The TUFA Equity Committee, in conjunction with EHRO, presents:
Building Neuro-Affirming Workplaces in Higher Education: A workshop for TUFA faculty (Facilitated by Wendy Morgan, MA-Ed, MA-CP, RP)
Friday January 23 2026, 1300 – 1500, SH 104 (Traill Senior Common Room)
Registration: This closed workshop is for TUFA faculty members who identify as Au/ADHD (formally or self-diagnosed). To register, please email the TUFA Equity Committee Chair at [email protected]
Description:
This three-hour professional learning session for TUFA faculty who identify as Au/ADHD (formally or self-diagnosed) is designed to help universities create working environments where neurodivergent faculty feel understood, respected, and supported. Drawing on neuropsychology, trauma-informed practice, and identity-affirming approaches, this session reframes these foundations for the unique pressures, power dynamics, and cultural norms of academic life.
Participants will explore practical, evidence-aligned strategies for reducing workplace stress, strengthening communication, navigating sensory and cognitive load, and supporting the autonomy and excellence of neurodivergent colleagues. Through guided reflection, lived-experience–informed insights, and thoughtful dialogue, this session helps academic communities recognize how behaviours, expectations, and systems can either enhance or erode safety, belonging, and wellbeing for neurodivergent faculty.
This session will focus on
· Exploring the key principles of neuro-affirming practice—and what they can look like in faculty roles, research culture, collegial governance, and day-to-day departmental life.
· Strengthening co-regulation, sensory awareness, and emotional attunement within meetings, collaborative projects, evaluations, and teaching environments.
· Recognizing how common academic norms (urgency culture, hidden expectations, social politicking, communication styles, performance metrics) may unintentionally undermine how neurodivergent colleagues experience felt-safety or autonomy—and identify affirming, sustainable alternatives.
· Starting the process of developing concrete strategies that create neuro-affirming environments at the department-level and institution-level.
This session offers a grounded, compassionate space for university faculty to reimagine what true inclusion feels like—centering neurodivergent faculty not as exceptions to accommodate, but as valued contributors whose perspectives strengthen research, teaching, and organizational culture.
About Wendy Morgan:
Wendy Morgan, MA-Ed, MA-CP, RP, has been developing and delivering curriculum at Fleming College for more than twenty years. Her current areas of teaching include Social Service Work and Mental Health and Addictions where she focuses on the impact of stress and trauma on neurodevelopment and how understanding the brain can support emotional regulation and resilience. Wendy is also a registered psychotherapist in private practice where she uses a neuropsychological approach to support clients. She is deeply committed to neuro-affirming practice. In both of her professional roles, Wendy brings the insights gained after decades of parenting both a neurotypical and neurodivergent child.
Nael Bhanji, PhD (he/him)
Chair, TUFA Equity Committee
Associate Professor, Department of Gender & Social Justice