Displays, a symposium and the opportunity to experience the challenges facing students with a disability will all be part of Disability Awareness Day, Feb. 28 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. in the University Centre lobby. Enrolment of students with a disability has increased 40 per cent during the past five years, giving UVic the highest percentage of students with a disability of any university in the province.
Faculty, staff and students have been invited to experience life for a day as a student with a disability by wearing special glasses that alter vision, special ear muffs that simulate hearing loss or using a wheelchair around the campus. Volunteers will pick up their ³disability² between 9:30 and 10:30 a.m. in room A183 in the University Centre.
Agencies that support and assist students with a disability will have displays in the lobby. A symposium entitled ³Exposing Able-ism² will be held in the Senate Chambers (University Centre A180) from 1 to 3 p.m. Speakers will include visually impaired, deaf and hard-of-hearing, and paraplegic students as well as students with learning disabilities. They will address issues that remain unaddressed and/or unresolved within their communities in the hope of disproving any belief that all obstacles to those with disabilities have been overcome.
The Ring
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