Higher Hopes Podcast: Student Advocacy and Disability Inclusion
I recently came across a new series called the Higher Hopes Podcast, created by Ebe Ganon. It’s aimed at “clever thinkers from the Australian universities community tackling the big questions about systemic change.” The idea is to bring together students, advocates, academics, and leaders to explore how higher education can truly serve those from marginalised and underserved backgrounds.
The first episode — Student Advocacy and Disability Inclusion with Gemma Lucy Smart — really stood out to me. Gemma is a PhD candidate, Disability Equity Officer with the Sydney University Postgraduate Representative Association (SUPRA), and also represents postgraduate students with disability at the national level. She brings both lived experience and policy expertise to the conversation.
Key Insights from the Conversation
From burnout to advocacy
Gemma’s journey began in environmental and women’s activism as an undergraduate. After facing burnout and, later, navigating her postgraduate studies during COVID, she found herself more aware of disability challenges in higher education. That awareness became a driver for her advocacy.
Individual vs collective advocacy
A central theme was the power of collectivism. While individual advocacy matters, Gemma highlighted how much more effective it is when students act together. Collective spaces allow for shared support, reduce isolation, and push institutions to address systemic barriers instead of treating issues as one-off cases.
Working with and against the system
There’s a constant tension in advocacy: when to work within institutional committees and policies, and when to challenge them directly. Both approaches have value — building legitimacy in governance spaces, but also being willing to call out failings publicly when necessary.
Leadership, support, and sustainability
Advocacy is emotional labour. Student leaders often carry heavy loads alongside study and life, which can easily lead to burnout. Mentorship, paid handovers, and recognition of the work can make advocacy more sustainable.
Language and identity
Language matters. Gemma prefers identity-first (“disabled student”), but stressed that individuals should choose the terms that fit them. Beyond labels, she emphasised shifting away from asking how disability “limits” someone, and instead examining how university structures create barriers.
Practical recommendations
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Stop making assumptions about disabled students’ capacities, ambitions, or needs.
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Co-design policies and courses with disabled students, not just consult them afterwards.
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Strengthen complaints processes, with the new Student Ombudsman seen as a positive step.
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Adopt Universal Design for Learning (UDL) so accessibility is built into courses from the start.
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Support student advocates with mentorship, training, and recognition to prevent burnout.
Reasons for Hope
Despite the challenges, Gemma sees promising change:
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UDL becoming more than a buzzword and gaining traction in course design.
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The National Student Ombudsman as a safeguard for fairer complaint handling.
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Growing visibility of disabled postgraduate students, which breaks down the old assumption that “there are no disabled research students.”
Why This Matters
This episode highlights both the obstacles and opportunities in making higher education more inclusive. It resonates with my own reflections on systemic misunderstanding of neurodiversity (like AuDHD), and the need for institutions to listen, co-design, and embed accessibility as the norm, not the exception.
For me, the most powerful lesson is that change doesn’t happen through lone voices alone — it comes from building communities, supporting leaders, and holding universities accountable for the systems they create.
📖 You can read the full transcript here.
🎧 Or watch the episode on YouTube.
Resources
Connecting with student advocacy and networks
• SUPRA (Sydney University Postgraduate Representative Association): https://supra.net.au/
• Students with Disability Leadership Collective: https://studentvoiceaustralasia.com/s...
• Council of Australian Postgraduate Associations: https://www.capa.edu.au/
• National Union of Students (NUS): https://nus.asn.au/
• National Student Ombudsman: https://www.nso.gov.au/
Professional Networks for Staff
• Equity Practitioners in Higher Education Association: https://www.ephea.org/
• Australian Tertiary Education Network on Disability (ATEND): https://www.atend.com.au/
Universal Design for Learning Resources
• CAST (Centre for Applied Special Technology) UDL Guidelines: https://udlguidelines.cast.org/
• Australian Disability Clearinghouse on Education and Training (ADCET): https://www.adcet.edu.au/
Appendix: My Academic Background
This is to provide some context about being invisibly different (disabled by society?) but not having any access to advocacy or inclusion. I went through the undergraduate and postgraduate program at the University of Sydney during 1976-1984 winning multiple scholarships and achieving a Bachelor of Science with First Class Honours and a PhD majoring in Theoretical Chemistry despite having undiagnosed AuDHD (Autism/ADHD). I became a successful research scientist with international experience, highly cited publications, conference participation, running international summer schools in Computational Science. My biology caught up with me, childhood Co60 irradiation for Hodgkins lymphoma led to 3 more cancers (thyroid and parathyroid carcinoma) from 1995 to 2005 when I had surgery. The resulting decade of hypercalcaemia likely unmasked and/or amplified my undiagnosed Autism and ADHD to the point that my academic career and then my relationships were progressively affected, likely as a consequence of ADHD working memory issues. My ARC Research Fellowship was meant to be for research focus but I could not resist teaching graduate and postgraduate courses to the gifted students I attracted, with my Honours Student winning the ANU University Medal. Lack of diagnosis and support for my AuDHD meant despite working harder than ever in subsequent academic positions, taking on too many projects that remained unfinished and my publication record collapsed. Lack of a AuDHD supportive office space for a second PhD from 2010 at ANU/CSIRO on Climate Change destroyed the research project. Diagnosis of AuDHD a couple of years ago explained the absolute chaos I was trying to overcome without support and advocacy.
- G. S. Caird Scholarship for Chemistry III, 1978.
- BSc (Hon.) Department of Theoretical Chemistry, University of Sydney, 1979.
- University of Sydney Postgraduate Scholarships, 1980, 1981.
- Commonwealth Government Postgraduate Research Scholarship, 1980-1984.
- PhD Some Developments in Unimolecular Rate Theory, Department of Theoretical Chemistry, University of Sydney, 1984.
- ARC Research Fellowship, 1993-1998.
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