On-Campus Inclusivity: Can Students Be the New Enablers of Change?

00:00.64

Kathy Sestak

All right, I am your host Kathy Sesak from Magic EdTech, and our guest today is Greg Hannah, Director of Disability Services at Villanova University. Greg, thanks for joining me, and welcome to the show today.

00:12.66

Greg Hannah

Happy to be here! Excited to have a conversation and hopefully, you know, share some information that could be useful for anyone who listens.

00:22.26

Kathy Sestak

Absolutely! Well, we really appreciate learning a little bit more about you and learning about your background as well. Can you give us a little history about how you got into education and how you got into your current role as Director of Disability at Villanova University?

00:39.16

Greg Hannah

Yeah, absolutely. I always say I'm just a kid from Jersey. So, I was born and raised a New Jersey boy. Grew up on the beach. I had a great family in a small town called Manasquan. Had a great education through the public school system in Maxwell High School, Manasquan and even being around some teachers that I had had throughout my time in school started maybe subconsciously kind of planting the seed of education maybe being something in my future and then also being involved in athletics and having some great coaches and mentors and I was also involved with a couple of youth leadership programs through the Lutheran Church that I was brought up in and through an organization called the Rotary Youth Leadership Academy. So, a lot of student development, team building, and peer-to-peer mentoring. I had a lot of opportunities to be exposed to a lot of things at a young age. Thanks to my parents and just great, you know, people watching over me. Then I went to Monmouth University, West Long Branch, and originally I thought about being an attorney, like, if you’ve asked me of the old. You know what I thought I was going to be a long time ago - I thought I was going to be an attorney and you know maybe work somewhere and be like a trial lawyer you know, but paths had changed and plans had changed, and the idea of getting involved in education was something that had just become a lot more clear, and then focused my education on potentially becoming a classroom teacher and my goal was really was to teach and to coach and kind of give back because of some of the teachers I had in the past that truly helped shape the person that I've become today. So, when I got into teaching, it was a slow start, and some other paths kind of presented themselves, and I had an opportunity to become a one-on-one, you know, almost paraprofessional teacher of students with disabilities at a high school. Um, where I went to school, New Jersey, and had the great opportunity of working with a young man, Frank Knevi. Frankie has cerebral palsy, he's non-verbal, motorized wheelchair, computer in a language board to communicate and that was my first real entry into the education disability space. But far more than an education, I was given the education on how to interact and how to connect and how to learn more about, you know, individuals with disabilities and really how similar we all are if the proper accommodations are made or proper social avenues for support are created in just the right mindset and the right group of people to help understand, and after working with Frank for four years at Mount One High School, he got into Villanova University. And, I came here on a visit with Frank and met Steve McWilliams, who changed my professional trajectory, and my professional career by working with me to allow me to come in and share space with him in the office of disability services and work with Frank through his four-year career here at Villanova. During that time, you know, I had spoken to Steve and asked for his support and guidance as we were going to expand the idea of disabilities in higher education here at Villanova and ready to tap into the Augustinian values and traditions of this university. And tried to learn more about the disabled population of students here at Villanova, previously, and tried to work with students like Frank and several other students who had come into my life during that time to help create what is now our student organization level and the career that we've had in this office thanks to so many students and faculty and staff support and after 13 years of working in this space as an advisor, as an assistant, and associate director, on October 2nd, 2023, I was blessed with the opportunity to be the director in this office. So twenty-four minus two, so what … twenty-two days on the job and I am super excited about all the experiences and all the people and all the things that have brought me to this point! I'm excited about the future!

05:08.25

Kathy Sestak

That is an amazing and inspiring story, and I almost see in that how the skills required to be an attorney are, even though you didn't go down that path, are applied to the role you are in now as an advocate for these students. I am very inspired by your work.

05:24.99

Greg Hannah

Absolutely! You know even I talk to our students all the time about this, you know like, a lot of times when especially at a university like Villanova and so many other you know, nationally ranked, nationally well-known institutions, you know when sometimes when students see the staff or their faculty or people they're most often associated with, you know because we're blessed at a place like this. You know people can easily assume that our journeys were streamlined and kind of meant for the field of area or field of say, that we're in and mine definitely wasn't streamlined but the cool part is to your point is there's a legal background here because we're working with the ADA in reasonable accommodations, all of the time. So the critical discourse and the introductions to some of these, um, mannerisms that we operate through are definitely relevant, and then all of the education work that I did and all of the experiences, you know, in these youthly leadership academies - you know, in coaching, you know, we try to blend to all of it here to present to our students and let them take from us what they would like but to your point you know - the journey is still going but, and I always tell students, “ I still don't know what I want to be when I grow up. But it's like when I look at when I look at what path I was on, I am thankful that I get to share a little bit of a lot of those things with our students in hopes that not for me, but for our students, that's when they're like I'm an Econ major, I'm a Finance major, I'm a nursing major, I'm an engineer, you know, I think I'm going to do this with my life. A beautiful way to look at it - but also knowing that some pivots may come and how to still hold those experiences and exposures and opportunities there to maybe help you with the next place, you may go to. So absolutely! it's a blend of everything, which makes my commute from New Jersey to Villanova not so bad because we get to share all these skills with our students every day.

07:21.14

Kathy Sestak

I remember you telling me about that commute. So not envious of that. But I yeah, I just think, I just am always amazed at how people’s past and how things that you do, and it just layers upon and builds you know to create your future. And I just… it's really, it's really great. So I'd like to… I really appreciate you sharing your story and very empowering. I'd like to move into a discussion around the current trends and disruptions you are seeing in your space as well as the strategies you and your team use to help overcome these strategies. Ah, so the first one, I'd like let's begin with - the topic of inclusion and accommodations. You had mentioned the ADA just a minute ago, and the ADA accommodations for higher education institutions; and, my question is how do you find that balance between equitable and reasonable while creating an inclusive environment for students with disabilities?

08:18.70

Greg Hannah

Yeah, it's a great question. It's something that we're that’s myself and many other offices like ours around the country and the globe are dealing with daily because you know build always just you know one place, but I am sure that a trend that most higher ed institutions are seeing is a rise in the number of students who are registering with an office like ours and utilizing the services of our office. So there's been a steady increase in the amount, number of students who are requesting services which means that we have to work with our campus partners even more in certain areas. So you know the more students that are disclosing an accommodation that may pertain to housing, the more that we're speaking with our residence life office and staff as to what reasonable accommodations are we able to make for the housing experience for our students. There can be more students that are coming with certain allergies or certain dietary restrictions and what accommodations seem to be made that could potentially impact the dining journey so on and so forth with transportation and for academics and the reasonable accommodation phrase. Obviously, that can be debated as to what someone may feel is reasonable versus equitable and I think you know where we are, we try to uphold our Augustinian values and the traditions of this school to attempt to go beyond reasonable at times for the best support of our students. But also given certain circumstances, there are times when we do potentially have to really look at what's reasonable for the best interests of the university, the best interest of the department, the best interest of our partnerships, and make sure that like accommodation is being provided. The hard part is when that accommodation might not be the gold standard, to maybe a student or to a family or the experience but it is completing the task and the mission at hand. So, it's tough because you know we work with students, and we work with families. We truly believe in the work of our office. You know the staff, you know with Steve McWilliams, the recent director, you know thirty-plus years here trying to provide those experiences and you know myself being alongside you know Steve for 13 of those years and now having an accessibility specialist on our team - Connor- who's been with us. We all do our best to uphold the accommodations and try to really make someone feel good about those things- but there's also this tug - because a reasonable accommodation for an academic setting, for example, we still need to make sure that the course’s goals and outcomes of the class are being met. We still need to make sure that students are doing their best to attend the class even if there are doctor's appointments or a flare-up of a condition or you know something that may cause a student to not physically be present.

11:29.90

Greg Hannah

But also letting the faculty and staff know that like these students want to be present but sometimes certain conditions make that or maybe present a challenge to that. So how do we work through that together but also not you know, blurring the lines of what we're here to do as an academic institution for our students?

11:47.62

Kathy Sestak

And as an educator.

12:05.12

Greg Hannah

Absolutely! So the same so we have to try to because also we want to support our faculty and staff on one hand in the academic lens and make our faculty and staff feel that we support them as well and support our students and try to be a voice that provides maybe some extra suggestions or opportunities for success for our students. But in that same academic realm, we could be having that same conversation about you know someone's dorm room and and what should be added or (put into a space) to be you know, safe and secure and meet those special needs, but also how that impacts, like I said, other things. So, it's constantly a balancing act for us. Luckily, you know, and I hope other institutions can rest on the fact that they have some great partnerships because we definitely cannot do this work alone, and also building positive relationships because in business or any other area/field, I mean if there's tension amongst certain divisions - I mean, with us - like if we have a certain tension within a certain area of our campus and then we're sending our student back into that environment -  like if we created more tension, you know through the computer, or on the phone, or in a conversation, and then our students going into that setting like we want to set our student up for success and we want the faculty member to feel comfortable. So it's a fine line between like reasonable and equitable and I think luckily here because of our Augustinian values and because of the things and traditions that make Villanova a special place, we try to tap into those things. But to answer the question straight up from the beginning, that when more students are disclosing that there's a need for more academic, dining, housing, transportation - you know accommodations, and then we're like stretching services of the university as a whole - we have to look at what is reasonable and to still provide the best hospitable outcome for our students.

13:53.60

Kathy Sestak

It's an excellent point and I think that you know what? What is reasonable and can vary right from student to student, and it's a nice segue into my next part of that question about - could you discuss some effective accommodation strategies that have been implemented successfully to support these students and how can technology help in these scenarios?

14:16.00

Greg Hannah

Yeah, absolutely I mean to what you just said as the kind of segue, I mean everything is on a case-by-case basis when you're working in an office like ours because you know one no two students are the same and you know, no two students with the same documentation for a disability is the same. There are students here with CP who are similar to Frank, who as I said, like, non-verbal, on a motorized wheelchair is using a computer device or a language board to communicate with another student with CP who uses crutches and is verbal. Like, there's all these different ranges. So there's no such thing as a  blanket reasonable accommodation for a student with ‘’x” documentation. So we always have to be adaptable and always be ready to pivot and always be ready to jump one way or another but also use past experiences to say, hey, this was successful for somebody. Maybe we can tweak it, fine-tune it, change it, or completely scrap it for another student. So um, and that kind of goes to accommodations for the classroom too. So you know when Covid hit and the world shut down, you know every institution had to become, potentially an online institution like over a weekend in March, and for us, you know that was something that fortunately with the great work of our tech team and the great work of all of the people (that were involved in the academic lens to still provide ‘that’ (classroom) experience - to set up these online learning platforms, and these online capabilities, and these online platforms for our students to be successful - and it became like a Universal Design. The challenge was when we came back to you know the “in-person” experience that is Villanova University, for example. I am sure there were some faculty that were super impacted by the COVID times and the ability to become more of a tech instructor with the use of some of these other online platforms, and recording lectures, and posting notes, and all of these things, there could have been some faculty that were excited to get away from the cameras and get back into the classroom delivering that “in-person experience” and you know for us it became a challenge because some of our students were truly successful in some of the online versions, and you know if they missed the class because of a flare-up; if they couldn't get to the screen because of you know, low or high blood sugar readings, or if they physically, you know, couldn't be there. There was this opportunity to engage with the course at a different time through a recorded lecture through something, um, and not having that as readily available now as we did before while still making tremendous strides academically to provide more information and content for our students. We're still trying to think about how we can continue to allow our students to feel connected electronically - if need be. So, some of those accommodations, like credit to our Villanova staff faculty and staff, because many of them have stuck with the opportunities of the tech space and how that has maybe even become a new layer. My wife is a 20-year special education math teacher at a high school in New Jersey and never was one of Google Classrooms and Google Meets and Google Hangouts and all of these things and now um, it's made her a better instructor and it's allowed for more students to have more of an opportunity to connect with the material and if they had a bad day in school if they had a fight - you know with a parent or sibling before coming to school and their focus was not there - there's an opportunity to engage with that content when you're feeling ready to do it. So, I think even here at Villanova -

18:13.83

Greg Hannah

We look now at accommodations in a way that taps into the universal learning that we had done during that time while also balancing it with the “in-person” instruction that this university is known for and the true emergent experience of an on-campus opportunity. And trying to find ways to still support our students who at times may need an alternate format of learning for a specific moment and knowing that maybe because of some of the tech pieces that have been put into place at a student while maybe not physically present can still be up to speed on the content being delivered and one way that we have done that obviously is through the platforms that we have to allow teachers to upload lectures and recordings of classes and things like that. But also the way that our students even manage their technology to you know, get content or even exchange content between peers. Because also for us as kind of like a sidebar to your questions - I apologize if I'm going off a little bit.

19:19.39

Kathy Sestak

No, you're you're you're great. This is fantastic. 

19:25.37

Greg Hannah

But one of the things for us here in our space is really peer-to-peer interaction, because, if we have some students register with our office that maybe did not have the traditional primary secondary school experience while that's changing even in the time I've been here - the idea of a student connecting peer-to-peer is super helpful. And one way now through all the different tech pieces is that previously if you and I were classmates and you were registered with the office of disability services and you needed notes in history class, Greg could be like, “I'm going to take notes for you. I'm going to go to the offices of display services and copy those notes for you on a photocopier and I'm going to leave them on the desk in the offices of display services and you're going to come and pick them up.” Whereas now, you're my classmate you miss class today, I can take notes electronically, I could text it, send it, scan it, whatever in a text standpoint, and then you and I can go back and forth and have a conversation about it if you have questions in real-time versus can-we-meet-in-the-campus you know students enter to discuss these notes or I may not even have a relationship with you I'm just the guy that's taking notes for you.

20:23.36

Kathy Sestak

Um, upload it.

20:38.75

Greg Hannah

So, now we're actually building relationships, which are leading to more peer-to-peer opportunities, which are leading to more peer mentoring, and more opportunities for like those student group meetings in a more informal setting because of some of the technology features that our students are way more versed with than that I am. And I think in the long run, it makes for a better classroom environment too, because then even the teacher at times is able to pick up on the fact that this class is truly connecting - even if it's through a potential accommodation request. Long-term, they're connecting more to help further support the mission and courses, and goals of the of the exact class.

21:14.25

Kathy Sestak

Right? And I think taking down those barriers of the physicality that you know was in place is just an allowed more access for everybody and it's allowed for greater interaction but in a different way than maybe, you and I were used to in school, and college environment. So, I think you know making students advocates for themselves and their peers is vital, and so, I'm just wondering what strategies or programs have been effective in empowering students to become advocates for disability, inclusion, and success. I mean you just talked about the way that they share, maybe notes in the classroom, but I was wondering if you have any other types of examples of “digital assist” to build a community.

22:04.70

Greg Hannah

Absolutely! So, I mean one way that we kind of manage it internally here in the office is we have a student group called “Level” that we can talk about now or at another time based on questions. But basically, one component of our student organization is if we have students who are registered with our office that may need additional support and not that’s necessarily additional like tutoring, for example, but just additional support getting content, putting notes together - reaching out to their classmates, we have an internal kind of database of all of our students and so one can be like, hey! I'm in this class and I'm looking to you know, maybe ask a couple of questions about like this topic. And then we have any other member of level who is from freshman to senior year who may have taken a similar class in a similar major and has another friend who's taken it and we try to network amongst each other because then that builds a little bit of that initial you know, kind of agency, and that initial ownership, and accountability for their own work and by doing that they're also putting themselves out there to say, hey! I'm looking to maybe connect with someone in whatever the course may be and then in doing that they're also maybe meeting some other students that they may not previously would have connected to through a lens of connectivity from a course or a faculty member or a major and in all of those things that's building a great network and a great group of um, you know, kind of support.

23:41.47

Kathy Sestak

Well, and I was going to say it's building a community, right? So, it's broadening your community and it's broadening your, you know, the space in which you are comfortable with, so, it's pushing those barriers out a little bit as well.

23:44.21

Greg Hannah

Absolutely, and then in that and again for us, like, we were talking and again, I know you know, I hope that other instructors and other people who may listen to this have similar experiences or can try to create them or just know that to be commonplace, but those, when that happens in our experience here then we start to see a growth in confidence in our students and when there's more confidence there's more academic success and when there's more confidence in academic success, the advocating piece becomes - one more of confidence versus one more of like a reaction of hey! something wasn't working, I need to fix it, and rather than becoming almost like a customer service window of a complaint if there's some confidence and some networking and some communication behind it, it also allows our students and this is for any student, not just a student that's registering the office employee services, the more communication and the more confidence I can build the more ownership someone can take over the effort that they're going to advocate for no matter what it is and come at it from a sense of understanding and hoping to move the needle in a certain direction but also being very well knowing that someone could come in oes not have that is just acting out of maybe a poor experience or out of a poor communication effort or out of something that they feel is not accessible. But then if we try to turn that advocating from like I said, like a customer service window into more of like a community forum - it allows us to break it down and have a conversation and use the Villanova experience to have those experiences that when they go into the workforce, that if those questions come up differently, they've already potentially had some experiences during their four years with us. And at the end of the day again, all these things, we try to find ways to make them transferable to real-life skills as well. It's not just about the history class, or it's not just about econ, or finance. Yes, that's the task at hand for that particular course, for that particular semester; but was it also telling you about how you're becoming an advocate for yourself when it comes to how you're doing and maybe interacting with the greater world around you as well. So um.

26:14.91

Kathy Sestak

Well, I think you just defined the purpose of education in general. Right? Of just pushing the boundaries and becoming an advocate but not just for yourself. But for those around you.

26:22.33

Greg Hannah

Yeah, know good! Let's wrap it up then - great to see you and great to meet you. That's ah um, you know, but that's but yes I mean um, like I said like at the end of the day like. We know that the way this office works is really through the heartbeat of this institution which is our students. Like yes, I have the pleasure of being, you know, currently the director of the office of disability services like I said twenty-two days in and you know 13 years prior in this office. But the reason why this operation has continued to grow and continued to show support and to continue to maybe further better understand the current trends is through the heartbeat of the institution- which is our students and that's what allows these conversations to be had because we're working in real-time with students to try to bring some of these scenarios that we have and apply them to our day-to-day situations to see how we're doing and how we are truly trying to be um, a place of support for our students but also to understand each education path that our students are taking to best support them through their journey.

27:44.76

Kathy Sestak

Right? And I think you know the skills that that you're imparting on these students allows them to be you know, happier, healthier, contributing members as they continue down their their path and whatever that may be. And you know and just shifting the focus to the workforce, I'm wondering, you know talking about that path. What are some of the best practices in hiring and workplace accommodation for individuals with disabilities?

28:09.98

Greg Hannah

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely and you know when someone looks at like our piece of the puzzle here at Villanova. We spent a good amount of years trying to build this student network and try to build this communication and build these relationships peer-to-peer and with the support of our university because in doing that we knew that there was going to come a time when our students were graduating and are going to be looking for jobs. And also you know having such a robust career center that is constantly interacting with employers and hosting events trying to learn more about that to see how inclusive these events are. And how we can try to maybe create some new events to you know to even further our commitment to accessibility and inclusion especially when it comes to employers on recruiting and best practices. So, the way that that we have done it.

29:32.36

Greg Hannah

You know when our career center hosts events all the time and they're wonderful and they're becoming more and more accessible for our students but there are a good amount of students who are registered with our office who may not have had the opportunity to really job shadow or have a summer job as a young kid, like some of our students, not all, but some students are coming with not as much experience in the workplace environment and then we have this 4-year window to try to get as much exposure and experience as possible. But it's also hard to if there isn't any kind of prior experience. So, the career center in our office has partnered on some events, and one thing, like in this journey, one of the ways that we started was years ago - I attended an event called COSD- Career Opportunities for Students with Disabilities, and I met a gentleman Alan Muir, who helped start this organization and would go to cities that had a lot of colleges in the area and Alan and his team would recruit offices like ours - to send students to a free conference to learn about exactly that about career opportunities for students with disabilities. So, I had never heard Alan or the organization before he in the summer just walked into this office and introduced himself. We had a conversation. He said he was hosting an event in Philadelphia and would love to have some Villanova students there, so a couple of students from Villanova went to that conference in Philadelphia. I learned more about it and then said hey, Alan, like, I'd love to be more a part of this because of the level of work our office we felt like we had some great students, who are hungry for career opportunities and are great ambassadors as college students with disabilities. So, the next conference after Philadelphia was in Chicago and myself, and Kevin Grub, who is now our director of the Career Center - at that time was a kind of Career Counselor and working in the career center and was on an upward trajectory. So, Kevin and I took four students to Chicago for the same weekend conference and we really got to present about our growing relationship and how important it was for us to offer disability services and a career center to have a strong relationship so that the career center can understand the needs of our students. And so that we can understand the current trend in a pace around what our career center is specializing in. So, we went to this conference and there was a career fair there in one of the ballrooms of the hotel. And four of our students were meeting, you know, 14 or 15 employers like Disney or Verizon. I looked at it and I was like, we can be doing this here - back on campus of Villanova when I say here versus me traveling with only four students when we have a roster of a ton of students that maybe can benefit from this so I came back that next year and I said Kevin as much as I love this conference, we're going to start doing this here with your help in the career center. And the career center was all for it and we created an event and network capability event where we brought in 14 to 16 employers from various areas of our different colleges from the arts, sciences, engineering, nursing, to business, and tried to bring in people who were either recruiting or rooted in the DEI space to speak to our students about inclusion and practices in you know the career space post higher ed. That event, we just had I think our eighth, maybe -  a great partnership that was created between the career center and our office to allow our students to have something in addition to the overarching career fair that can be a little overwhelming when there are hundreds of employers and hundreds of students all jammed into a space at the same time trying to throw the elevator pitch and the resume, and the one thing that we focused on, was this networking event that we do.

34:04.61

Kathy Sestak

I think it's, I think it's overwhelming to anybody in that room. Yeah.

34:18.34

Greg Hannah

It's casual. So, our students can come casually dressed. They do have to bring any information that they want to share with the employers. We have roundtables set up in a room similar to the ballroom at you know in a hotel, for example, but the employers move from table to table throughout the course of the night and we have a series of questions that are asked - some deal directly with the career at hand and some deal with same way we're talking here - “how did you get into this space? Do you use your degree for the job you currently have? Also, questions like what type of DEI initiatives are you doing and what type of workplace accommodations have you seen?

34:53.63

Kathy Sestak

It's just fantastic.

34:55.56

Greg Hannah

And some of our students have had internships from those opportunities and some have even secured employment and then last year we decided to take that event and you know inject it with some more life and with the work of the career center, our learning support services office - the office of disability services - we put on a national conference for career inclusion and hiring in the workplace and put on a real disability in the workplace conference and it was hosted on our campus. With hundreds in attendance, it was a half-day program designed primarily with hiring employers in mind to help them build disability inclusion into internship and entry-level hire experiences. So, for that, it was something that featured students and alumni across the disability spectrum, employers with disability inclusion initiatives, and disability inclusion advocates. And It was something that we just kind of thought up collectively and then we knew, we had some partners and we knew, we had some great people in some of these other pockets and were like, “Hey! Why don't we try to bring this to our campus” and this one-day half-day conference our career center nominated it for an award for by NACE - the National Association for College Employers, and Villanova was awarded, was given an award for the attempt in the “take-a-dent” in the inclusion piece and how we were trying to you know move the needle again a little bit so it's something that we're super excited about. But also know that it's a challenge because you know statistics are closest showing it's like a college graduate with a disability from a four-year institution. It's like a fifty-fifty chance of securing employment right out of college. And for our students who may be in that invisible disability space, you know, I assume there might be a type-one diabetic or a student that might have Pots or Crohn’s to our students that may have like a chronic migraine. Some of the other, like, physical attributes at times are still allowing them to kind of navigate the career process versus potentially a student with a visual impairment a hearing impairment, the motorized wheelchair, or the scooter, the service animal, the seeing eye dog all with the same credentials on paper from their Villanova experience. But not being able to crack into the employment space. So how are we doing our part here in Villanova for example, to try to help our students because that's that's a tough one because we have this great school. We had these great experiences. We had these great programs. We had these great partnerships. But then some of our students are still having challenges years postgrad securing employment and that's where students are leaning on technology to see what other avenues are out there for them and to see what other spaces are available and to see what other avenues of connectivity are available. But also what like entrepreneurial lenses are available to them too because you know another example is ah is a good friend of mine. His name is Eric LeGrand and Eric played football at Rutgers University broke his neck in 2010 trying to make a tackle and is a quadriplegic.

38:31.20

Kathy Sestak

I remember that.

38:34.20

Greg Hannah

And Eric graduated from Rutgers and was doing, you know, he does the broadcast thing - he does you know the public speaking and like the motivational speaking things when Covid hit and like all the speaking engagements shut down. People weren't playing football, so he was not announcing games and it's like what's, Eric going to do and that's where some of these more like business opportunities were coming to him to maybe help create, and Eric created LeGrand Coffee House which is his coffee brand. There's an online coffee shop and a brick-and-mortar shop in his hometown of Woodbridge New Jersey but Eric became a black disabled business entrepreneur owner and he serves now as someone that I can share with my students for example, who potentially could be in a similar space of having a tough time navigating the career space. But also has a passion for an entrepreneurial lens and may be able to create an opportunity;  and then Eric has gone on to start a whiskey brand as well and he's into some other projects but then also again, like, very much free, he gives back and talks about his education and the things that helped him along the way, and the support services and offices like ours and relationships with career individuals. But if there wasn't enough to tap into then also how do you still do everything you can to give yourself a shot, to secure some sense of employment and agency over that employment even if it becomes the entrepreneurial lens which is something that we work with far more with our students now in this space as well.

40:12.48

Kathy Sestak

Well, I think these career fairs that you've put in place are just incredibly empowering and I just think would be incredibly beneficial. I love the fact that the potential employers move and that the students can just settle in right and get comfortable and be in their space and I just think that it's a wonderful story and just a wonderful example of the work that you continue to do and you continue to build at Villanova in this space. I do want to move into our next segment I just really appreciate you sharing all of that. When we first spoke over the summer - this next segment or my next question around assistive technology and tools was my favorite takeaway from our conversation over the summer; the the whole idea about, from a student's perspective - letting students drive in terms of assistive technology - what tools, apps do your students with disabilities bring to you and into the campus, how important is it to give guidance, particularly, in higher education settings? And you had talked specifically about, like, a student toolbox. And I loved that concept and I loved, how you, when we talked in summer, described how you're always learning from your students in this capacity which I think is just incredibly powerful and speaks very much to how students are thinking outside the box but taking away that self-empowerment and confidence to share their tools with others as well.

41:57.44

Greg Hannah

Absolutely, and you know one of the things that we were doing earlier in our careers here was creating this, you know, kind of what we call the technology toolbox of, you know, most commonly used apps in, you know, the note-taking space, or in the recording lecture space, or in like the scanning space, and things like that and um, all very helpful. But then it came down to asking our students if they were using it, then yes, some were but also there were a lot of other students who were using other apps on their phones or other things that I had never even heard of before, and also like a part of our job here is to keep up with those things. But also, when we're working with several hundred students and you know someone breaks a leg and needs elevator access and transportation, or someone's looking for a different meal plan or someone's looking for combinations for their housing, or a faculty needs a different classroom for instruction, you know, sometimes there's just things that you know we're not getting to every single minute of the day but again to the heartbeat of this institution being our students, we're able to ask our students what they're using, how they're using, and how effective it is, and also when you think about it, like from our perspective, a student is coming here as an incoming freshman, you know, eighteen-years old they've already navigated through their primary and secondary school systems and what were they using during that time that was successful and then also what are they using during this time here at Villanova that they hope to be successful that then transferable when they leave the space. So yes, using all of the, um, you know services and partnerships that we have and having a great campus technology program and office and having great, you know, people who are well-versed in those areas allows me to make those connections between student and other staff members to create again that network connectivity and that community that we're talking about. But also, our students are the ones that can come and tell me: hey, I use this app for captioning and it works well, or Hey, I use this one to take a photo of a piece of paper, and it scans it and changes it into a pdf; or I use this one because I can alter, like, the screen’s visibility in the light; or I use this one, you know, to read anything I can take a picture of. You know, I could take a picture of a chapter in the bible or a passage in the bible and hit scan it. It's going to scan it and read it to me. You know, like, when you know - and here with being with an Augustinian school - like looking at St Augustine's confessions or when they're in their Augustinian culture seminar and reading some truly like traditional books that were, from well, long ago and maybe not having the audio version of some of these textbooks or like science books or math books and there are these apps that our students are using that are making it more accessible. And not necessarily a student coming here to say, “Hey, here's my stat book - make this book accessible for me. I'll be back tomorrow.” “They're going - here's my statistic book and I've used this app to help, you know, whatever it might be.” And it's again, a case-by-case/year-by-year because sometimes we need to find those textbooks in audio formats and we struggle with that sometimes or we need to - you know, unbound a book, and digitally scan it to put it on a disc for certain students because every student learns differently. So again, having our students say, “Hey, Greg! Here are the top 5 apps that work for me. I would turn and go, hey, “every student that we know uses these 5 apps, but we can suggest them and also two are suggesting to our students. Um, you know, and again, I'm a dad of 3 - like my daughter's 10, my middle guy is 9, and my little guy's about to be 7. If I'm sitting with a student, I'm like hey, I've heard this app works; they might look at me and be like - does this guy even know what he's talking about because they know the life I live, but if their college peer goes, hey, I use you know fill-in-the-blank app or fill-in-the-blank, you know, service. They may be more apt to listen to it from their college peers who are currently using it to navigate through the same coursework they're working through, so they don't need to hear from me on that every time. So, that's why we kind of really, you know, we're blessed at Villanova - with some high caliber, high-achieving students -  sort of come in every day and think that we're going to know the answer to every question that's foolish but also to let our students know that while yes, we provide a reasonable accommodation or a service for a student to be successful during their four-year career here, we would be foolish not to tap into our students' true capabilities and true passions and true understandings of this educational experience to better help us for when the prospective student comes in, and they ask questions about - hey how do I navigate the classroom, or how do I navigate note-taking, or how do I navigate captioning, how do I navigate screen readers? Well, hey! I'm going to introduce you to the fill-in-the-blank student and then they build a relationship like that's -

47:38.50

Kathy Sestak

And that goes back to that whole peer-to-peer, how critical the peer-to-peer support is. 

47:39:00

Greg Hannah

100%

47:50:00

Kathy Sestak

I'm just wondering if I can have a 2-part question, but can you recommend a toolbox of resources such as note-taking or for closed captioning by a WCAG 2.2 that educators can use to support these students?

47:42.75

Greg Hannah

I don't get paid by any of these guys. You know. So, it's like free plugs, you know. I need like, you know - I'm going need some merch or some swag from these guys, but like, you know. Yeah, but it's like like one that comes to my mind is Otter or like Otter AI and that's one that one of our - we have a couple of students who are deaf, hearing impaired and they're using Otter as a captioning service. There's like a minute per month usage that's free, that usually our students can work within and if they have that on their desk while a faculty member is instructing, you know it's able to capture in real-time, and then the student can save that recording, for example, or that captioning session and then turn it into digital notes. That then, if a student has questions, you're able to go back and pull from. I mean again, that's the same thing like we're constantly, you know, updating these things and even students and again like the students that run, like you know, Instagrams and ticktock all these things- I can ask them - “hey, what's the you know - latest and greatest screen reader - and they're going to tell me, and it can change between today and tomorrow. You know, but also too, it's something that you know like for most people and I'm guilty of it at times too even here. Like we want to create the next new thing, so we can say like - oh! look what we were a part of but also like there's no need to reinvent the wheel when there are so many people in these talented spaces trying to create apps and programs for more accessibility in the tech space. Not just for college students; because we're also talking about how some of these things apply to like everyone; because of like aging, for example - like that app that is beneficial to an eighteen-year-old college student with a hearing impairment is just as valuable to my 75-year-old grandmother, who is starting to lose her hearing or maybe hard of hearing and has an iPad and wants to hear the conversation with like her grandkids in the room but is having a hard time. She can be using that same app just as well and accessibility features in computers are increasing - like there are a lot more just built-in natural accessibility tools in a lot of these computers and phones now, outright. Apple has a ton of accessibility features on their products, like the PCs, and you know have a lot more accessibility features and screen readers built into their things versus downloading a program. But like some of these things that we're talking about are also highly useful, not just for the college student but it could be like I said, could be for the elderly. It could be for anybody, like a Universal Design piece. So, I think that's a big part of this thing is the fact that our current students who are navigating this at a high level are only setting up like our society for better success because if they're understanding some of these navigation pieces and then they pass that on to their children, or their colleagues, or their neighbors, it's just going to continue to allow more people to understand what the real value of communication, networking, and potential services that can help you know make someone feel more successful in their day-to-day navigations and that's why again from the technology standpoint like I am not a tech-savvy guy by any sense of the means and I'm sure you can tell from this that I'm a communicator. I want to talk through things, I want to put an ID on the board, I want to put something together, and when someone's like well asks - how do you build this? I'm like, I don't know, but there's gonna be a tech person somewhere, who is good at this. And they're good at that piece and then we bring us together and that's when something great can happen. And I think, here we have just tried to do our best to not let the documentation files dictate the relationship we have with our students and let that documentation file service - the foundation for our relationship - but then understand what each student brings to the table and how they become ambassadors of our office and also then how they then become ambassadors of the university and then on the outreach piece to help support in all the different ways that we're talking about.

52:28.74

Kathy Sestak

I think that's fantastic and I love that the documentation serves as a framework, but it's not it's not the end, right? There's always more room to grow, and so just using that we're nearing the end of our time here but I wanted to make sure I asked you just what advice would you give to the makers of edtech who were committed to designing and building equitable technology.

53:02.11

Greg Hannah

That's a great question. I mean, and I'm sure that the organization is already using this and does it all the time but to look at you know who's benefiting from you know the services that you're providing and who's benefiting from all the great things that you all are doing but also like who the people that in theory are benefiting from it - how can they help contribute to the next level of growth? So like with us, you know we have this standard, and every couple of years it changes because we have new students coming in and the caliber of students at Villanova keeps growing, the academic range that our students have is getting higher, and because of that, you know we can rest on the things that brought us to this point but then utilizing the current students that are here - to see how can we take some of our programming, or some of our accommodations, or some of our interactions - next level. So when you look at you know all of the things that you have to offer, you know, are you asking some of the students or some of the teachers because some of those people that potentially could be like you know, like kind of like your working group could potentially have a sister, mother, brother, cousin - you know son or daughter with a disability and can help offer some suggestions because of how they navigate in their day-to-day. Like, if we don't find out who is using the services, or if we don't know who's working with us, there might be a story behind every single person in that department that can probably add value to the overall deliverable to the community and I think for us one thing we do is like we try to tap into that, as I just mentioned previously, because by understanding what each person brings to the table then we have a chance to elevate our deliverables to the university and to the program that we run here. But if I just sat, in the fact of like this, is what works and we have some skilled people that work at this fulltime to help us take it there. If I don't tap into the heartbeat here, like I've said several times - being our students - we're missing out, but also, like I said, like learning who our students are to help increase our deliverables while having those students take part in the increasing of those deliverables by actually learning who they are and what they could potentially contribute to the services we're providing.

55:52.91

Kathy Sestak

I  think that is a great takeaway. I think that is a great place to end this incredibly wonderful conversation and I just wanted to thank you for joining me today. We appreciate your insight and look forward to and our audience to join us on future podcasts and I just want to say I think is Villanova University is incredibly lucky to have someone like you.

56:21.41

Greg Hannah

Thank you! That is super kind. I think shout out to Dr Nance, right? Terry Nance, to help set up this conversation. So, I got to shout out to Dr Nance, who's known me since day one on campus. So, you know it's like I said I'm just a guy from Jersey and I just happened to follow a path with some great people - from Matt Esquan and Frankie and Steve in Villanova and too many to mention - and just the support of my family and my wife and kids. Like it all matters, and it all brings us to where we are and to be here with you to talk about this. I'm super thankful, you know also to, I mean, I hope there's the impact for sure. But also, it's now, it's nice to talk about some of the things, that we've been able to do here, but also like even now in reflection of our time spent together, I'm just really appreciative of the students that we've had the opportunity to connect with because you know we work at an institution of higher education, so we are going to be around students and the fact that we've had so many wonderful students and families trust us and believe in us, has allowed us to explore those relationships which has led to some of these programs working. Because we had a couple of students that we felt great about and just created the partnership. So, you know, I'm lucky Villanova has allowed us to come in and do these things. I'm super excited for what's ahead.

57:54.00

Kathy Sestak

Well, I think that's a great place to end and I do you know, but wholeheartedly do I enjoyed talking to you in the summer. I've enjoyed this conversation even more I think that the work that you and your team are and the services that you're providing to the students are just incredible and I think, it's you know, we there's there's always more to do. Right! But I think that um going forward, I've just heard a lot about the work that is ongoing at Villanova and ongoing in the space. So just to Thank you again for your time today.

58:32.56

Greg Hannah

You got it. Thank you so much I look forward to anything we can do to continue.  you got it see ah bye.

58:36.43

Kathy Sestak

Ah! I'll talk to you soon. Take care bye.

58:38.00

Greg Hannah

You got it, see ya.

58:40.43

Kathy Sestak

bye.

58:41.00

Greg Hannah

 Bye.