Goal of the event:
From no mapping to a completed university - within 1 week. This event was organised to provide committee members with a clear insight into understanding accessibility issues some of our students have to go through daily. In addition, we wanted to introduce the mapping app and website to our team to be able to periodically update our accessibility status, throughout our university's campus renovations.
Short description of the event:
Glasgow Caledonian University has been going through some major construction changes recently. Over the past few years, GCU has become more accessible, more open and stands evermore by it's slogan - "University for the Common Good". During this, our international ExchangeAbility week - ESN GCU aims to promote our university and it's increasing accessibility to our ESN colleagues and our prospective exchange students to identify our place as a welcoming institution for all.
While this is a time for deadlines and coursework, 4 of our committee at ESN GCU took on the challenge on not only mapping some buildings, but mapping ALL. The campus was split up among the 4 of us and we encouraged each other to do this while on the way to class, lunch or any other day-to-day expectation of a university. Our results will be provided to the Disabilities Team and International Relations Office for future reference.
How did your event go?:
Overall, while we were given a week - it was easy to become engaged and be able to take part in amongst our heavy workloads. We intended to showcase how accessible GCU is, and instead found ourselves recognising future modifications that could be made to make it more so. While some of our team had experienced a similar workshop at WEP, Antwerp - having an insight into the needs we take for granted daily was beneficial to our teammates who were newer to the app and website. We were proud to be able to host this event during ExchangeAbility and were proud to find out we'd be starting the day before of the big reveal. As the team watched the live broadcast, it was clear that our project was more than just 'us', and we were working for the future.
