Culture of Access event - Dec. 3, 2021
Paul Menton Centre, Carleton University
TRANSCRIPT: Event and Documentary Intro

[Instrumental music]

[Bruce Hamm] Good afternoon, I'm Bruce Hamm, Acting Director of the Paul Menton Centre for Students with Disabilities and your host today. Welcome and thanks for joining us for “A Culture of Access” - a celebration of 30 years of the Paul Menton Centre and Carleton's ongoing commitment to accessibility. I'd like to begin by acknowledging that the land on which we gather is the traditional and unseated territory of the Algonquin Nation. Today marks the International Day of Persons with Disabilities. According to the United Nations, the world population is over 7 billion people and more than 1 billion people, or approximately 15% of the world's population, live with some form of disability. Proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly in 1992, the International Day of Persons with Disabilities aims to promote the rights and well-being of persons with disabilities in all spheres of society and social development, and to increase awareness of the situation of persons with disabilities in every aspect of political, social, economic, and cultural life. This serves us well as a backdrop for our celebration of diverse abilities and inclusion on our campus. Carleton University has a widely recognized reputation where accessibility is concerned. Alf Spencer, the former Director of the Public Education and Outreach branch of the Ministry for Seniors and Accessibility, once described Carleton as having a “culture of accessibility”. We have rather shamelessly taken that quote to name our event today.
A few years ago, Larry McCloskey, the first director of the PMC, had an idea for an event to celebrate the looming 30th anniversary of the Centre. With time, the plan changed to creating a documentary-style video. We employed the assistance of Carleton's Media Production Centre and started exploring the various stories that could be interwoven into a compelling piece. The pandemic put a kink in the work for sure, but we were determined to see this through. Work on the video titled, “Love Made Visible - 30 Years of the PMC” was completed earlier this year and we had absolutely no doubt that Netflix would pick it up. Our original plan was to hold a gala red carpet premier event at the local theater hosted by Larry in a tuxedo with a frilly shirt, bow tie, all the works, but fate intervened again. Larry retired from Carleton this summer and we never did hear back from Netflix. So, instead of a gala, you get zoom and Yours Truly, and there is absolutely no way that I’m going to wear a tux today. Fortunately, things are looking up from here. Before I get into specifics, a few housekeeping items. To follow along with closed captions, feel free to turn down the closed captioning icon at the bottom of your zoom interface. At any point during the event, I encourage you to post a question or comment in the chat. Our production team on the back end will push as many of the questions forward as time allows. If your preference is to submit a question by phone, please call 613-218-9597. If you feel— If you require further assistance, please feel free to email pmc@carleton.ca.
The agenda for this afternoon, we'll start with an introduction to the film by former Director of PMC, Larry McCloskey. We'll then watch the documentary. That will be followed by a panel discussion, and then a five-minute break. And then finally, there will be a presentation from Kathy Malcolm Edwards of the READ Initiative on Carleton's Coordinated Accessibility Strategy. It's now my honor and pleasure to introduce someone who really needs no introduction, and let me begin by stating for the record, I did not write this … “Larry McCloskey earned his undergraduate degree and two master's degrees at Carleton as the earth cooled.” … Again, I did not write this … “He lobbied the provincial government for funding which resulted in the establishment of the “Accessibility Fund for Students with Disabilities” and our professional body, the Inter-University Disability Issues Association. Larry founded the Paul Menton Centre for Students with Disabilities in 1990 and, in hiring the right people thereafter, …” … Again, I did not write this … “… allowed us to found or co-create many innovative programs that built Carleton's widely recognized reputation for accessibility.” Welcome Larry, and thanks very much for joining us today. 

[Larry] Thanks, Bruce … um and uh welcome everyone! uh This is very exciting. um It's been a long time coming.  I mean, this is December of uh 2021 and a month from now actually it'll be uh 32 years since the Paul Menton Centre started. So, uh this whole project almost got derailed by the uh Covid. In fact, uh I think,  i'm— I think Covid hit … was it Friday the 13th where everyone knew and when things were closed down? Because I think we actually had scheduled that day uh um Yasmine Laroche to come into the studio to do her interview for this documentary film that we had planned for the 30th. And at that time, we had a much bigger project in mind. It was going to be longer, and it was going to involve a lot more people. It was more ambitious and um, but then it was pretty interesting what happened because we had to shorten it in order to get it done … and it's 18 minutes and it was going to be closer to an hour … um but what you see is not compromised. It's actually a perfect little film and by that, i'm i'm not taking credit because I didn't do this. I uh, as I always do, I like to put people together, and then I was sort of lazy, and I would just withdraw from that point. So, I i have to say though, Hasi, Jocelyn and, and Michael Coady … Hasi and Jocelyn don't have last names because they don't need because everyone knows who they are … they did an amazing job on the technical side. But as well, what you see on the screen are the pro— see, six people are speaking and they're uh they're unbelievable! Like, you could not have scripted, and you could have gone through 100 people for each role and you could not have get got a better person. So, the film is not limited by being smaller. It's— it really is perfect! I was astonished actually by it when— because I was a bit of a … uh a bit reluctant to actually deal with the reality of having to make it shorter and not involve a whole bunch of people. So, um uh so that, that really is uh uh knocked me uh down when I saw how good these people were. And don't forget too, these are just often, these are single takes so people come out with these “pearls of wisdom” and they're so articulate - it was amazing! I mean, originally we had had hoped to include others like David Onley, Yasmine Laroche, Alfred Spencer, Sean Wise, Beyonce and … um sorry, okay, I threw one in … we weren't going to really introduce— uh interview Alfred Spencer … But uh, by the way, I just have to say, teleconferencing is the worst uh venue for throwing in any kind of comedy - it just doesn't work so well … the feedback is just not there. So anyway, we didn't do that, but i'm not really sorry for it. The other thing though that we were going to try to do, we were going to try to do part of this uh with some still photos from some of the people that you saw in the slideshow just now and a bunch of others, many of whom have died. But they were a lot of the real pioneers. I would have loved to have had that included. And um and we saw the fact that we only had photos many of them black and white as a real limitation, but if you've seen any of Ken Burns work, you can do amazing work with uh stills. And and obviously to the the photo of Paul Menton with his brothers at Lake Louise in 1975 just after— maybe uh two years or so after Paul Menton becomes a quadriplegic, and then … and that whole uh trip was about them normalizing what had happened to their family, and then you have the majestic mountains behind them. That was to me like an award-winning photo and yet it was just a photo taken from by one brother, Donald, of his two other brothers … uh and brothers being brothers, there was no posing or anything - it was just quick and it's done. So um one thing I like to— there's not a lot of … this is mainly a people story, the thing that matters most. There is, however, mention of uh that the Paul Menton Centre in the 30 years has had some really good outcomes, and I think it is important - graduation rate comparable little higher than the general population. But the big step that I think is really important is 20— up 20 percent in 20 years in terms of graduation rate. Graduation rate is the most important indicator of the efficacy of your efforts in terms of being a service. And I can remember decades ago when students with disabilities suffered the uh the “tyranny of low expectations”, and graduation rates were not considered that important. They're really important and people— when we say people with disabilities can do what people without disabilities can do in terms of uh, you know, outcomes in education and employment, we have got to prove it and we have proven it. It can be done, and and in fact, actually we are higher, and so, uh you know, we still want that to impact in greater society and employment, but it is there. The potential is is ripe, and and so we can grow from this too. The other thing is one of the themes that I love most of all in this film is the extent which people who have received some help … and *they* got their degree … no one says— we would never say uh that the help that they got gave them the degree at all. This is just assisting people to realize their potential, but they are successful, and they all talk about giving back. And that is so important that giving back happens when people are successful. And you know really then, they are at ambassadors - they're helping other students. It's really important because in a place of limited resources when you have waves of people who have gone through your service and are talking and saying good things about you and coming back and giving back, that really is an exponential sort of outreach for everything that you do and the resources that you have. 
So um I also like the fact that there are a lot of people who think that the disability service office is about giving accommodations only. And the students do talk to the fact that it is actually a far more um holistic … um getting to the heart of the matter for difficulties, realizing potential. There's, there's all kinds of services that are given, and learning strategies, and student development, that really matters and is part of the whole picture, and that too is really important in looking at the success that people have, and the fact that they want to give back and are capable of this. So, I think that you'll be quite amazed at what you're about to see. You're going to see the most articulate people on earth … and keep this in mind, um they did not— they weren't scripted. They just come up with what they're saying, um and it's almost as impressive as Jenna uh swimming across uh Lake Ontario. So, um anyway I hope you enjoy the film you're about to see and I think that we should all gather for the academy awards when they happen. Thank you.

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