Dr. Lee Burdette Williams on Neurodiversity and the College Autism Network
As the Executive Director of the College Autism Network (CAN), Dr. Lee Burdette Williams is at the forefront of supporting autistic college students as they transition into college and eventually, the workforce. Under her guidance, CAN has grown into a network made up of practitioners, researchers, scholars, and employers, many of whom are autistic or neurodivergent. The purpose of the organization, Dr. Williams shares, is to “improve outcomes for autistic students going to college.” Through her dual roles at CAN and the Frist Center for Autism and Innovation, she is helping to reimagine what meaningful support and real opportunity look like for neurodivergent individuals on campus and beyond.
The College Autism Summit
This year, CAN will host its 9th annual College Autism Summit. The Summit began as an opportunity for program leaders from different campuses to meet each other as most college campuses lack more than one position per program, which can be isolating. “So when they get to meet each other, it’s really exciting for them to be able to talk to people who understand what we are trying to do here [at CAN]. So that was pretty great,” Dr. Williams shared.
Over the years, the Summit has evolved into a space for broad thinking and learning. Its two central aims are:
- Foster meaningful collaboration between researchers and practitioners. How do practitioners
and researchers interact with one another? How can we help them influence each other’s work? By facilitating interdisciplinary conversation, dialogue at the summit between practitioners and researchers inevitably allows science to serve people more directly so that support can be more thoughtful and informed. - To provide attendees with concrete tools. “We want anybody who’s leaving the summit to go home with some new strategies, new ideas, and new programs, or a technique that they learn from the other people at the summit,” Dr. Williams continued.
This November, the Summit is making its way to Pittsburgh, PA and will bring together self-advocates, administrators, scholars, and practitioners, to discuss strategies to support college students with autism.
Workforce Readiness and the Frist Center Connection
In addition to her leadership at CAN, Dr. Williams also serves on the team at the Frist Center and these dual roles go hand in hand. “Think of the Frist Center and College Autism Network as sort of a Venn diagram,” she proposed. “In our circle is autistic college students and one slice of our work that overlaps with the Frist Center is around workforce preparation and employment assistance. So then you take the Frist Center’s circle and their population is autistic or neurodivergent adults and one slice of them are going to be college students. That’s where our circles overlap.”
The two organizations have a shared mission of preparing neurodivergent students for real-world success. The college students that the Frist Center works with regarding employment issues overlaps with the students at CAN who are looking for work. Despite being two separate entities, CAN and the Frist Center work a lot together, bringing a collaborative approach to employment and opportunities in this space.
Rethinking Neuro Inclusive Hiring: Imagining the Role Differently from the Start
One of CAN’s most impactful areas is supporting neuroinclusive hiring. When imagining a hiring process in higher education and beyond that, it’s important that it’s inclusive and accessible. Dr. Williams believes this reflection should start before the process even begins. “It always starts with the way the position is imagined or designed at the very beginning, like, can you imagine a job as it looks now that might not be very supportive of neurodiversity and how can you rethink that job before you even go out and advertise it?” The organization should consider re-creating the job in the most neuro-inclusive way, whether that be allowing more accommodating hours and work environment.
“Step two is when you go out and you advertise it and you make it clear in that advertising that this is a neuro-inclusive environment,” Dr. Williams continued. Signaling neuro-inclusivity reflects that the organization is actively building accessible systems so that candidates feel empowered to show off their strengths in a way that suits them. It’s not about branding, but rather about creating real access and trust from the very beginning.
To support this work, CAN works with partners and organizations, like Neurodiversity in the Workplace (Philadelphia) and Integrate Autism Advisors, who specialize in inclusive hiring. CAN often acts as a bridge between colleges and universities and these partners, helping to build better systems.
Still, challenges remain, especially when it comes to staff turnover. “If you’ve got somebody who’s been working with this autistic colleague for a year and they’re doing really well, but then that person gets a new job and they leave and then the new person comes in and has to get trained and maybe they’re not going to be as compassionate as the first person,” Dr. Williams proposed. Therefore, the employee may feel stress from needing to re-explain their needs or experience a loss of accommodations. A true neuro-inclusive process would embed inclusion into team culture rather than inclusion being person-dependent.
Post-Secondary Pathways: Clarifying Autism-Specific vs. Inclusive Programs
CAN offers a database of college support programs for prospective students and families navigating the world of higher education. The database is made up of autism-specific programs, or ASPs. These are for matriculating students, or students who take classes for credit and graduate with a degree in something. CAN also refers people to another database, created by Think College, the National Coordinating Center for inclusive postsecondary programs. “Those programs are campus-based, but enroll students who are intellectually or developmentally disabled,” Dr. Williams added. “They’re not matriculating. They might take a class for credit, but are primarily auditing classes. They’re not degree-seeking students.”
One challenge for families can be deciding which route for their child to go through. CAN will work with families through a decision tree. For instance, if a child can do college level work, they may consider the ASP route, whereas if a child needs a lot of support in the classroom, they want to look at an IPSE or an inclusive post-secondary program from the Think College database
Inclusive programs are developed from University Centers for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities (UCEDDs), or federally funded centers that are funded under the 2008 Higher Education Opportunities Act (HEOA). “The ASPs have never had that. There wasn’t a federal act that started them up. There’s been no funding from the feds,” Dr. Williams noted. The ASPs in the CAN database tend to be more self-supporting and are supported by the institution.
Mental Health, Medication, and Misinformation
In the world of college, mental health challenges are all too common. Since the co-occurence of autism and anxiety as well as other challenges is so common, it is absolutely critical for colleges and universities that enroll autistic students to have people in counseling centers who understand autism. “Counseling people with autism is not the same thing as counseling neurotypical people. Their brains are wired differently,” Dr. Williams noted.
Unfortunately, a lot of the mental health services that exist currently are lacking in their ability to help students with autism. “I think that it’s actually a fairly easy fix compared to some things. Because I think if you did an hour or two training on working with autistic students, you would be well ahead of your peers,” Dr. Williams proposed.
Dr. Lee Burdette Williams is building bridges between campuses, careers, and communities. Through CAN and her work with the Frist Center, she is pushing institutions to not just accommodate autistic students, but to reimagine systems with neurodivergent people at the center.
Leave a Response