3 minute read
Disabilities
DISABILITIES STATEMENTS
Brigit Doyle and Lindsay Tupper-Creed Disabilities Community for UMSU
We, Lindsay and Brigit, are entering our final year of bachelor’s in commerce and science. Lindsay strives to bring his passion for fairness and accessibility to a role where I can give back for others. Brigit will bring creativity, community spirit and determination to fight for accessible education for all. We both struggle with disability. We know how hard studying with a disability can be. This year we’ve seen isolation impact the most vulnerable, and we need to provide better support. We’re running for Disabilities Officer to make sure every person can access education. Education is the best way to empower someone with a disability, and help them achieve their dream. We’re here to help with isolation and the recovery process. Ensuring every person with disabilities can be a student, in the best way possible. We want to fight for better academic adjustment plans and counselling - that you don’t have to wait a month for. Our aim is to support all disabilities, and help every student we can, in whatever way they need. We’re planning a mentorship program, because not everyone fits into a box. We will campaign for automatic captioning of lectures, because there’s no excuse. We will create safe spaces, because people need it. We are driven to provide better support for students with lived experience of disability because it’s time for a change. If elected, we will: - Promote disability awareness - Seek to ensure every student with disabilities can access available services - Fight for simpler and clearer access to learning support and counselling services - Work with individuals to provide specialised support and advocacy - Campaign for automatic subtitling, and the mandatory recording of lectures when campus resumes. Vote [1] Community, your community fighting with you!
Max Dowell (Stand Up!)
G’day, I’m Max (he/him) and I am proud to be the 2021 Stand Up! Disabilities candidate. As a queer student on the spectrum I know firsthand the alienation many are feeling in isolation right now. With about a quarter of students identifying as having a disability and mental health in crisis during this pandemic, the role of the Disabilities office is as important as ever. I therefore intend to fight for an accessible department, UMSU, campus and community. I’ll expand the range of collectives to include all autonomous departments, establishing an intersectional foundation for the department. I will also provide a variety of structured/non-structured collectives to provide a space for neurodiverse students to make friends free from the ambiguity of a conventional setting. The transition to online learning has revealed that the university is more than happy to cater to able-bodied students when they can no longer access campus. I will ensure that they extend this generosity outside the pandemic. Special consideration and academic adjustment plans shouldn’t be antagonistic, and I will work closely with my peers to secure better student conditions in proud Stand Up! Tradition. I also want to see an accessibility review for all university campuses, as well as the provision of accessibility plans for all UMSU events, publications and political actions (or help provide meaningful alternatives to physical attendance) so no student misses out on university life. Finally, UMSU’s resources and reach are vast; we have a platform to fight systemic issues for a truly accessible education. I intend to collaborate with community organisations to empower people with disabilities both on and off campus to become the loudest voice in the union. I will stand up for all students across the disability spectrum; in return, just vote [1] Stand Up! to win the fight.
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