We Had the Accommodations All Along: Using Pre-COVID and COVID Lessons to Advocate for Student Employees
Presentation
3:15 PM - 4:00 PMThu
Ballroom
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Student Workers
Presenters
Gretchen Avery
co-presenter with Trinidad Linares
Bowling Green State University
Trinidad Linares
Library Associate
Bowling Green State University
One in four Americans have a disability. One in five post-secondary students report having a disability, which does not include those students who do not self-identify. As our university libraries pivoted to deal with challenges due to COVID, we learned that accommodations for disabled employees and disabled students, which had been previously denied, were indeed possible. As leaders in the library and supervisors of students, it remains important for us to continue accommodations in a Post-COVID environment. We must use this awareness to better equip our student employees in their library positions and also as students. In terms of library work, in this presentation we will discuss common accommodations to keep (or start) during the interview process, initial and ongoing training, task development and execution, and monitoring. We will also discuss methods to help student workers gain better access to library resources and handle obstacles to using those materials.