Perhaps it’s always been this way, but from my perspective it seems that the Office for Students with Disabilities at McGill has been expanding their mandate in productive ways. Where I used to think of them as a part of student services (which they most emphatically still are), they are getting more involved in promoting both universal design for courses and disabilities studies as an academic field.
To promote their various projects, they’ve organized an ambitious series of events at McGill the week of 12-16 March. On the 15th at 2, I’ll be speaking for a few minutes on a panel entitled “Why Disability Studies?” There are a bunch of other events, notably a Saturday seminar (for which you need to register) on universal design for courses. There’s also some talk of a possible disability studies program at McGill, but I think we’d need several more committed full-time faculty for that to happen. Of course, there’s a lot of basic work that still needs to be done around accessibility and accommodation, as a walk around campus will demonstrate.
