Andrew B. Jenks
I am currently an Educational Assessment Specialist at the Center for Teaching and Assessment of Learning at the University of Delaware. I earned my PhD in 2021 from the Department of Political Science and International Relations at the University of Delaware. I am a scholar of Disability Politics and my research cross-cuts the disciplines of Political Science, Social Policy, and Disability Studies. Learn more about my current and past Research, Teaching, CV, Speaking, and Press at the tabs above and please get in touch with me if you’d like to hire me for a public speaking event.
My research on Disability Politics has been published in Disability & Society and Critical Social Policy and has been funded by The US Social Security Administration. Stemming from lived experience traveling and competing in Paralympic sport for two decades decade, I strive to produce scholarship informed by the lived experiences of disabled people. My work generally seeks to understand disability politics from the top down, evaluating the ways in which policy and law defines the citizenship rights of disabled people, both within the US and in comparative context. I am particularly interested in how legal definitions and socio-cultural perceptions of disability limit the opportunities for equitable participation by disabled people in civic and social life. In all of my work I emphasize and highlight the work of disabled activists and advocates, especially those traditionally excluded from mainstream accounts of various disability rights movements.
In addition to teaching courses in Disability Studies Public Policy, US politics, and Social Policy, I actively contribute to programming and scholarship in the field of higher ed teaching and learning. I recently contributed chapters to books on teaching political science and international relations during the COVID-19 pandemic and teaching as a graduate student instructor. Formed through additional training in higher education pedagogy and the University of Delaware’s Center for Teaching and Assessment of Learning (CTAL), my teaching philosophy focuses on creating equitable and accessible student learning experiences in both in-person and online teaching. Incorporating active learning principles in the use of Problem-Based Learning (PBL) in all of my courses, I strive to create a collaborative classroom environment, encouraging critical thinking while equipping students with important argumentation and brief writing skills in all courses I teach.
Outside of academic life, I am an advocate for social inclusion through sport. I use my platform as a competing member of Team USA in the Paralympic sport of goalball and regularly participate in awareness-raising events for both disability sport and the benefits of social citizenship through sport more generally.
