Special Connections, with Megan Bulford
Wednesday, October 16th, 2024
Megan Bulford, Lead Accessibility Advisor at NWP
Megan Bulford thought she’d be a music teacher.
She’s always had a deep passion for music, both as a child and when she played in band in high school, so it was logical that, as she worked on her Bachelor of Education at NWP, she had envisioned her future self-standing in front of a room of nervous highschool students, correcting their dynamics and rhythm as they practiced and played music. But before she could become a music teacher, a funny thing happened that would change Megan’s career trajectory: she got experience teaching special education.
“I fell in love with the social education side of things pretty quickly,” Megan says. “I realized that I liked working one-on-one with students more than managing an entire classroom. Just having that connection, being able to have conversations with them individually and see where they’re making progress; it’s rewarding.”
Luckily for Megan, there was a demand for special education teachers. She quickly got a job teaching, and in 2011 came to work in disability services at NWP, where she has been ever since.
Megan has had a lot of different titles and roles working in disability services. Currently, she is the Lead Accessibility Advisor with the Accessibility Services team at NWP. In her role, she oversees the daily processes of the Accessibility Services team, which includes helping students overcome educational barriers as a result of disability and/or medical conditions. Last year, they supported close to 250 students. Megan describes it as helping to create a fair environment for students.
“We set up learning supports for students with a range of disabilities such as mental health concerns, mobility, and temporary disabilities like recovering from surgery,” Megan says. “Anything that can help students meet their educational goals while still maintaining NWP’s requirements for their program.”
Even though in her current role, she does not often get to work one-on-one with students, Megan says she appreciates the unexpected challenges of her job.
“Every day is different,” Megan says. “No student is the same, there’s not one case that follows a simple A-Z guide sort of thing. So, it’s all constant learning.”
Constant learning is important for Megan’s job because disability services have become a more emphatic part of post-secondary education across Alberta over the past decade. As awareness around mental health, equity and accessibility becomes more prevalent, more and more students access disability services to help them succeed. Megan and the staff at NWP’s disability services team work to keep ahead of the curve, especially when it comes to new technology.
“There’s a constant introduction of new technology that can help out students,” Megan says. “It’s a bit of a learning curve for us. For example, AI can be a helpful thing, so we have to learn about the good parts of it and embrace that.”
Outside of work, Megan spends time with her husband, her two kids (six and nine years old) and her dog, a husky named Jackson. And even though she’s not a music teacher by trade, she will likely end up teaching her kids some music as they grow older.
“My kids have both played around with the trumpet and a few of the wind instruments we have at home,” Megan says. “We’ll see how it goes if they start band.”
