Meet jaz

This persona is a fictional profile of a UMaine student. It was created using data to reflect the challenges, successes, and overall experiences of some of our students.

Meet Your Students
Next Data-Driven Student Persona
Young woman with white skin, shoulder length brown hair and blue eyes wearing a brown wide brim felted hat looking straight at the camera

Age: 20 years old

Work: Media assistant at CITL

Major: Social work

Family: Single, has a twin brother

Challenge: Crohn’s disease and dyslexia

Language(s) spoken: American English

Location: Old Town, ME

Home is: South Paris, ME

Pronouns: She/her

Assistive Technology: Flexible attendance and deadlines, time and a half, Text to speech softwares, C-Pen exam reader

Jaz was born in Lowell, Massachusetts. Her family moved to Maine when she was in middle school. She was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease two years ago and is still adjusting to life with a chronic illness.

“My Crohn’s symptoms can often be unpredictable and at times invisible, and I have had to miss a lot of classes this semester due to my condition. I worry that the frequency of my medical issues make me seem like a less dedicated student or like I’m lying for extra time and consideration. With Crohn’s I can have a bad day, a bad week, or months of no issues and suddenly severe symptoms. So it can be very unpredictable – not like recovering from a flu or cold. What’s difficult too is that not all illnesses are going to look the same.”

“I feel pressure to finish work on time when its physically impossible because I am in agonizing pain or dealing with bad brain fog, but there are few outward signs and I worry that an email saying I’m ill and need more time may not be believed or allowed.”

“In one of my classes, a lot of the readings are from articles that are not available online and the scans the instructor shared with us are terrible. I can’t use my C-Pen reader on them or any other text to speech software.”

  1. Allowing extensions or flexible deadlines
  2. Ability to record lectures or review videos/materials after class
  3. Avoid using old scanned documents and for journal articles, use permalinks directly from the university library
  4. Share slides with students after class
  5. Use take home exams or projects instead of in class exams

Many more students can benefit from these teaching strategies. Learn more about who benefits from these strategies.

“Since the COVID-19 pandemic, there are more campus events that have the option of attending either remotely or in-person, which is nice because that way I don’t miss out as much on some of these opportunities.”

Explore resources and training sessions offered by CITL by visiting the Events and Programs section of the CITL website

Meet Your Students
Next Data-Driven Student Persona