How to set up neurodiverse student leaders to succeed

Starting out as a full-time student leader can be a scary and overwhelming process.

For most of us, it is our first experience in a full-time, office-based job – and learning the culture of the environment (both SU and university) can be daunting.

For an autistic officer like me, it is even trickier to navigate – because there is a whole new rule book to learn within an unfamiliar environment, where everybody else seems to know how to work together.

Many autistic people describe their experiences as though everybody else was given a rulebook on “how to be human” when they were born, where they weren’t.

Coming into an officer role is incredibly similar to this experience – but there actually is an unspoken rulebook which people are supposed to abide by. The world is inherently hostile to neurodivergent people, in the same way that the higher education sector is inherently intimidating to sabbatical officers.

I ran for the role in my SU because, like many, I wanted to change and improve the student experience at my institution. I also hoped that a job in a place that I already knew, with people who I was familiar with, would give me an environment that I wouldn’t struggle in.

I had already faced my own share of jobs in the service industry. I knew that if I went back to that, I would experience burnout and mental health issues. However, I rather naively underestimated the way in which being a sabbatical officer would still be difficult in many ways.

Improving the student experience

In my role I have run a campaign aimed at improving the experience of disabled students. My institution has a higher than sector average percentage of disabled students, and I had experienced student life both before and after my autism diagnosis.

I have advocated for disabled students as much as possible in my role, and yet I still struggle to advocate for myself as a disabled individual. I don’t ask for accommodations as much as I should, and I find it challenging to know what accommodations would help.

It is difficult for any workplace to know what accommodations could be made to improve the experience of autistic employees when so few of us are actually in employment. In 2021, the National Autistic Society found that only 22% of autistic people are in paid work, compared to over 80% of non-disabled people.

Workplaces seem to be inadvertently structured against autistic people, and the adjustments to make spaces genuinely autistic friendly are barely known because so few of us are in employment.

I don’t think that this inaccessibility is intentional – I have experienced many positive adjustments from sharing my access needs. However, when unable to advocate for myself, I have still experienced these structural issues firsthand.

This matters because it is predicted that there will soon be more autistic people entering higher education spaces, and it is important to identify how higher education can become more neurodivergent friendly.

Disabled Students UK predict that by 2033, over a third of home students will be disabled – in the same study they found that over half of disabled students report having a Specific Learning Difference (ADHD, dyslexia, dyspraxia, etc), and 41 per cent report being autistic.

As the number of disabled students increase, it is possible that the number of disabled student leaders will follow this trend.

From the perspective of the university and SU, providing reasonable adjustments may seem daunting initially. Personally, when I needed to initially discuss my reasonable adjustments there was no set person to discuss this with, and so I have continuously worked with many members of the team to discover these.

It is also difficult to know how to share this information. I sit on our University’s Council, and after my first meeting found myself incredibly dysregulated and frightened at the prospect of continuing these meetings.

I found the best way to access adjustments was to share an email with all members of Council with information about my adjustments. However, I don’t feel that this could be repeated with all the meetings that I sit on.

Sabbatical officers are pulled into many different spaces, and repeating a message to all members of these meetings feels burdensome. Not all members would be open to providing support, not all meetings require the same level of support, and having conversations around this would exhaust me.

Identifying solutions

The creation of adjustments can be burdensome, and some of this burden needs to be alleviated from the disabled individual. This could take many forms.

Firstly, it is important to recognise how reasonable adjustments for disabled people actually benefit everyone. I always appreciate clear actions from meetings, as it removes the confusion around what I should be doing. This adjustment leads to a more engaged team who know what their goals are.

Dimmable lights in offices (LED lights are my personal enemy), means that those who suffer from migraines also don’t have to take sick days. Some adjustments may only support the disabled individual, but many can make the lives of others easier too.

This would also be improved if conversations around neurodivergence and disability were opened up. I feel that in many ways I present as autistic – I am young, white, and I try my best to unmask even at work.

However, by disclosing my diagnosis I have found many people who do not fit this stereotype (or the original autistic stereotype of young boys), have disclosed their neurodivergence to me.

Those in leadership positions within higher education have the power to influence the view of disability and neurodivergence, and the conversation could be opened up if the power is utilised.

It’s also clear to me that the cliffedge of support from university disability departments simply stopping when a student happens to be elected – and is technically working for the SU rather than studying – makes little sense. Disability experts know how to work with often very diverse sets of teaching, learning and experience activities on programmes – perhaps their expertise could continue when a student gets elected.

That may not feel appropriate in many SU/university contexts, and so it might also be that university HR departments are asked to offer support, expertise and funding – and help with accessing the government’s Access to Work scheme, where that is required. If nothing else, a good degree of inaccessibility is inside the university, not the SU’s control.

Either way – making sure that universities use their considerable resources to ensure that student leaders are set up to succeed would be a better approach than expecting their own small, under-resourced student charities to know and do everything. It’s one that’s worth considering next time the SU/university MOU comes up for discussion.

Meetings matter a lot. One of the reasons that my SU’s Board of Trustees was a comfortable environment for me to be in was that an external trustee utilises movement breaks as an adjustment themselves.

This allowed me to feel comfortable with my own adjustments – fidgeting, not making eye contact or taking time to process questions. This is the kind of influence that I would want to see – those who need adjustments, and especially those in positions of power, using them and influencing how adjustments are viewed.

Anyone clerking or chairing a committee should be proactive about determining the adjustments that all members need to make effective contributions – especially those who are disabled. The alternative is accepting that some members in the room are just there to make the numbers up.

Adjustments are not people being difficult – they allow these people to work on an even playing field to those who don’t need them.

I feel that both SU and university staff have a role to play in properly inducting neurodivergent officers to make them feel confident. Unsurprisingly, I have found that when I am provided with the appropriate support, my confidence and productivity in my job has skyrocketed.

It just happens that the support I need may be different or require additional work compared to neurotypical officers.

Seeing traits as benefits

Neurodivergent officers may appear to have a different skillset to neurotypical officers, but some of these traits make us perfect for the job.

I, for one, am incredibly passionate about being able to advocate and I care deeply about the work that I do, and I think creatively. My ability (or lack thereof) to follow streams of verbal information or network efficiently has very little effect on what I can achieve.

I feel that my experience from this year is a prime example of not only how to effectively support a neurodivergent officer, but also benefit from their passion and skills.

However, it is important to note that autistic officers will be entering SUs, whether they are supported or not. Even if I had an awful year, I was still going to be in these spaces.

Autistic people are not just beneficial because of our specific skillsets, we are allowed to just exist without proving that we are worthwhile.

You can either benefit from our work by providing the right support or be complicit in our struggle by preventing us from achieving.

Either way, autistic sabbs are going to become more common, so the sector must adjust to make sure that we’re going to succeed.