Projects

Faculty Awareness and Training in the Post-Secondary Community: An Annotated Bibliography

Introduction

The number of students with disabilities seeking post-secondary education has been on the rise in Canada over the last several years. With this growth comes an increasing need for awareness among faculty and staff with respect to the accommodation of students with disabilities in the classroom.

This was an often repeated sentiment in the open-ended comments section of NEADS' study, Working Towards a Coordinated National Approach to Services, Accommodations and Policies for Post-Secondary Students with Disabilities: Ensuring Access to Higher Education and Career Training (July, 1999). As the authors of that report noted, "because the majority of students with disabilities come in contact with their instructors more often than they do other staff on campus, it is necessary that everything be done to break down attitudinal barriers, and to facilitate the best atmosphere possible for both parties." (pp 221-222).

It was with this goal in mind, of fostering a better understanding among faculty and staff of the accommodation requirements faced by many students with disabilities, that NEADS decided to produce this guidebook.

This project has allowed our organization to examine and review faculty awareness materials and programs available at post-secondary institutions across the country. In turn, it is our hope that the discussion of the materials available in Canadian colleges and universities in this bibliography will inform service providers as to what already exists to help make faculty and staff members aware of the needs of students with disabilities. Additionally, we hope the materials reviewed, as well as the recommendations and best practices we've determined based on our research, will serve to guide service providers in any future projects aimed at increasing faculty awareness in their respective post-secondary institutions.

NEADS would like to acknowledge the support of the Canadian Association of Disability Service Providers in Post-Secondary Education (CADSPPE) and the Learning Disabilities Association of Canada (LDAC), as well as the colleges, universities and cégeps that submitted materials for our review. Finally, we would like to recognize the Social Development Partnerships Program (SDPP), Human Resources Development Canada. It was through funding from the SDPP that this project was made possible.

In closing, this bibliography provides information on faculty awareness and training that we were able to gather from post-secondary institutions during the research phase of this project. We recognize that new initiatives in this area are in development by schools across the country. In order to be informed of these programs and disability services and supports at Canadian colleges and universities, we encourage readers of this guide to visit the NEADS Web site - www.neads.ca - and explore EdLink in the NEADS Online Resource Centre. EdLink provides links to over 100 Canadian college, university and cégep Web pages that offer information on services for students with disabilities.