The University of Sheffield is commemorating Disability History Month with events and initiatives aimed at fostering inclusion and driving meaningful change. The Students’ Union (SU) is leading efforts to amplify disabled voices, complemented by the Disability Matters programme.
Nick Michau, SU Disabled and Neurodivergent Students’ Officer, highlighted connecting events like the DHM social, board games café trip, and the upcoming panel featuring the founder of UK Disability History Month.
These activities, Nick explained, are vital for building community and empowering disabled students to advocate for change. Workshops like Form Fighters also raise awareness of support services like Disabled Students’ Allowance.
The SU relies heavily on student feedback to shape its campaigns. “In the last ‘Big Survey,’ we received more than 700 responses from disabled students,” Nick said.
“This feedback flows through various channels, one of which is me, where we collaborate with other disabled students to work out what actions we can take to improve the disabled student experience.”
Recent initiatives include the Liberation Committee and the Disabled and Neurodivergent Subgroup, which Nick described as “a place for students to get directly involved with advocacy work and campaigning.”
These groups foster collaboration through idea-sharing, project planning, and lobbying the university for changes, such as improvements to accessible study spaces.
Nick is also leading a project to enhance lecture capture systems. The SU is working with the university’s digital learning team to integrate best practices into the Blackboard Ultra platform, set to launch next year.
“Having these systems in place from the start will help take the onus off students to follow up on issues like poor audio quality or missing lecture recordings,” he said.
The Disability Matters team is hosting an online symposia on December 11th, adding an academic perspective to Disability History Month. The symposia are part of a six-year research programme addressing critical issues in disability and health.
Recognising that “disabled people are under-represented in health research and continue to be excluded by ableist research practices and workplaces,” the team is committed to building an equitable research environment.
The symposia will explore how disability research in the geopolitical south challenges dominant paradigms, aiming to “address issues of colonialism and racism within disability studies and promote intersectional anti-ableist, anti-racist approaches in health research,” said Dr. Christina Lee, Research Associate for Disability Matters.
Events like this aim to foster “a new generation of disabled and disability-positive researchers” and provide a platform for emerging scholars from marginalised backgrounds to showcase their work.”
Image credit: Sheffield Students’ Union
