Dr. Jennifer Gagnon was terrified the first time they brought their service dog to work.
“I was actually really anxious … I wanted him to do well, but I also needed to do my job well,” said Gagnon.
“There was that tension of how can I support the training needs of my dog in a classroom setting and also maintain my own identity as an instructor and support all of my students.”
As a lecturer in the School of Journalism, Writing, and Media, Gagnon continues to work on finding the perfect balance between training their service dog Ziggy and teaching writing skills to undergraduate students.
“One of those other challenges is communicating effectively with my students to be able to say, ‘I have a service animal, I don't want it to surprise you, here's what you can expect.’”
But outside their classroom, UBC’s policies on accessibility, inclusivity and service animals remain a significant barrier to Gagnon and other disabled students, faculty and staff.
When Gagnon first started at UBC as a sessional lecturer in 2013, their contract structure did not provide any extended medical benefits or regular coverage over the summer months.
The UBC Faculty Association Agreement for 2022–25 indicates that sessional lecturers who are teaching less than a 50 per cent course load must apply for extended medical benefits and dental coverage.
On top of that, many sessional lecturers often took on additional jobs to access needed benefits and subsidize their teaching salary.
“The rank where you're most likely to see disabled faculty is among contract faculty — those are sessional adjuncts and lecturers,” said Gagnon.
“Making it so that your most vulnerable faculty members are on precarious contracts [and] are also the ones most likely to lose access to extended medical benefits creates additional burdens for disabled people to be included at the university as professors.”
Gagnon also noted the lack of disability representation within UBC management and human resources. In UBC’s 2023 Employment Equity Interim Report, data showed that 7 per cent of middle management/managers identified as disabled at UBC Vancouver and 14 per cent at UBC Okanagan.
“Accommodations are often decided by people in positions of power … Disabled people, who are not only the experts in their own condition [and] their own bodies, are not seen as experts in … [what] best supports their access needs,” said Gagnon.
When there is a lack of representation in management, accommodation policies also falter. For Gagnon, one of the biggest barriers is the accommodation and remote work policy for faculty.
“There is still no formal accommodations policy for employees at UBC. That's unacceptable,” said Gagnon.
For example, remote work can be requested and accessed by UBC staff without medical or disability documentation, but faculty are excluded.
“When I was trying, as an individual, to navigate [the] accommodations process, I was often made to feel that I was the problem — that the needs of my body were a problem to be managed by the university.”
For disabled students, inability to access service dog certifications and accommodations is a growing issue. Gagnon said UBC Housing does not recognize or allow students in residence to train their service dogs, as it only permits certified service dog teams, service dogs trained by an accredited school and certified by the Guide Dog and Service Act of British Columbia.
“There is a huge shortage of service dogs in BC, and accredited schools like PADS can’t meet the volume of need. For example, I decided to do owner training because waitlists for a service dog from accredited schools in BC were full, or over 5 years for a wait, or couldn’t provide me with a dog to suit both mobility and PTSD/mental health access needs,” Gagnon wrote in a follow-up statement to The Ubyssey.
“It’s a policy I hope UBC changes to recognize that in-training dogs and owner trained service dogs are legitimate and do have a right of access just like dogs trained by an accredited service dog school in BC,” they wrote.
Although these policies remain tough barriers for those with disabilities at UBC, there are ways to support and advocate for the community.
At Campus Canines, a UBC club in collaboration with PADS Dogs, student service dog trainers, raisers, sitters and general members are provided an opportunity to learn about service animals and disability justice.
To become a raiser, a member must complete regular onboarding processes and online training modules. Afterwards, raisers become responsible for all training and daily activities of their dog, including attending weekly puppy classes and bringing their dogs to lectures or on grocery runs. For 1.5–2 years, raisers and their dogs are attached at the hip 24/7.
“We bring our puppies everywhere with us,” said Adele Lo, a third-year dietetics student and director of membership at Campus Canines. “They live with us … We can take them on buses, to grocery stores — anywhere we go because they have full legal public access as service dogs in training.”
If a raiser can’t take their dog somewhere, they rely on the help of sitters, who are short-term handlers. When the dog is ready for advanced training, they begin the specialization process.
“There [are] four jobs that they can do, which are mobility dogs, PTSD dogs, hearing dogs and facility dogs. So whichever they're most suited to, the trainers will put them in that stream and start teaching them their tasks for when they work,” said Sophie Pantel, a third-year neuroscience student and raiser.
Apart from raising future service dogs, Campus Canines also works on “disability awareness and advocacy for PADS” within the UBC community. They’ve hosted engagement events with different clubs and student organizations, including collaborations with undergraduate societies and UBC sports teams.
Gagnon is also involved in disability justice and advocacy, having founded the Disability Affinity Group (DAG) to “create [a] community of care.”
The DAG includes faculty, staff and undergraduate and graduate students working to advocate for the disabled community. Currently, one of their biggest goals is to establish a disability task force.
“Disability is the only historically persistently and systemically marginalized group at UBC that has not had a task force or been meaningfully included in things like the strategic plan and the new strategic equity and anti-racism framework,” said Gagnon.
Looking forward, Gagnon hopes to see UBC begin prioritizing inclusive and accessible design for both physical environment and policies and practices.
“When we accommodate, it means we're trying to do a retrofit, we're trying to build in access when it’s already inaccessible,” said Gagnon. “When we make [a space] inclusive and accessible from the start, it not only benefits disabled folks, it benefits everybody in the room.”
Gagnon’s service dog is “essential to [their] movement in the world,” and they hope for increased “recognition that service dogs support a lot of people with invisible disabilities.”
They receive comments about how their service dog “[doesn't] get to be just a dog.” But Gagnon and Ziggy want everyone to know that “no dog parties harder than a service dog off-duty.”
“Yes, they're still dogs," Gagnon said. "They're not perfect robots. And they like to have fun, too.”
Share this article
First online
