Celebrate Learning Week Keynote – The Hurdle and the Highway: How We Think About Inclusion, Accommodation, and Disability, and Why it Matters

Dr. Timothy Cordes is the keynote speaker for the 2022 Celebrate Learning Week: https://celebratelearning.ubc.ca/events/2022-events/

Timothy Cordes’ experiences as a blind person in Science, Medicine, and as a Psychiatrist in college mental health care, have taught him unique lessons. Dr. Cordes will explore how we think about inclusion and accommodation, including realizing our own assumptions and how leaving room to discover another’s strengths, makes all the difference. At one level, we approach accommodation in an attempt to enable someone with a disability to overcome educational hurdles. At the same time, we can use what we’ve learned to build universally designed highways that carry many to their best learning opportunities.

Bio: Timothy Cordes

Timothy Cordes graduated as valedictorian from the University of Notre Dame. He went on to earn a Ph.D. in biomolecular chemistry and an M.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. In graduate school, he developed software to describe protein structures with sound. Dr. Cordes completed a general psychiatry residency at the University of Wisconsin in 2011 and a fellowship in addiction psychiatry in 2012. He is board certified in both. From 2012-2018, He worked for the Veterans Administration and as the medical director for addiction services at the Madison VA from 2016-2017. He is currently the Interim Director of the Psychiatry department at University Health Services which serves students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Dr. Cordes is blind. He has presented nationally and internationally on the lessons he’s acquired in navigating his path.