Standards for student evaluation and success will need to be developed but the challenge is to make them particular to each student and each individual program.
That raises another looming issue: grades. All students want to be graded on their work. But when support is given to some students on all their assignments and tests, and the tash themselves are tangibly altered, questions about the validity and comparability of grades inevitably arise. The instructor who gives a student sixty-five per cent on a photography assignment but who admits that he helped the student load the film and adjust the camera, gets full marks in my books for appropriate support; other people allege bias.
Perhaps evaluations could he comprised of written comments only, applauding accomplishment and pointing out areas yet to he mastered. Or they could be a numerical grade measuring the distance between where the student started from and where they have reached.
Another challenge is graduation. Eventually, the college may choose to hold a ceremony in which students graduate with their peers and receive a modified diploma indicating their participation and achievements.
There is always a sense of urgency in overcoming these obstacles for people with disabilities because so much time has already been wasted. Dr. Robert Gordon, president of Humber, reflected after six years of integration:
It is good for the college because in a funny sort of way we are a disparate group of departments and specializations. This program, in its own way, has forced an interaction and integration of our own people in a way that was never happening before. There is a mutual topic of discussion and a very rewarding one at that. So I think that in its unique fashion, in its own way, it has contributed a great deal to the college.
1990
