The 杏吧原创 University Research Achievement Awards are administered by the Office of the Vice-President (Research and International). The purpose of these awards is to recognize outstanding research achievements. The awards were established in 1989 to enhance the quality of research and to recognize research excellence.

Peter has been recognized for this award as both the PI of the CFICE project, but also for his research project Civil Society Engagement in Food System Co-governance. This聽project builds on CFICE connections and will examine the growing role of civil society organizations in creating and guiding an integrated National Food Policy for Canada.

The last time your community-campus engagement (CCE) project held a meeting, was there a push button on the meeting room door so a participant in a wheelchair could access the room? What about a sign language interpreter, or someone available to take notes for the member with an intellectual disability? After the meeting, did you share your meeting notes in a format easily interpreted by an assisted reading device? Our bet is probably no, and not because your project is inconsiderate, but simply because, in our current culture, thinking about all forms of accessibility isn鈥檛 yet a priority. But the Government of Canada has been working to help change this culture and happily, some local institutions are following suit.

Keep reading to find out what is changing and what YOU can do in your CCE work to help.

Canadian Legislation to Increase Opportunity for Persons with Disabilities

Throughout 2016, the Canadian Government, under the leadership of the Minister of Sport and People with Disabilities, consulted Canadians with disabilities in order to better understand the challenges they faced living with a disability in Canada. What they heard loud and clear was that accessible employment was a number one barrier.

As a result, a was tabled in June 2018 with the goal of combating the unemployment rate of Canadians with disabilities (which is disproportionately high compared to Canadians without disabilities). The bill focuses largely on the removal of barriers, which they define as: 鈥淎nything physical, architectural, technological or attitudinal, anything that is based on information or communications or anything that is the result of a policy or practice 鈥� that hinders the full and equal participation in society of persons with a physical, mental, intellectual, learning, communication or sensory impairment or a functional limitation.鈥�

This bill is an important step forward in helping to change society鈥檚 attitudes and approaches toward hiring people with disabilities.

Ottawa鈥檚 Post-Secondary Institutions Collaborate to create the David C. Onley Initiative for Employment and Enterprise Development

Inspired by the national legislation, the David C. Onley Initiative for Employment and Enterprise Development is an example of a local initiative that researches and creates pathways to support post-secondary students with disabilities. The initiative is named after David Onley, who was Ontario鈥檚 first lieutenant-governor with a disability. During his time as lieutenant-general (2007-2014), he used his position to start the conversation about barriers that Ontarians living with disabilities face.

With a five-million-dollar budget and a two-year timeline, the David C. Onley Initiative hopes to assist students with disabilities find employment after graduation. Similar to our national issue, even students who have graduated from post-secondary institutions in Ottawa are less likely to gain employment following the completion of their studies.

The David C. Onley initiative comes from a partnership between Ottawa鈥檚 post-secondary institutions, and includes 杏吧原创 University, University of Ottawa, La Cit茅 Coll茅giale, and Algonquin College. Each of these institutions has their own department for accessibility. For example, at 杏吧原创 University, students with disabilities are welcome at the Paul Menton Centre for Students with Disabilities, which supports students seeking academic accommodation, and offers assistance with learning strategies.

In order to achieve the goal of increasing student employment after graduation, the David C. Onley Initiative is also conducting research to determine why the employment rates for graduated students with disabilities are so low compared to those without disabilities.

Another major goal of the initiative is knowledge mobilization. The initiative has been sharing the results of its work between the institutions involved, and will be working on furthering knowledge mobilization with media articles.

Ultimately, the David C. Onley Initiative seeks to develop strategic partnerships with post-secondary institutions, employment agencies, and employers. These partnerships, like your CCE partnerships, will offer new avenues through which diverse individuals can continue to make meaningful contributions to their communities.

What You Can Do as a CCE Practitioner

Aside from the David C. Onley Initiative, many post-secondary institutions have departments or programs that support knowledge and access for persons with disabilities. For example, 杏吧原创 University has the READ initiative, which stands for: Research, Education, Accessibility, and Design. READ functions both to provide support for researchers seeking to advance accessibility, and for people with disabilities seeking opportunities for employment.

If you are based at a post-secondary institution, make sure that you familiarize yourself with your local accessibility resource centre. If you are based in the community, see if you can access the centres at post-secondary institutions. It is also good to connect with organizations in your community specifically focused on advocating for rights for persons with disabilities.

While the recent national legislation, and local initiatives (like the David. C. Onley Initiative), will hopefully help change the conversation about disability in Canada, you can also contribute by becoming familiar with the barriers that currently exist as part of your CCE work, your organization, and your knowledge mobilization efforts. Like most challenges, the first step is awareness.

The following is a non-exhaustive list of steps that you can take:

• Make sure that you are including discussions about disability in your CCE work and rely on the experts: Ask those with disabilities how best to accommodate their needs.
• If you鈥檙e looking to add more people to your team, ensure that research and job opportunities are shared in a variety of ways and in accessible formats. This can include: word of mouth, university or college websites, podcasts or videos, and posters in accessibility centres.
• As you conduct your CCE work, make sure that your meeting spaces are accessible. You may be losing important research participants because of a physical barrier blocking your space. If possible in your area, plan your meetings at a space that is close to accessible transit too.
• When you are sharing your research, you can ensure that your findings are accessible to everyone. There are plenty of alternative formats for sharing your findings in order to make it accessible to a broader audience. Try providing an electronic transcript online that can be read on different devices, as well as offering an audio version. For an internationally recognized technology, try converting your findings into the .

As a nation, we have a long way to go when it comes to ensuring access to all parts of society for everyone, but the new legislation on accessibility is a positive step towards this goal. On a local scale, initiatives like the David C. Onley Initiative in Ottawa are also helping to change our culture by pointing research in the right direction. But it is up to us as individuals, and especially as CCE practitioners, to make sure we change the conversation when it comes to accessibility.

You have the power to make a difference, and sometimes the first step is as simple as acknowledging a problem so you can start to find some more inclusive solutions!

In this webinar, presenters shared some of their experiences and strategies for bringing community voices more fully into the post-secondary sphere.

The webinar touched on:

• How Abbey Gardens has advocated for community voices at Trent University
• How, as a faculty member, Peter has advocated for community voices at 杏吧原创 University
• How the Harris Centre at Memorial University works to connect the Newfoundland and Labrador communities with the people and resources at Memorial University

Video Link

If you missed out on the day-of presentation, not to worry. We鈥檝e made it accessible below.

You can also access the presenters’ PowerPoint presentations:

A community organization’s perspective advocating for community voices

A professor’s perspective advocating for community voices

An engagement centre’s perspective advocating for community voices

Presenters

Heather Reid works as the Operations Director of Abbey Gardens, a not-for profit charity providing economic and recreational opportunities for Haliburton County.聽Heather has a background in Recreation Management, Outdoor Education, Small Business, and Community-Based Research. She gained experience brokering projects between the university and community in Nova Scotia at Acadia University. Upon moving to Haliburton, she was the program coordinator and then director at the U-Links Centre for Community Based Research. In 2013 Heather took on the role of Operations Director at Abbey Gardens and continues to foster relationships with the university through her current position.

Peter Andr茅e is an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science. His research focuses on international and Canadian environmental politics, the political economy of agri-food systems, and community-based responses to the challenges of food security and agricultural sustainability. He is co-editor of 鈥淕lobalization and Food Sovereignty: Global and Local Change in the New Politics of Food,鈥� to be published by University of Toronto Press in March 2014. He is also author of 鈥淕enetically Modified Diplomacy,鈥� on the global politics of regulating genetically-modified crops and foods, published by University of British Columbia Press.

Amy Jones is the knowledge mobilization coordinator with the Leslie Harris Centre of Regional Policy and Development at Memorial University of Newfoundland. Amy helps make research, teaching and public engagement at Memorial relevant to the people of Newfoundland and Labrador through creating connections and facilitating effective partnerships. Amy delivers the Thriving Regions Partnership Process, which engages communities and provides funding and supports to faculty, staff and students to build meaningful research partnerships for thriving social and economic regions.

Moderator: Dr. Michelle Nilson is an associate professor with the Faculty of Education at SFU, where she teaches in the Educational Leadership programs. Her research and scholarship is inspired by questions concerning the nexus between postsecondary institutions, their environment, and the social, physical, and political. Her current work is a critical examination of student financial aid and teacher education policies and their implications for access, equity, and postsecondary student participation. Her research draws on her previous experience as an administrator of several large National Science Foundation and Ford Foundation grants that fostered opportunities for building networks and communication between various stakeholder groups. Her early days were spent in Detroit, Michigan, where she taught high school mathematics and middle school science.

The Office of the Vice-President (Research and International) (OVPRI) [at 杏吧原创 University] is delighted to announce the appointment of Karen Schwartz as Interim Associate Vice-President (Research and International) for a one-year term commencing July 1, 2018. Dr. Schwartz is currently acting in this role, replacing Pauline Rankin, who has recently been appointed Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences.

Prior to accepting her role in OVPRI, Dr. Schwartz served as Associate Dean (Research and International) in the Faculty of Public Affairs, where she distinguished herself by helping to improve the research culture through FPA Research Month activities and the inception of the FPA Research Excellence Chairs. Her international responsibilities included the internationalization of faculty research opportunities, membership on the 杏吧原创 University Advisory Committee on Internationalization, increasing international experiential learning opportunities for students in the faculty and launching a university-wide committee to co-ordinate international opportunities for students in the Bachelor of Global and International Studies program.

She holds a tenured position in 杏吧原创鈥檚 School of Social Work, which she took on in 1999. Her academic record includes an impressive number of well-cited publications, community-campus research collaborations and the instruction and supervision of students in community-based research.

A big congratulations from CFICE on your new appointment Karen!

On Tuesday January 19th, 2016, the 杏吧原创 University community with the support of every 杏吧原创 faculty and the Office of the Vice-President (Students and Enrollment) plus numerous campus 聽institutes, departments, associations, and centres was invited to a screening of the documentary “The Hunting Ground “. The campus was a fitting setting for the screening as the film provides an “expos茅 of rape crimes on U.S. college campuses, their institutional cover-ups, and the devastating toll they take on students and their families”. Over 100 people, primarily students, attended the event. A panel discussion of current issues related to sexual violence on Canadian University campuses, and more specifically 杏吧原创 University, 聽followed the screening of the film. GSA’s Leigh-Ann Worrell and ‘s Tara Henderson contributed as panel members, as did Dawn Moore and from the Department of Law and Legal Studies.

The event raised interesting questions about community and about the nature of partnerships. As members of the Community First: Impacts of Community Engagement (CFICE) project, we often question what constitutes a community. When we refer to community in an academic setting, do we actually mean the community outside the University premises? What about the campus community? Similar issues of access and power apply to internal partnerships within the campus community and haunt academic/community partnerships. Do the current legislative initiatives on campus violence offer an opportunity to build a strong university- campus community partnership through the development and implementation of a campus sexual violence policy? And what is the potential to extend that partnership to work with off-campus activists and survivors to strengthen the movement against sexual violence?

In recent years, we have witnessed highly publicized incidents of sexual violence at Canadian universities (for example the University of Ottawa and Dalhousie University).聽 These incidents and the responses to them highlighted the entrenched problem of on campus sexual violence and campus rape culture. Consequently, universities across Canada and Quebec are looking to develop or revise campus sexual violence policies. Through Bill 132 鈥� Sexual Violence and Harassment Action Plan Act (Supporting Survivors and Challenging Sexual Violence and Harassment,) 鈥撀�the Ontario Government is seeking to make stand alone campus policies on sexual violence mandatory for Ontario universities and colleges. In her panel remarks following the film screening, Diana Majury, the Academic Co-Lead for the of CFICE, spoke to the potential and the concerns with this proposed legislation. She raised questions about the definition of sexual violence, about how to entrench transparency and accountability, and how to ensure that the expertise of campus activists and survivors is used in developing and implementing the policy at 杏吧原创 University.

Majury made a number of recommendations for revisions to the legislation and the content of the 杏吧原创 policy. She pointed out that the legislation currently only refers to sexual violence involving students and recommended that coverage be extended to include faculty, staff and visitors who are also at risk. She emphasized the need for public input into the Bill and the regulations, and the need for an intersectional systemic approach to the issue and to the development of the policy. Majury raised a number of matters that need to be addressed, noting the importance of avoiding tokenism in fulfilling the requirement of student input into the policy. This process opens up an opportunity for a student/administration partnership that could be a model for addressing campus issues.

In thinking about policy content, Majury raised questions about who would be appointed in the roles of investigators and decision makers and what training would be provided to them. She noted that, if imposed, a mandatory reporting requirement might be counterproductive and actually inhibit survivors from seeking support and advice. She raised the possibility of anonymous reporting, recognizing that many victims are understandably reluctant to report because of stigma, fear of reprisal and because complaint processes often re-traumatize the victim. These concerns were dramatically demonstrated in the cases covered in The Hunting Ground.聽Decisions will have to be made about the investigation and adjudication processes 鈥� whether formal or informal. Majury warned against processes dominated by lawyers. The questions of what sanctions should be available and on what basis they would be imposed are central. The policy will need to be clear on the purpose of the sanction and how to ensure the safety and support of victims. And importantly, the policy will need to address the underlying rape culture. Majury advised that 杏吧原创 seriously consider adopting a system of oversight over the implementation of the policy by external community experts on sexual violence as is in place with respect to sexual assault complaints to police in some cities in the USA. This would be an opportunity for a productive and unique campus/community partnership that would put community expertise first.

Important issues were also raised by 杏吧原创 community members who attended the event. The film depicted the many incentives for universities to deny, cover up and down play the level of sexual violence on their campus. Concerns were raised about these issues on our campus. Students raised the need for faculty to get more involved in these issues — to stand up against sexual violence and to support sexual violence survivors. The suggestion was made that the development of, and compliance with, campus sexual violence policies should be tied to government funding.

The film and the discussion were an effective call to action. Within three days, 杏吧原创 graduate students had organized and submitted recommendations on Bill 132 to the Standing Committee on Social Policy where the Bill is under review.

References

Gilbert, D., & Sheehy, E. (2015). 鈥淩esponding to Sexual Assault on Campus: What Can Canadian Universities Learn from US Law and Policy?鈥� (Forthcoming, in Elizabeth Quinlan, Andrea Quinlan, Curtis Fogel & Gail Taylor, Eds Sexual Assault on Canadian University and College Campuses (Wilfrid Laurier University Press) Retrieved from 聽聽聽聽聽

Ontario Government聽 (March, 2015). It鈥檚 Never Okay: An Action Plan to Stop Sexual Violence and Harassment.

My name is Christine Ackerley, and I just started as an administrative research assistant for the CFICE Knowledge Mobilization Hub. I鈥檓 a fourth-year Journalism and Communications student at 杏吧原创 University. As a research assistant, my responsibilities include webinar support, web content management, strategic communications and supporting the Mobilization Committee of C2UExpo 2015.

I鈥檓 also working on a proposal for a series of news stories for CFICE. I’ll probably interview many of you in the CFICE community for stories and profiles!

I鈥檓 very excited to work with the CFICE team and learn more about knowledge mobilization practices.