In 1990, Carleton’s Paul Menton Centre (PMC) started up as a small organization assisting 100 students with physical and mental disabilities.
Now the PMC, which is celebrating its 20th anniversary this month, aids over 1,500 students with disabilities, recruits over 200 volunteers and has been referred to as the gold standard for Canadian disability centres by University Affairs magazine.
Larry McCloskey, founder and director of the centre, said the centre is always adapting and has expanded considerably over the years because of the growing number of people who require the centre’s services, particularly those dealing with mental illnesses and psychiatric disabilities.
“We’re constantly being challenged by new accommodations, more complex accommodations, as well as bigger numbers,” McCloskey said. “We’re not resistant to change. We know what works today will not work tomorrow.”
PMC success is assisted by the 24-hour, seven-day-a-week attendant services program that offers personal care services at no cost to residence students with physical disabilities.
The centre is also responsible for arranging exam accommodations, captioning for deaf and hearing-impaired students, tutoring and assigning note takers to take notes in lectures for students unable to take their own.
Abdallah Douha, a third-year computer and systems engineering student, is deaf in both ears and has used the PMC’s services since starting at Carleton.
He said he takes advantage of the extra time allowed for his midterms and final examinations and has note takers for his classes, though he admits some note takers are more proficient than others.
“The average person can look at the notes and board without looking at the professor since they can hear the professor, but obviously I cannot do that,” he said in an email interview. Douha said when he has a good note taker in a class he can relax and focus on the board instead of trying to continually read the professor’s lips.
McCloskey said the centre strives to offer students individualized accommodations and takes the approach that student disabilities cannot be addressed with a template approach.
“It’s labour intensive work and it takes certain expertise to figure it all out from the technology point of view, counselling point of view and so on,” McCloskey said.
In order to meet the demands of the students, the PMC, which only has a staff of 10, employs the efforts of volunteers, interns and work-study students.
“Volunteerism can be kind of tokenism. We give people meaningful chunks of work and we train them,” McCloskey said.
“We rely on a lot of people, Carleton students, to help us out.
It saves us a ton of money and gives students really good experiences.”