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[ music and title narration ]
Narrator: The student population at universities and colleges
is becoming increasingly diverse.
Both students and staff need equal access to courses, facilities,
and all aspects of campus life.
Yet people with disabilities
still find inaccessible websites, course materials, and facilities.
One solution is the implementation of Universal Design.
Architect Ron Mace defined it as:
The design of products and environments to be useable by all people,
to the greatest extent possible,
without the need for adaptation or specialized design.
Nimisha Ghosh Roy: The value of universal design is that it’s simple,
and it’s easy, and it will be able to impact all of your students.
Narrator: It suggests that, rather than designing departmental offerings
for the average user,
design them for for people with a broad range of abilities,
disabilities, reading levels, learning styles,
native languages, and other characteristics.
Richard Ladner: Universal design is -- it's really a goal.
It's a way to approach education
so that you maximize the number of people that are benefiting from the education.
Campus stakeholders need to think about planning and policies.
Ask yourself if people with disabilities and members of other underrepresented groups
are on your staff, faculty, or student body.
Jim Gorske: In looking at developing policy at a university level
I think it's important to recognize,
first of all, gathering the right collection of folks to have that discussion
and not just include, you know, faculty representation,
but also to includes folks that provide services,
students that are the recipient of those services,
students that are in those classes,
people that will be a part of the design of what's going to be then
the effect of the policy.
Narrator: When courses or services are being evaluated,
be sure to include items that ask about the experiences of those with disabilities.
Tony Delisle: I think if an institution, a college and a department
is going to be friendly to people with disabilities,
I think it's really a cultural aspect,
a social normative of attitudes and beliefs that's prevalent and pervasive
throughout the institution and colleges and into the departments.
Narrator: Campus facilities should be accessible and welcoming.
Ensure physical access, comfort and safety
for visitors with a variety of abilities,
racial and ethnic backgrounds, genders and ages.
Jon McGough: A great place to start assessing your accessible facilities
is in the parking lot.
You should make sure that you have a sufficient number of accessible parking spots
and they should be well-marked.
Routes from the accessible parking to a building
should be well-marked with large high contrast signs.
A front door should be for all users,
whether they’re in a wheelchair or are walking up to the front door.
A front door for one should be a front door for all.
Susan Gjolmesli: Students need to know where they are.
Signage needs to be plentiful, really accurate, high contrast.
It can't blend into the façade of the campus, you know,
none of this lovely brushed silver/nickel stuff that blends into the building.
It has to stand out.
Kayla Brown: As far as elevators go, I think that
the most important thing for me is having the controls
at the lower level so that I can reach them.
Narrator: Restrooms should be wheelchair-accessible
with well-marked signs.
Counters and desks in student service areas
should be accessible from a seated position
and aisles should be wide and clear of obstructions.
Bree Callahan: So faculty who require students to use labs on campus
to complete coursework have to also be mindful of
if the lab itself is accessible.
So yes, can they get in the building? Yes, can they get into the lab itself?
But within the lab, there's features that they may not think of.
So is there an adjustable height workstation
for someone who may need to move the table up or down?
Are there ZoomText or screen readers on the lab stations within it?
If there is somebody who is there to help, help desk,
Can someone go and ask a question, and is that an accessible desk or area?
Or other things like printers or phones that might need to be used.
All those things still need to be accessible to a student with a disability.
Before faculty brings technology into a classroom
they definitely need to be aware of what it is
and not just use it because it's the new, hot, flashy technology on the market.
They have to really know how to use it
and the pros and cons of how accessible it is
or how it will impact a student’s learning environment.
Narrator: It's also important to consider computing equipment
and software, and to provide access to assistive technology
for those who need it.
Kelsey Byers: And software can range from text to speech,
voice recognition software, screen enlargement.
It can be used in the classroom, outside of the classroom,
and really benefits a wide variety of users.
Hadi Rangin: I believe we should have at least
a minimum accessibility requirement checklist
so we can ask the campus to follow that.
So, if we are going to provide a product or develop a product,
we have to ensure those minimum accessibility checklists are met.
Bree Callahan: Websites are a very interesting place for a department to start,
because where else does a student go to find out basic information
or maybe even their initial information about an academic department
they are looking at.
So if a student with a disability cannot
find out how to contact you, what you do,
how are they going to be able to get more information
or pursue you as a program?
Hadi Rangin: So, I personally think it should be the responsibility
of the respective web developers or webmasters
to ensure that first their own framework,
their own application or websites, are accessible
and at the same time, they have to provide training.
They just need to consider accessibility as important as say, security and privacy.
Narrator: Faculty members should deliver courses
that are accessible to all students
and accommodations must be provided in a timely manner.
Make sure that video presentations used in courses have captions,
and where appropriate, audio descriptions.
Captions allow a wide variety of people to understand content
and captions can often be searched to accelerate access to information.
Al Souma: By doing so, we're reaching a large number of individuals.
And those include, of course, deaf and hard of hearing people
who would get nothing out of a video that's not captioned,
individuals whose English is their second language,
individuals with ADD and LD, for example,
may help them focus more on the words
as they see it go across the screen.
Lisa Elliot: I don't think that we totally understand
how people take in and use information,
so the more ways that we can offer it up the better we all are.
Jeffrey Bigham: As an instructor in a course you can make your material accessible.
You can make sure that the student isn't excluded,
and so even if you can't, in a short amount of time, change the policy in a university,
you can change the policy in your own classroom.
Richard Ladner: I always feel like if I have a student that has an accommodation,
that I as a teacher have to give a little too.
I can't just do everything exactly the same way.
So, we have to be a little adaptable as professors
so that we reach the most students, and that's what I practice.
Kelsey Byers: Speaking as both a student and an instructor,
assessment really needs to be flexible.
We focus as instructors on exams
but there are many ways to assess student learning:
problem sets, exams, projects, writing.
Narrator: Although applying universal design minimizes the need for accommodations
for students, faculty, and staff with disabilities,
it’s also important to have a plan in place
to respond to additional accommodation requests.
Stephan Smith: And so, the way that we ensure timely and effective accommodations,
is by planning our policies and planning our practices
that include our academic departments.
Jose Blackorby: We have to do it faster;
we have to do it with fewer resources;
and we have to do it for a broader range of the population.
And we're all on the hook for that and we should be.