Grads are Rad

Grads are Rad (Resources, Accessibility, Disability) is an ongoing series of events and specialized resources supporting disability and neurodiverse-identifying graduate students during graduate school.

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What is the Grads are Rad project?

Grads are Rad aims to support disability and neurodivergent-identifying graduate students with access to specialized transition, on-boarding, and community-built supports for navigating graduate school. This project builds on a legacy of staff and student advocacy at McMaster.

Workshop topics align with recommendations of graduate students with lived experiences of disability (Co-design 2022; GradVisory 2020; Cripping Grad School (2018, 2019), as well as the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA) Postsecondary Education Standards.

Through regular events and resource sharing, Grads are Rad will build community with a focus on topics such as:

  • articulating accommodation needs
  • self-advocacy skills
  • navigating disclosure of a disability in the grad environment
  • essential learning skills (effective note taking, organizational, time management, writing, and research skills during grad school)
  • understanding and accessing accommodations in graduate school

Project Coordinators: Isabel Campos Bedard and Evonne Syed

Event organizer: School of Graduate Studies

The School of Graduate Studies is delivering Grads are Rad, thanks to funding from the Partnered in Teaching and Learning Grant and in collaboration with the Student Success Centre.

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Some project goals and learning objectives:

  • Community, well-being, and belonging – increased feeling of belonging as a result of participating in the program
  • Self-efficacy – increased awareness of university processes and system navigation, sense of confidence for navigating grad school effectively, know where to go for support
  • Self-advocacy – confidence in using formalized accommodations, communicating with supervisors about accessibility needs, and awareness of own strengths and challenges in the graduate learning environment
  • Enhanced knowledge and skills – change in understanding of the hidden curriculum, graduate student supervision, TA roles and responsibilities etc. (various topics)

Project impact will be assessed with qualitative measures of:

  • participant feedback through community-engaged evaluation tools (built into session design);
  • pre- and post-user quizzes to measure learning objectives;
  • digital survey tool to measure program impact;
  • measuring participation and engagement (number of participants per session, web analytics on digital tools and resources);
  • track referrals
    • to project from SAS;
    • from project to SAS.

Graduate students will have opportunity to engage with accessible learning materials designed specifically by and for graduate students with disabilities, aimed at addressing the diverse needs – and strengths – within this broad sector of learners.

These sessions involve engaging and interactive learning materials (tool kits, workbooks) paired with activities (i.e., art, craft, and creativity) in the co-curricular learning space, so that students find enjoyment, community, and fun while gaining valuable information about navigating the graduate school journey.

Sessions will be delivered in synchronous, asynchronous, virtual, and in-person formats (flexible depending on topic, audience, group preferences) to provide options and choice for individual learners.

Curriculum and resources will be made available in accessible digital formats.

Holistic and personalized student experience

The approach to curriculum development will be community-informed, engaged, and adapted based on learner-feedback and input, and in this way personalized to the student experience.

Inclusive and scholarly teaching

The approach to be followed, is that adopted by disability justice movements of ‘Nothing about Us Without Us’ to combine principles of co-design (students with lived experience of disability and graduate school) and intersectional analysis as the lens to inform programming, in concert with accessible pedagogical principles for workshop and communications design.

Partnered and interdisciplinary learning

Project leads will partner with a graduate student with disabilities and other intersecting identities as co-facilitator/co-designer of the entire project (concept, curriculum development, implementation, evaluation, and re-design). This project considers student partnership an essential component to successful learning goals. Similarly, interdisciplinary learning is key to the project’s success; graduate students from across disciplines, faculties, and programs will come together to engage in the content, learn from each other, and inform the content for future sessions.

Facilitated interdisciplinary learning will result as staff leads from different areas – Graduate Studies, Student Success Centre, Student Accessibility Services, and other staff and faculty stakeholders from across campus – will benefit from the resources created through this project.

Creating effective learning opportunities using digital tools and frameworks

Digital learning tools will be created based on the core accessible design principles. Tools will translate and mobilize ‘dry’ and non-user-friendly content (policy, regulations, university administrative processes) into engaging and interactive materials (resources, curriculum). The framework will mobilize digital resources for synchronous and asynchronous audiences, available for use as reference and learning opportunities beyond each workshop session.