Isenberg Hosts Multilingualism and Neurodivergence Workshop Series
Multilingual and neurodivergent students are often overlooked in higher education, with much of the existing research focused on early childhood development rather than university students, according to the National Center for Education Statistics and University World News. To ensure that instructors at UMass Amherst’s Isenberg School of Management understand the best ways to support their students, the school’s Office of Access, Collaboration, and Engagement for Success (ACES) presented a four-part, universal design for learning (UDL) Lunch & Learn series this spring focused on students who speak multiple languages and who learn, think, communicate, and respond to the world around them in a variety of ways.
“Plenty of research has been done in these fields, but having worked in accessibility in higher education, I have seen first-hand how much language skills and neurodiversity impacts students,” said Raphaela Moreno MA, MPP, program coordinator for graduate programs at ACES, who led the series. “I wanted to bring this research to anyone who is interested in teaching diverse classrooms so we can roll up our sleeves and dig into the material together to highlight ways to better support our students.”
The Lunch & Learn series featured guest speakers who prepared faculty, staff, and graduate students for the intersecting strengths and challenges multilingual and neurodivergent students come across at the university level. Discussions were designed around preliminary work on the intersections of multilingualism and neurodivergence through an accessibility lens based on supplemental materials and secondary foundational research conducted by Moreno and led by a different guest speaker each session. The series was funded through a Campus Climate Improvement Grant from the UMass Amherst Office of Equity and Inclusion. The grants are offered in the spring for the following academic year to support on-campus projects that foster connection, build community, and create a more inclusive environment.
ACES Assistant Dean Jesenia Minier-Jennings described the series as an important scholarly forum for examining neurodivergence, multilingualism, and UDL enrichment in both theory and practice.
“This lecture series reflected our institutional commitment to inclusive excellence by engaging faculty with leading voices in the field to translate theory into intentional and impactful classroom practices,” she said.
Speakers included Rachel Adams, MEd, associate director of education and training at UMass Disability Services; Megan Gross, PhD, associate professor of speech, language, and hearing sciences at the School of Public Health & Health Sciences; Verónica Martín Ruiz, PhD, assistant professor of marketing at Isenberg; Adaora Ubaka, PhD, assistant professor of management at Isenberg; Ajhanai Keaton, PhD, assistant professor of sport management at Isenberg; and Larissa Hopkins, EdD, director of the Strategic Learning Center at Amherst College.
Participants learned skills to develop practical, classroom-ready strategies to foster more inclusive learning environments.
“What I appreciated most was how actionable the sessions were,” said second-year ACES MBA fellow Hyunju Kang. “Rather than staying abstract, the discussions consistently came back to real classroom challenges like multilingual learners, group dynamics, and intersectionality, showing how UDL principles can help us support every student.”
Through interactive sessions, participants built foundational knowledge, practiced equitable grouping and assignment design, and left with concrete tools to reduce barriers to participation and learning such as social stigma, difficulty with communication, or lack of appropriate resources.
· View the session recordings here and Office of ACES official Instagram recap here.
· Learn more about the Office of ACES.
