Inside Manning House, tucked away in a back corner on the first floor, stands the central hub for the vibrant disabilities student community at the University of Sydney. It’s got two zones: a smaller, quiet zone to accommodate students with sensory needs, and a larger space for socialising. From the panelled walls to the dimensions of the automated door, every design choice has been made with careful consideration to best accommodate students with disabilities.
The Disabilities Community Room (DCR) is to be renamed the Khanh Tran Room in honour of Khanh, SRC Disabilities and Carer Officer throughout 2022-2024 and former Honi Soit editor. When it came to disabilities advocacy, Khanh was a force to be reckoned with. Since starting at the University of Sydney in 2020, they were involved in disabilities activism throughout their whole student life. There is no better proof of their fight for better access on campus than the USyd Disability Room.
Activists had been agitating for a dedicated disabilities space as early as 2017. Back then, former SRC Disabilities Officer Noa Zulman, Margot Beavon-Collins, and Robin Eames saw an opportunity with the University of Sydney Union’s (USU) relocation of the Queerspace from the Holme building to Manning. When the move was completed in 2018, the USU expressed support for the room to be converted to a disabilities space. That support, however, was rescinded within the year, with the USU arguing that the space was needed for extra storage.
While there have been incremental movements since 2018, progress was largely stalled. Both the University and the USU had expressed their vague approval in developing the space, but a series of bureaucratic hurdles knocked back any attempts to advance the project. The COVID-19 campus shutdown throughout 2020-2021 also saw the University implement a funding freeze for approval of new Student Services and Amenities Fees (SSAF) applications. That included an application for $50,000 for the project, submitted by Sydney University Postgraduate Representative Association (SUPRA) Disabilities Officer Gemma Lucy Smart in 2021.
But things finally started moving along in the following year, with an Honi investigation published 24th April 2022 titled, ‘Such an exhausting process: The years-long fight for a Disabilities Space on campus’. You can probably guess who authored it.
“Khanh’s article was really pivotal in adding pressure to the University, because it pointed out that USyd was the only Go8 university without a disabilities space,” Smart says.
As one of two student representatives on the University’s Disability Inclusion Action Plan (DIAP) Working Group, Smart recalls how they would constantly refer to Khanh’s article in meetings. The University’s pride worked to her advantage; the purse strings were loosened and the University decided that the quality of the final space should exceed that of the other Go8 members. When the SSAF funding freeze was lifted in 2022, the creation of a dedicated disabilities space skyrocketed to the top of the University’s priority list. And by the time the room was opened nearly two years later, the University had invested well over the amount of Smart’s original SSAF application into student-led disabilities initiatives; approximately $200,000 according to people with knowledge of the matter.
Khanh’s article also made waves across USyd’s student unions. In the following Student Representative Council (SRC) and SUPRA meetings, councillors unanimously voted in favour of a motion to establish a disabilities space. The USU, which houses the autonomous collective spaces, also made it a priority. When former Board Director Alex Poirier took over the USU Disabilities Portfolio in July, he agreed to take an active role in the room’s development, seizing an opportunity in the planned renovations of Manning House to push the Board for inclusion of a disabilities space. Along with fellow Board Director Grace Wallman, they kickstarted the process for the USU’s own DIAP — the first of its kind for a student union in Australia.
“I went to Khanh when I was starting out with that role because they’d been around in the space for longer than I had, and just knew so much,” Poirier says. Khanh’s article was an important resource for the initial DIAP draft. After the draft was complete, Khanh came in and added suggestions that were more specific and actionable, Poirier adds.
To this day, the original draft is still covered in Khanh’s notes, blocks of pink annotations on an old Google doc.
Khanh continued to support the project throughout 2022, being part of discussions with Office Bearers during the process of securing a location. But they wanted to do more. In November that year, at the conclusion of their term as Honi editor, they ran for the joint position of Disabilities Officers with Jacklyn Scanlan. They were both elected unopposed.
As Disabilities Officer, Khanh went from being a student journalist who could only agitate for change from the outside, to having a seat at the table, with a Disabilities & Carer’s network and collective budget behind them.
During their first term as Officer, they were highly involved in the consultation process for the development of the room. They frequently liaised with various stakeholders across the SRC, USU and most importantly, the University’s infrastructure team, which was responsible for implementing the structural and architectural elements of the room’s renovation. Alongside Smart, they were relentless in keeping the project on track, chasing up the infrastructure team for updates during the process, largely via email correspondence at their prompting. As a former Honi editor, they had an edge in what they brought to discussions. They’d built up a wealth of institutional knowledge from their reporting to understand which pitfalls to avoid from previous officer bearers’ lobby attempts, and the best ways to apply pressure on the University. They were a prominent voice in discussions about the room’s policies as an autonomous space, its accessibility procedures, and its function and design.
In the present day, the walls are lined with acoustic panels to reduce noise and the carpet is a plain navy blue, avoiding bright colours that might affect students with sensory needs. Powerpoints, light switches and temperature controls are located low on the walls to enable access for wheelchair users. Wheelchair users can also enter the space via the wide, automatic doors that swing open with swipe access. Inside the social zone is an acoustic booth fitted with adjustable lighting and an Australian electric and USB-C outlet. Printed instructions describe the booth as “an excellent place to study or take a break”. An iPhone-quality photo accompanying the instructions shows a picture of the booth taken by Khanh; their unmistakable silhouette — neatly trimmed hair and a pair of jorts — can be seen holding up a peace sign in the reflection of the glass door.
“The end product would not be what it is today without them,” says Grace Wallman, USU Board Director and former Disabilities Portfolio Holder. Along with the SRC and SUPRA office bearers, Khanh relentlessly pushed to ensure that students’ accessibility needs were considered by the University throughout the whole process, she adds.
Wallman took over from Poirier as Disabilities Portfolio Holder in mid-2023. At that point, the room’s renovation had been mostly completed. Wallman describes the care that Khanh took with the office bearers to ensure that feedback for the design proposals were heard; in particular platforming Smart’s feedback on carpet colours, lighting systems, powerpoint specifications. They were also a vocal member of the USU DIAP Development Committee that Wallman chaired, a committee established in 2023 as part of efforts to widen the scope of the DIAP development process.
By the end of the year, the room was ready for its final walkthrough. What had started out as the former ethnocultural space-turned-storage room, had transformed into a state-of-the-art accessibility room, ready for use. That day, Khanh stood side by side with their fellow student representatives, taking in the fruit of their tireless labour. A room brimming with new possibilities for meetings, for social events, for hanging out with like-minded students. And ultimately, for something more. Something they had gravitated towards their whole life.
A place for community.
When Khanh and Scanlan were elected Disabilities Officers for 2023, they were faced with the impossible task of reviving a collective that had long struggled to engage students following the COVID shutdown. After all, what use was a room if there was no one to use it?
“One of our key priorities was making sure the collective could survive without us,” says Scanlan. “We wanted people to get excited about the disabilities community and activism. We wanted fresh faces who were really excited about the collective to take over after us.”
Throughout their term, Khanh and Scanlan hosted meetings with guest speakers well-versed in disabilities advocacy, fought to save simple extensions, and held joint solidarity events with the other collectives. During 2023, they were able to double the size of the collective, according to Office Bearer reports submitted to Honi. But with only a handful of members, it wasn’t ready yet for a total change in leadership. When the SRC elections rolled around in November, Khanh decided to run for a second term with collective member and campaign veteran Victor Zhang.
“Having the Disabilities Room was a boon for the growth of the collective,” Zhang says. “For many disabled students, the Room is like a second home.”
Although the room was ready as early Semester 2, 2023, Khanh and other student representatives took their time to make it truly feel like a community space. Smart recalls of their several trips to Broadway together, buying medical supplies and fidget toys to furnish the room. Khanh even supplied lounges with weighted blankets, a tea station with an impressive collection, and snacks to stock the fridge.
“Khanh is synonymous with DCR because they made it feel like a homely place,” says Smart. “Once we had the room, they made it into the safe and welcoming space that it is.”
The Disabilities Community Room was officially launched on 19th April, 2024. The online feature image of the Honi article about the launch depicts Khanh and Poirier holding a craft store-bought red ribbon between them, while Wallman and Zhang are mid-snip with a pair of big, red scissors. (Once again, take a guess at who the article’s author was.) By Zhang’s account, it was a successful event with student representatives, USU administrative staff who were involved with the room’s development, as well as members of the burgeoning Disabilities Collective (DisCo). They’d even invited the Director of Research and Policy for the Disability Royal Commission, Dr Shane Clifton, now the Director for USyd’s Centre for Disability Research and Policy (CDRP).
With securing a space for events no longer a logistical pain, DisCo began to take off. The DCR became the natural headquarters for all community events; teach-ins with guest speakers, campaign organising for upcoming rallies, casual study meet-ups during exam period. For the entirety of the academic year of 2024, DisCo had regular meetings every week, on par with some of the SRC’s bigger collectives. In September, the collective hosted a poetry night as part of the university-wide celebration of Disability Inclusion Week. Having built strong relationships with the University’s official DIAP Implementation Group through their work on the DCR, Khanh was able to tap into University funding to fully cover expenses for the party.
When the SRC election season arrived in 2024, Khanh knew DisCo was strong enough to survive them. The fresh faces full of passion and excitement that they and Scanlan had hoped for had finally arrived. With full confidence, they handed over care of the collective to Remy Lebreton and Vince Tafea, SRC Disabilities Officers for 2025.
Tucked away in a back corner of Manning House, the Khanh Tran Room is the beating heart of the University of Sydney’s disabilities student community. The Room is not yet in perfect shape; the automatic door occasionally malfunctions and locks people in, and student representatives are still pushing for the removal of swipe access as a barrier to entry. But much like the community it belongs to, it’s gone through one hell of a journey for the right to exist. Its very existence is an act of resistance, an act of triumph, an act of love.
Khanh Tran is one of the lucky few who truly spent their life doing what they loved — fighting for the often-overlooked communities they held close to their heart, in whatever small ways they could. But their contributions and their impact are far from small. Out of Khanh’s breadth of accomplishments as a disabilities activist, the Room is perhaps their greatest legacy.
Editor’s Note: Carmeli Argana is a former editor of Honi Soit. She edited alongside Khanh in 2022 on the team CAKE for Honi.
