Abstract:

In recent years, there has been a shift in the role played by Spanish universities; they no longer focus exclusively on teaching and research, rather, they are moving towards generating social value [1]. In this context, the Spanish university system has an extensive legal basis that aims to achieve equal opportunities and non-discrimination for people with functional disabilities or special educational support needs. One of these, which is particularly relevant for the work carried out in this area, is Article 46 of Law 6/2001, dated December 21, on Universities (LOU). It recognizes the right of all students to “equal opportunities and non-discrimination on the grounds of personal or social circumstances, including disability” and to counseling and assistance from the professors.

For this reason, the Universidad Europea has created the Managing Diversity Unit (MDU), which is the service in charge of assisting students with learning difficulties; these usually involve specific needs for educational support. This allows us to study what adjustments are necessary to improve the quality of the teaching-learning process for students with specific educational support needs. The MDU's mission is to create a more inclusive university, consistently operating under the principle of equal opportunity.

To this end, the MDU's core audience is the faculty, since they are the main drivers for the change that will make us into an inclusive institution. For this reason, at the MDU we have designed a specific, groundbreaking program for the professors at the Universidad Europea de Madrid. Using this, each professor can follow their own itinerary, one that covers their educational needs. For this purpose, three levels have been created: a beginner level, an explorer level, and an expert level, with different courses that cover the educational demand that we might see from faculty members. The majority of this training is based on diversified classrooms, which means understanding the most common diagnoses in the classroom (dyslexia, ADHD, hearing impairments, and Asperger’s syndrome) and that the professor knows not only the needs that these kinds of students can have, but also the tools and resources that can be used to adjust the courses to the specific needs of each student.

During the 2018/2019 school year, the MDU provided service to 183 students and approximately 915 faculty members (calculated using an average of five faculty members per student). The results show high levels of faculty participation in the educational courses. Specifically, 411 faculty members did at least one course at the beginner level, 52 received training at the explorer level, and 29 did so at the expert level. As can be seen, 492 faculty members were trained in inclusive education. These data allow us to conclude that the education plan triggered a change in faculty behavior and a greater level of commitment from the university’s staff as regards managing diversity. If we want to be a university that pays attention to inclusive education, it is fundamental that we know more about managing diversity in order to train the faculty.

Keywords:

Diversity, equal, training needs.