Gladys Lowen 2008 – 2010
Gladys has been a provincial leader and visionary in services for students with disabilities and to institutions and organizations for almost three decades. Throughout her career, Gladys has been at the forefront of developments in disability services while remaining steadfast in her principles: human rights, inclusion, and independence for persons with disabilities. Through her advocacy, energy, dedication and vision, she has helped to mold disability services in British Columbia and has been influential nationally and in the United States. Gladys’ contributions to the field were evident early in her career when, as a member of the NEADS Board of Directors, she was honoured with Commonwealth Youth Award in 1989.
When Gladys began her post secondary career as a counsellor at Douglas College in 1978, services for students with disabilities were virtually nonexistent. Gladys was a born activist; when she perceived an unmet need or injustice, she took action! To mark the 1981 International Year of Disabled Persons and to promote rights within post-secondary, Gladys initiated Douglas College’s first centre for services for students with disabilities. The Centre grew under her astute leadership and she mentored not only faculty and staff in the Centre but also faculty across the college. While at Douglas College, she spearheaded and conducted provincial research that culminated in funding of New Directions, a provincial program for persons with brain injury, and for a regional transition course for persons with a mental health disability. It is a tribute to Gladys’ legacy at Douglas College that the transition course, now called Student Access, continues to this day; that the New Directions program was offered from 1989-2008; and her early vision continues to inspire the centre that she founded.
From 1993 – 2008, Gladys took on a provincial leadership role, to create and manage an organization that would expand inclusion through the provision of technology knowledge and services to post-secondary institutions and employment agencies. The result was Assistive-Technology BC, a provincial organization that has become an integral component of disability services throughout British Columbia.
Gladys has contributed to her profession at all levels. She was actively involved as a founding member of the ASE Network, now known as the Disability Resource Network. She hosted the inaugural meeting of the Association at Douglas College in 1982 and was active on the conference committee from 1981 – 1995. “In those early years, as colleagues, we shared ideas, collaborated on initiatives, and grappled with methods of delivering services as we established our profession.” Gladys was a driving force in the development of NEADS and BCEADS (National and BC Educational Association of Disabled Students) and mentored students to assume leadership positions within these student-led organizations. She also served on the boards of directors for CADSPPE (Canadian Association of Disability Service Providers in Post-Secondary Education) where she was chair from 2002 – 2003, AHEAD (Association on Higher Education and Disability), CILS (BC College and Institute Library Services), and NEADS.
Though retired, Gladys continues to make important contributions to our profession. At the forefront of the universal design movement in the delivery of services to students with disabilities, she is an AHEAD trainer, writer, and mentor in universal design. This movement revisions and redesigns the medical model approach to disability services. “Retirement offers me the opportunity to look back at how I approached service delivery over the span of 30 years, and recognize what I would do differently based on current research on and reframed views of disability.”