Founder and CEO of Tilting the Lens Sinéad Burke has called for increased access and inclusion for staff as well as students across all areas of the third level sector.
In a keynote address to the Equitas 2025 Conference hosted at Maynooth University, the disability advocate said that accessibility should extend beyond student services to encompass hiring, promotion as well as leadership.
"When accessibility is confined to student services, we replicate the very hierarchies we aim to dismantle. Staff, particularly disabled staff, deserve systemic inclusion: in hiring, promotion, research funding, and leadership.”
“Explicit fairness must be embedded at every level, not just the syllabus or the onboarding of a new cohort of students,” she told the two-day Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) conference (Wed 18-Thurs 19 June).
The conference coincides with the publication of the Times Higher Education (THE) Impact rankings, with Maynooth University in the top 5% of international universities for reducing inequalities.
The Equitas - EDI in Practice in Higher Education Conference is an annual event open to EDI practitioners, academics, researchers, graduate students, managers, administrators and all who are interested in ensuring equality, valuing and celebrating diversity, and promoting inclusion in Higher Education.
In her keynote, titled ‘Accessibility is a framework, not an outcome’, Ms Burke said: "We must continue to advocate for a reimagining of our institutions - not as places where disabled people are accommodated, but as places where disabled people belong, lead, and innovate. This requires shifting from individual interventions to structural accountability."
The Equitas Conference offers a dynamic space to share best practices, innovative research, and lived experiences across higher education, aiming to foster more inclusive and equitable academic environments. A welcome address was delivered by President of Maynooth University, Professor Eeva Leinonen.
Topics under discussion include disability and accessibility, inclusive recruitment, exile and interculturalism, race equality, gender equality and intersectionality, the gender pay gap, teaching and learning, ending sexual violence and harassment, as well as engaging men in gender equality.