[tracking] Scholarship applications

[flaki]

The process for diversity tickets, scholarships and disabilities scholarship (possibly looking for a better name) are split in two. Both processes are exposed via diversitytickets.org:

1. RustFest Rome 2018 (a.k.a Diversity Tickets)
2. RustFest Rome 2018 Scholarship Program

Neither of those programs are live yet so you will need to log in using the [email protected] account to view them (ping me for the password).

Diversity tickets

1. is for our diversity tickets program, aimed at mostly local and regional members of underrepresented groups. When awarded, it includes one complimentary conference ticket and a 100 EUR stipend for travel-related reimbursements (enough for local or regional public transportation), to be reimbursed post-event. The "local/regional" designation is not a requirement, but people must be able and willing to attend with the 100 EUR reimbursement limit in mind (and there is no other support, e.g. accommodation, visas or pre-bookings offered for this program).

Scholarships

2. is actually two programs in one:

• a Diversity Scholarship, which is very similar to the above, except it does include full support and cost coverage — up to an agreed-upon upper limit + some leeway — for all those things listed as exceptions in the previous program;
• a "Disability Scholarship", which is very similar in terms of the Diversity Scholarship, except explicitly aimed at people living with disabilities. This includes (beyond the coverage offered in Diversity Scholarships, and the pledges already made in the RustFest Accessibility Statement) the possibility of further accommodations to better provide a suitable environment for the enjoyment of the conference to the awardee, upon the awardee's request (separate table or space for custom setup, pick up & drop-off, sponsorship for an accompanying human or animal companion etc.).

The 2. on the diversitytickets.org website actually links to the external form at scholarship.rustfest.eu, where data is collected by us. I am the owner of this form and the form is in my private namespace, not shared in the RustFest Organizers Google Drive, due to the sensitivity of the data. Please if you have suggestions and/or comments on the form's contents and/or structure, kindly let me know below in comments or via e-mail, it is very much work-in-progress and I'm actively looking for feedback on it. This also allows us to award scholarships on a "rolling basis", that is, to reach out to applicants early on (before the closure of the form), making sure we have given them enough time to collect documents for visa applications and similar, time-sensitive issues.

On 1., on the other hand, data collection will be handled by diversitytickets.org, while after the closure of the form we will receive the applications and award the tickets/sponsorships from the central budget.

A note on ticket numbers

We have allocated 15 tickets for the diversity tickets program (1.), and 5+5 tickets for the scholarship programs. These numbers are somewhat aspirational, though, mainly because of the limited budget. RustFest allocates and holds the 25 tickets / attendee slots and keeps them available for these scholarships until it makes sense to do so, but we cannot guarantee that we will be able to allocate sponsorship funds for all 25 tickets. We have a 3000 EUR budget set aside for scholarships (~10% of all ticket income), which budget can grow via individual contributions (diversity support donations) and sponsors offers. We will use this budget to award diversity tickets and scholarships in a way that best able to allocate these funds.

This, of course, will require individual decision making and selection on our side, which is far from ideal (since it allows individual biases to affect the awarded sponsorships), but this has been a method we used to allocate our limited funds in an optimal way during previous events (and have seemingly worked well), and we haven't been able to come up with a better way to do so, considering these constraints. Feedback, ideas and recommendations are, of course, more than welcome on this topic as well.

Approximately 4-4.5K EUR has been collected/allocated and awarded for diversity programs at each of the previous events (in some cases this was close to 10% of total event budget), and we are expecting to award 4-5K EUR for these programs this year as well (pending contributions and sponsors' choices on sponsorship tiers, add-ons etc.)

[katsel]

Language

1. "Disability scholarship" is fine in my book.
2. Please make a habit of using the phrase "disabled people".
   • Disabled is not a bad word, so use generously.
   • The opposite is "abled" by the way, not something complicated like "able-bodied" or "enabled".
   • "People with disabilities" is fine in a few contexts (e.g. in phrases like "people with or without disabilities") but generally deprecated. Disability is an identity like womanhood or queerness and you wouldn't say "people with womanhood", "people living with queerness", would you?
   • "People living with disabilities" is a decisively bad choice of words. Yeah, we live. What else would we do? Redundancy, awkward phrasing, - just drop it, "disabled" is fine. 👌
   • Some disabled people dislike the term "accommodations" (it sounds like their needs are somehow "special" and "unnormal") and prefer neutral terms like "accessibility measures" or "accessibility practices".

(Note that exceptions exist when disabled people use any of these terms for themselves, of course. Self-descriptions are always to be respected.)

Disability Scholarships: What for? Who's the target group?

The text above implies that RustFest gives disability-related accommodations only to disabled people accepted for a scholarship.
But: Accommodations should be given to every disabled person who needs them regardless of scholarship status. That distinction needs to be made very, very clear:

Financial accessibility (as provided by scholarships) and disability-related accessibility (as provided by accessibility statement measures) are not the same thing.
And while some disabled people need both, not all of them do. This is an important distinction to make.

Keep in mind that many disabled people are gainfully employed, and the idea of giving someone free admission or urging them to apply for a scholarship just because they are disabled is just absurd.

Also, disability scholarships are limited, but the potential number of disabled people visiting RustFest hopefully is not.

Do not single out disabled people for their needs by urging them to apply to scholarships. And please do not make it sound like "providing accomodations" like

separate table or space for custom setup, pick up & drop-off

are an act of generosity on the part of RustFest. They are basic human decency, and reflect the intention stated in the accessibility statement - the intention of making RustFest accessible for all.

sponsorship for an accompanying human or animal companion etc

is a financial issue and therefore should be part of a scholarship.

I think that Disability Scholarships are an interesting idea with lots of potential, diversity-wise. However, RustFest has to make very clear who their target group is, and why RustFest decided to make them distinct from regular Diversity Tickets/Scholarships (for which disabled people are already free to apply, let's not forget that). Also, it has to be made very clear that the Accessibility Statement still applies to all attendants.

[flaki]

Thank you very much Katharina for taking the time and effort in reviewing this! I'd like to especially thank you for educating and pointing out the flaws in my language -- I'm continuously trying to improve my wording, and this is helping tremendously. ❤️

Why Disability Scholarships?

I have added a short explainer above the selector that hopefully explains in further detail our intentions. My understanding is that we are trying to raise awareness and provide dedicated opportunities to disabled people in order to further lower the barrier of entry for these people to attend RustFest (@skade please correct me if I'm wrong). Here's the excerpt from the form:

RustFest has historically been an avid supporter of increasing diversity and accessibility of our events. Among other things, we have provided diversity tickets & sponsorships to underrepresented people in tech — this, of course, included disabled people. None of this has changed, but this year we are also offering a dedicated ticket pool of up to 5 tickets and scholarship to disabled people in a form of our "Disability Scholarship", in an effort to raise awareness and provide additional support to this group.

RustFest is intended to be accessible to all

Thank you for pointing out this important distinction. Of course, this has been the intention all along, I tried to clarify the wording around this and added a note section to the "further accessibility measures" part of the form to clarify that this although this part of the form can be used to point out omissions in our Accessibility Statement, people can always e-mail us about these issues and requests. The excerpt:

Please note that RustFest is dedicated to providing an accessible and friendly environment for all our attendees, regardless of sponsorship status. If you have concerns, feel free to email us at [email protected] and we will be happy to provide further information and assist you the best we can.