37 Student Support and Service Delivery Upgrades
Advancing Inclusivity Efforts within Student Services
Launched a successful pop-up initiative where the Student Services team engaged with the Faculty of Science to provide students with a more collaborative and seamless support, enhancing their access to services. The team made a conscious effort to use AODA-compliant templates for presentations and documents, ensuring our materials were accessible. This helped create a more inclusive environment, allowing everyone to fully engage with and benefit from our content.
Contributors: Student Services (Leanne Ruiz, Natasha Mehta)
Supportive Transitions for Graduate Students with Disabilities: Navigating the Journey
We submitted a Partnered in Teaching and Learning grant application titled: Supportive Transitions for Graduate Students with Disabilities: Navigating the Journey (this would later become known as the ‘Grads are Rad’ project. We proposed to design and deliver a series of co-curricular workshops and learning resources aimed to enhance student self-efficacy, co-curricular learning, and navigation in the transition into and through Graduate Studies for students with experiences of disabilities and/or neurodivergence at McMaster. The project proposal was motivated and informed through years of graduate student advocacy and community-centred initiatives (i.e., Cripping Grad School, SPICES, etc) and align with recommendations of the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA) Postsecondary Education Standards.
Contributors: School of Graduate Studies (Steve Hranilovic, Leslie Brandreth); Student Accessibility Services (Mei-Ju Shih); Student Success Centre (Julia Millington); Alumnus (Isabel Campos Bedard); Paul R. MacPherson Institute for Leadership, Innovation and Excellence in Teaching (Jennifer Faubert)
MacStart Transition Program for Students with Disabilities
The Student Success Centre (SSC) and Student Accessibility Services (SAS) worked with the Regional Assessment Resource Centre (RARC) at Queen’s University to develop a course for incoming first-year students to support their transition to McMaster. The course was delivered throughout August and was supplemented by synchronous workshops on academic skills, note-taking, assistive technology and a guest lecture. 265 incoming students with disabilities enrolled in the course.
Contributors: Student Accessibility Services (Mei-Ju Shih); Student Success Centre (Sean Beaudette, Adam Moniz); Student Affairs (Mike Sowerby)