopes of hearing other participants better. At work, we may find we are denied a reasonable accommodation as required by the Americans with Disabilities Act (Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), 1990). Although we may have recourse to correct this type of discrimination, it takes time and energy that would be better invested in our teaching or research, in the case of academic geoscientists.

It is important to note that despite the many frustrations and barriers deaf geoscientists may face or have faced, many of us also have success stories. For example, my department chair recognized my inability to hear at large campus gatherings such as the all-faculty meeting that happens at the beginning of each academic year. He brought this issue to the attention of the university administration and as a result of his advocacy, all university gatherings of 50 or more people have sign language interpreters present, with no request necessary. This is significant because often interpreters require up to 2 wk advance notice of an event. Deaf or hard-of-hearing people at this university now can decide in a shorter time frame to attend an engagement and not need to seek out accommodations.

I feel it is important to note a particular situation that is unique to those of us who are hard-of-hearing. While there are various degrees of hearing loss, some of us can pass as hearing in everyday life. Frequently for me, and anecdotally I have heard this from other hard-of-hearing professionals, this can lead to unpleasant situations at work and in life. Because we may seem hearing, others may try to “hearing test” us by trying to see what we can and cannot hear. This distracts and detracts from work we are trying to accomplish. Other times if we misunderstand or do not hear something, but later we do hear something clearly, we are challenged with, “How could you hear that if you couldn’t hear the other thing?” In extreme instances we are accused of faking our hearing loss for some gain. I have been told, “You can hear fine.” These are all types of microaggressions experienced by those of us with some hearing loss but who are not completely deaf, who use spoken language without a “deaf accent,” or who do not use sign language full time.

Solutions

So how do we increase the number of deaf faculty in the geosciences? The approach by definition must be multi-pronged. Creating an inclusive space for people in marginalized communities, including deaf geoscientists, starts by getting to know those people (Hendricks et al., 2017; O’Neill, 2021). For hearing people interacting with deaf students and faculty, this means understanding deafness and the communication issues associated with it.

At this time, there is great demand for geoscientists, and there is a need to fill geoscience positions with skilled graduates in this field (Atchison, 2014). This also translates to jobs in academia. Hearing loss does not change the academic merit, education, or accomplishments of an individual (Raphael, 2006). In fact, deaf academics can bring valuable perspectives to their jobs and to their classrooms; this is commonly known as deaf gain (Bauman & Murray, 2014; Cooke, 2018). Bauman and Murray (2014) define deaf gain as “the unique cognitive, creative, and cultural gains manifested through deaf ways of being in the world.” An example of deaf gain is the visual nature of deaf and hard-of-hearing people. Deaf professors will naturally bring this style into their classrooms, which is an effective way of communicating concepts that may be difficult to understand or that may be complex, regardless of whether the student has hearing loss or not (Cooke, 2018). Cooke (2018) also argues that deafness in a hearing world can make deaf and hard-of-hearing university faculty more empathetic in general to the needs of diverse campus environments and communities. Lived experiences of deaf people means deaf faculty recognize the need for flexibility in a wide variety of situations. Academics have long known that diversity spurs success and innovation in higher education (Crawford, 2020); exclusion of deaf voices represents a loss to the academic community.

A first step at inclusion requires the recognition of deaf gain. There is a need for a cultural shift to normalize disability in general, and a need to recognize ableism rather than focusing on the perceived limitations of a disability (Yerbury & Yerbury, 2021). Discrimination keeps the population of deaf academics artificially low, since university administrators think deaf individuals simply self-select out of academia (Raphael, 2006). Since people with disabilities are the largest minority population in the United States (Carabajal et al., 2017), it is critical that academia recognize this and make efforts to recruit and retain disabled faculty.

Active recruitment of populations that are historically underrepresented in the geosciences has been shown to work (Haschenburger et al., 2022); these groups will have increased motivation, skills, and experience (Haschenburger et al., 2022). Although it has been established that deaf faculty will bring valuable perspectives and contributions to a university community, fears of expense associated with potential accommodations may make hiring managers reluctant to hire deaf individuals (Burke, 2021). Elimination of perceptions of higher cost to universities if they hire people who need accommodations needs to be a factor as well.

Relieving the entire burden of communication from the individual with hearing loss is critical at all levels of academia. In order to ensure the increase in numbers of deaf students who continue in the geoscience field, and in turn those who pursue higher degrees and careers in academia, we need to foster the idea that good communication is everyone’s responsibility. This needs to start with undergraduates, but models for this are few and far between. The University of Gloustershire in the UK does present a workable example, however. They take a proactive approach to students with a hearing disability, and in their guide for developing an inclusive curriculum, they state, “What staff need to do is envisage how to modify their teaching and assessment practices when a d/Deaf student takes their courses” (Wareham et al., 2006). This stresses the importance of good communication and does not place the burden entirely on the student.

Hendricks et al. (2017) researched how to improve field experiences for deaf participants. This study assigned a personal assistant to deaf students attending a short field course. If educators arrange for a personal assistant to be available for deaf participants in educational geoscience situations, this may help lessen the exclusion from spontaneous conversations and foster a more inclusive environment (Hendricks et al., 2017).

For those unfamiliar with deafness, providing inclusion may seem like a difficult obstacle. It need not be. One easy way to promote inclusion of deaf and hard-of-hearing people is to always automatically have captions, interpreters, and microphones at any public presentation. A bonus of this is that it can benefit those who do not have a hearing disability as well.

Universities and professional workplaces can promote inclusion of people with hearing loss by providing professional development workshops that address working with colleagues who are deaf. Removing some of the mystique can alleviate stereotypes and potential awkwardness for people who have never encountered deaf individuals in a job setting. Asking deaf and hard-of-hearing people about their preferred mode of communication, and then implementing it, will go a long way toward making a workplace deaf-friendly.

Perhaps most important is getting at the root of why people with hearing loss are not well-represented in the geosciences. This problem pervades other fields and other disabilities as well. Recognition of the barriers faced by people with disabilities is also critical for those who may never have experienced disability themselves, or interacted with someone who identifies as having any type of disability. Empathy, flexibility, and a growth mind-set will go a long way toward improving access for deaf academics and others with disabilities on a college campus (Emery et al., 2021).

As I addressed some of the situations unique to hard-of-hearing individuals in the previous section of this paper, it is important to note that some people do lose some of their hearing as they age. So geoscience employers may find that the disability-free person they hired some years ago now has a disability. While it may be easy for employers to find reasons not to hire someone with a hearing disability, it is much harder for them to terminate the employment of someone who has done a good job, but is facing hearing loss. Thus it benefits everyone in academia and anyone who employs geoscientists to keep up to date with the latest ways to assist deaf and hard-of-hearing employees or potential employees.

Ableism in all its forms must be addressed at all levels. The best way to eliminate ableism is through education. Many universities are now actively working to recruit diverse faculty; it is important to be sure that people with disabilities are included in the working definition of diversity. It is also critical to be sure hiring committees are aware that the potential benefits of hiring someone who is deaf vastly outweigh any unfounded concerns, such as cost of accommodations, for example. Universities are places of learning. Faculty need to embrace the opportunity for knowledge and diversity of perspective by embracing potential deaf and hard-of-hearing faculty and becoming familiar with how to make communication work both ways. Leveraging a desire for knowledge is a good first step to making our geoscience communities more diverse and more welcoming for academics who are deaf and hard-of-hearing.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).