My name is Kirk Gomes. I’m one of the interim disability officers at Western Sydney University (‘WSU’). I was recently invited to attend the National Union of Students (‘NUS’) Education Conference. This was a four-day conference hosted by the NUS, and it was held at the University of Technology Sydney (‘UTS’). The conference consisted of educational workshops run by student representatives and activists, which focused on the challenges and potential solutions for higher education students in Australia. The conference also hosted various panel discussions each day, consisting of students who were representatives in that particular field.
My experiences with the workshops
I attended multiple workshops throughout the Education Conference (‘EdCon’) week. All of these workshops gave me insights into issues such as the struggles of women on campus and how to better support First Nations students. One of the most memorable workshops I attended was called ‘Hidden Disability Sunflower Training at your uni’.
This workshop gave me new insights into how to aid the development of the WSU Disability Collective. One of the most emphasised points was that disability advocacy within universities must be meaningfully informed by the experiences of disabled students. For example, disability training needs to be, guided by the voices and needs of disabled students, able to create safer spaces for those students and considerate of the fluidity of disabilities to ensure the training is flexible. These aspects of advocacy will help create safe spaces for disabled students to thrive. The workshop also included real examples of changes that disability representatives have undertaken at their universities, such as Deakin University having disability training that was based on the Disability Sunflower training scheme.
On the second day of Edcon, I attended an equally impactful workshop that highlighted the importance of representation of women in student political roles within the university sector. One of the eye-opening experiences that one representative shared was that, as a woman of colour, she had to adjust her behaviour and personality during her work in student politics. The representative explained that these adjustments were due to systemic issues in society, such as the celebration of men who are assertive while demonising women who do the same.
The workshop highlighted that another issue women have to face is that there are few female mentors in student politics, exacerbating the problem of under-representation. Some solutions that were presented were to start championing women in student political roles and hear their perspectives as well as providing more training for women student representatives to take on mentorship roles.
These two workshops gave me insights into how to create better experiences for students in student collectives. Additionally, the examples of the programs that student collectives from other universities had implemented gave me a fresh perspective to take back to my colleagues at WSU as a reference point to change university policies for the better.
My experience with the social side of Edcon
A big positive I got out of Edcon, outside of the workshops, was being able to meet a variety of students across Australian universities and hear about the projects they were working on, sometimes in collaboration with their universities board members. At Edcon, I felt like I was ‘in the room where it all happens’. I left with new knowledge and connections with some people who I believe will be the future leaders of Australia.
This feeling, combined with the insights that the workshops presented, made EdCon an unforgettable experience that is a can’t miss for students who have an interest in student politics or an interest in improving student experiences on campus.
