[MUSIC]
CYNTHIA: By including accessibility
and universal design in engineering curriculum,
you're making a statement to all the students
that you're teaching that the perspectives and the needs
of people with disabilities is something
that they need to think about whether they're
engineering specifically for that group
or for any other group.
KAT STEELE: So just as we teach safety and material properties
and dynamics within our engineering curriculum,
incorporating universal design can
ensure that our future engineers consider those small design
tweaks and consider the breadth of the population
in their design and future innovation.
TERRILL THOMPSON: Asking is this accessible
or what are the accessibility implications,
then that is a practice that can follow them
throughout their engineering career.
RICHARD LADNER: You could do maybe just part of a lecture,
or you could just do one lecture on it
or several lectures, not a whole course.
And then the third option is to just develop
a whole course on accessibility, universal design.
CYNTHIA: I think capstone courses, the purpose of them
is to allow students to apply the skills that they've learned
in a real-world situation.
And so it can be a great opportunity for students to,
first of all, understand that accessibility
and universal design can address real-world problems.
And giving students opportunities
to meet and interact with people with disabilities
is a great way to include it in the curriculum.
KAT STEELE: So we found that the students learned so much
through just having a space to sit down and talk frankly
about issues surrounding accessibility, disability,
and some of the societal implications.
TERRILL THOMPSON: If we want an accessible society
with innovation that includes accessibility,
then students need to be taught about universal design
and accessibility.
[MUSIC]