News

Nurses and nursing students make a difference everyday. Fourth year BScN students Allison MacFadden, Jennie Hynes and Krista Shanks delivered a presentation to the Dalhousie Senate on Monday March 27th advocating for equity through gender neutral washrooms.

Although gender neutral washrooms do exist on campus, students identified barriers to accessing these washrooms due to issues such as inaccurate directions and missing or inconsistent signage. After surveying the Halifax campuses, these nursing students updated the existing gender neutral washroom list and worked with Dal Allies to develop an all gender washroom list. The School of Nursing Faculty supported and facilitated the process.

The three nursing students’ work stemmed from their community nursing clinical placement (Course Professor: Adele Vukic, Clinical Educator: Jennifer Searle, and Clinical Preceptor: Christina Elgee). Beyond developing a list and the efforts undertaken to include gender neutral washrooms in residences and new buildings, students used the presentation as an opportunity to challenge Senators to think of gender neutral washrooms as an equity issue, and advocated for consistent and effective signs that would enable everyone to find gender neutral washrooms easily.

The students gave a presentation that demonstrated their commitment, collaboration, passion and energy to Senate. The presentation was well received with the President requesting a copy of their presentation materials.