Thursday, May 8th, 2025
3:15pm - 4:30pm
Room 603
Concurrent Session:
Inclusion benefits everyone: stories from different perspectives within Inclusive Post-Secondary Education
Inclusion benefits everyone: stories from different perspectives within Inclusive Post-Secondary Education
In this panel discussion we will provide stories of inclusion from three Acadia students involved with the Axcess Acadia Inclusive Post-Secondary Stream. Dr. Sweatman will begin by providing an overview of Axcess, contextualizing the panelists’ roles. The other panelists include the Program Coordinator, a program participant, and a tutor/fellow student. By examining their roles and experiences with Axcess, the panelists will demonstrate how participating in activities that promote inclusion for people with disabilities has impacted them. Following these stories, panelists will field questions from the moderator (Katie Forman) on how they incorporate the Social Role Valorization concepts, for example how Axcess supports personal social integration, their experience with consciousness and unconsciousness in their work, and different mindsets and expectancies they experience and encounter.
Presenters
Nikki Matthews​
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Nikki Matthews is a Program Coordinator for the Axcess Acadia Inclusive Post-Secondary Education initiative and has been doing so since 2022. She is also a 2nd year master’s student in the School of Kinesiology at Acadia University and serves as the Program Coordinator for the Acadia S.M.I.L.E. (Sensory Motor Instructional Learning Experience) Program. ​
Mary Sweatman
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Mary Sweatman is an Associate Professor in Community Development at Acadia University in Mi’kma’ki (Nova Scotia). She is a community-engagement scholar-practitioner and her teaching and research interests include community-campus partnerships, experiential learning, and equitable community spaces. Since 2020, Mary has led the service-based count of people experiencing rural homelessness in the Annapolis Valley of Nova Scotia with the Homeless No More Initiative. Mary is also the faculty director of Acadia’s Inclusive Post-Secondary Education initiative, called Axcess Acadia.
Anna Macdonald
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Anna MacDonald is a student with Axcess Acadia and studies community development, wellness, being healthy, and taking care of people. She volunteers at the fitness centre in the gym at Acadia and hopes to parlay that into a paid job in the future.
Grace Smith
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Grace Smith is currently completing her final year of a Bachelor of Community Development at Acadia University and has the honour of being the captain for the women’s hockey team at Acadia. She works as a disability support assistant at L’Arche Homefires, a role that has profoundly shaped her understanding of equity, diversity, inclusion and accessibility (EDIA). Her passions lie in raising awareness and educating others on viewing disability through a more inclusive and empowering lens.
Katie Forman​
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Katie Forman is in the first year of her PhD at Nova Scotia Inter-University Doctoral Program in Educational Studies & Coordinator of the Axcess Acadia Inclusive Post-Secondary Education Program. She has an MA in Anthropology from Simon Fraser University and experience working in grassroots social justice organizations and higher education. Her current research interests center around perceptions of social vulnerability and homelessness in Nova Scotia.