The Student Academic Success Center and collaborators across UNE will hold a fall Celebration of Neurodiversity October 17th-18th. The purpose of the multi-day event (schedule below) is to promote visibility and awareness around neurodiversity and to celebrate neurodiversity at UNE. This is an exciting opportunity to add discussions about neurodiversity into your coursework and/or to explore specific topics related to neurodiversity with your students. See here for the schedule of events.
How you can support and promote this event:
- Visibly participate in the event. Faculty/staff presence at the event will help define the importance of the topic to our whole community.
- Add the scheduled opportunities into your syllabi, with incentives for participation. CETL will distribute critical thinking questions in advance of the event that you could use to help students prepare for and reflect on the event.
- Promote the event in your course, or with faculty/staff in your department. CETL will share a promotional slide in advance of the event that you can add to your slide deck(s).
- Use the film Normal Isn’t Real as a teaching tool in your course in advance of the event and/or following the event. UNE has a license to access the film until mid-December of this year. Please contact Sarah Ross in SASC at sross15@une.edu for the password to access the film and accompanying toolkit created by the filmmakers in collaboration with Landmark College.
- Participate as a panelist on the Biddeford or Portland campus. We are inviting neurodivergent students, alumni, faculty, and staff to join a panel focused on personal stories of resilience and success. The filmmaker of Normal Isn’t Real, Krys Kornmeier, will be one of the panelists. Contact Shannon Zlotkowski (szlotkowski@une.edu) and/or Diana Mayo (dmayo1@une.edu) to participate.
- Explore and use resources from Exploring Neurodiversity at UNE in your course. Resources available on the site explore a variety of topics related to neurodiversity, including learning disabilities, ADHD, executive skills, self-advocacy, self-esteem, social justice, and intersectionality.
Please contact Sarah Ross (sross15@une.edu) and Allison Neeland (aneeland@une.edu) if you plan to add any of these activities into your syllabus and let us know how we can help. The aim is to have visible participation from multiple and interdisciplinary faculty and staff to increase visibility and awareness of neurodiversity at UNE. We need your help!
