BRIANNA BLASER: Hi, folks.
We're glad to have you with us today.
For those of you who I don't know,
my name is Brianna Blaser, the University of Washington,
with the AccessADVANCE project.
Just a little housekeeping, if you
would like to turn on the captions,
you can do so at the bottom of your screen.
Look for where it says "Live Transcript, "
and you can turn on the captions.
And we just have the automatic captions on today.
So I'm going to go ahead and get started.
Thanks for joining us here today.
Our AccessADVANCE project at the University of Washington
has recently come out with a new publication
about making STEM departments more accessible for faculty
with disabilities.
And so we want to share more about that publication
and have a chance to dialogue with folks
about some of these strategies.
So my name is Brianna Blaser, and Sheryl Burgstahler,
our Director, is here with us as well.
You want to go to the next slide show, Sheryl?
SHERYL BURGSTAHLER: Sure.
BRIANNA BLASER: Awesome.
So AccessADVANCE is a newer project
that we have at the University of Washington, that
aims to help institutions and organizations implement
systemic changes within STEM departments
and broadening participation activities.
So that women with disabilities in academic positions
are welcome and fully included, so
that they can achieve success.
And we're working to develop resources regarding
institutional practices to help increase
the successful participation of women
with disabilities in academic STEM careers.
And our URL is on the slide.
And I'll put it in the chat in a minute,
but it's uw.edu/doit/programs/advance.
So AccessADVANCE is a partnership between us
here at the University of Washington with Sheryl
and myself and our Co-PI Cecilia Aragon,
and North Dakota State University
with Canan Bilen-Green, Cali Anischa, and Mark Coppin.
So today we're going to talk a little bit about some
of the experiences women with disabilities have
had in academic STEM positions.
We'll talk about universal design as a framework for this.
And then, Sheryl is going to talk
about some promising practices and things that
can be done with regard to recruitment policies, culture,
information technology, and the environment
in a department or an institution,
to make them more welcoming and accessible.
And then we'll have some time for questions and answers
at the end.
So you know, we'd like to encourage you,
if you to share some examples in the chat of challenges
that women faculty in STEM fields--
women faculty with disabilities, it should say--
in STEM fields encounter.
I encourage you to share some of those in the chat.
And we can share some of the things
that we have seen as well.
Sheryl, do you want to go to the next slide?
I'll share some that we have seen.
And, again, I encourage you to share some of the chat
and have some discussion about this.
We've seen disability related issues
that impact productivity.
This might be because of a difficulty
with traveling to conferences to attend.
It might be for other reasons, as well.
We see problems with inaccessible tools.
So some of these might be internal tools
used at a University for things like HR and benefits.
They might be tools used for meetings and collaboration,
that make it hard for somebody to collaborate
with other faculty to join a meeting
and actively participate.
There are things like un-captioned videos
shown at meetings and events.
Another thing that we've seen is inaccessible grant portals,
journal articles, and review processes.
So a former student we worked with graduated.
She went on to work on a postdoc.
And as she was going to get involved
in some of these other things, as she progress
through her career, she found them to be inaccessible
because she used a screen reader to access a computer.
We know that there are reasons that faculty with disabilities,
particularly some non-apparent disabilities,
don't want to disclose to their department
or to their institution, because they're worried about bias.
We also know that there are folks
that are concerned about requesting accommodations
because of the ways in which it impacts budgets.
Does their department have to pay for that
and does that impact their department's willingness
to, perhaps, hire them if they're still interviewing.
We've also seen folks talk about disability-related issues
regarding scheduling courses.
So in particular, I was talking with a faculty member who
relies upon public transportation for disability
related reasons.
And so teaching a night course was really difficult for her
because the buses ran much less frequently
in the evening for her to get to and from campus.
And we hear all the time about a lack of mentors
with disabilities, right?
We don't see a lot of faculty members
with visible disabilities.
And even for a faculty member who might know another faculty
member with a disability, there's
a question of whether they know somebody
with a similar disability within their field
or within other fields and how much they
are able to learn from those experiences.
So those are some of the sorts of things that we see.
And I'm going to turn it over to Sheryl now.
SHERYL BURGSTAHLER: So what are we shooting for?
Well, if we're looking at an inclusive environment,
just in general.
Then everyone should be able to that they
meet the requirements, with or without accommodations,
is encouraged to participate.
That might be applying for a job,
for example, a woman with a disability trying
to apply for a job.
We hired a person on our staff who is--
he is blind.
And when he applied for the job, I was quite embarrassed
that our procedure for him going through the whole application
process, was not fully accessible to him.
And he's a highly skilled software engineer
and we were not able to not have to give him some special help
to get through that.
Of course, after I hired him then
I made him in charge of making sure
that we improved that process.
Everyone feels welcome.
Everybody is being fully engaged in accessible and inclusive
activities.
So it's pretty simple, really.
And so we're asking for that, for women
who have disabilities.
There's a legal basis for all this.
The primary legislation is Section 504
of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973,
and the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990,
and its 2008 amendments.
These are civil rights laws.
And so you don't find in those laws,
the width of a door opening you should have
so it's wheelchair accessible.
Those are in standards that came from those laws.
But the Civil Right Laws just say
that people with disabilities have a right
to participate like everyone else in programs for which they
qualify.
And then there are state and local laws and even
University policies that might even
be stricter than what we find in federal legislation.
I think it's helpful for most of us
to not think about disability so much,
but to think about ability and ability on a continuum.
After all, some people may have disabilities,
but we all have abilities.
And in this group here today, each of us
could rate ourselves on the scale from not able to able.
And you might rate yourself, maybe lower
on the understand English scale, the ability
to understand English.
Why?
Well maybe English is not your first language.
Or maybe it's because of a disability like dyslexia
that makes English more difficult to understand.
In other words, you can have an ability
that is a certain level.
It's not necessarily a disability,
but it's caused by other reasons as well.
And social norms, the ability to understand social norms,
could be related to the culture you grew up in, could
be related to a disability.
Similarly, the ability to see or hear or walk, reprint,
write with a pen or pencil, communicate verbally, tune out
distraction, learn, manage physical and mental health--
all of these things are abilities
that we all can rate ourselves.
One of the points here in this image
is that if we all went through a little checklist
and marked ourself on this scale,
there would not be, I'm sure, two of us in our group that
are identical.
So ability, it's very diverse, and it's actually
a normal part of the experience of being a human being.
And so often, disability is treated differently.
Speaking of how disability is treated,
I'm just going to give a one minute history
lesson, as far as the evolution of responses
to human differences, including disability.
In our, hopefully, way back in history, but not necessarily
around the world, we eliminate, exclude,
or segregate, people with disabilities
and other underrepresented groups, in some cases.
And then in the middle of last century,
particularly, there was a focus on curing people
with disabilities.
And then if we couldn't absolutely
cure them with medical improvements,
then rehabilitating them, or accommodating them.
Notice all three of these approaches--
first of all, there's nothing wrong
with trying to cure people of something--
but all three approaches focus on the individual,
as if there's some flaw in the individual we need to fix,
that it requires fixing.
And we have ways to try to fix that.
I have a broken leg, yes I would like
to have someone that set that broken leg
and help me through rehabilitation.
But in most cases, we're not in that kind of an experience.
We're in a post-secondary institution.
And so in the middle of that century, though,
we had World War II, of course, and veterans
returned from that war, many of them
with multiple disabilities.
They would not have survived on the battlefield
in earlier wars.
And what else did they have?
Wow, they had the GI Bill.
And so their college is paid for.
And so our campuses had an influx
of lots of people who had disabilities,
sometimes multiple disabilities, and who were war heroes.
And so we quickly accommodated them,
by building ramps and moving classes,
and all sorts of things.
But still the focus was on that individual.
If a person presented themselves and there
was a barrier to something, then we
tried to fix it for that person.
Now we're in a stage of social justice in so many ways.
And if we think of having access as a civil right
aspect of approach to providing access,
then we should assume that people with disabilities
will show up on our institutions.
And so why is it that we still are providing,
namely the accommodation model?
Why aren't we just assuming people would be there?
And so why don't we just get prepared?
And so that leads to this whole idea of inclusion,
of including disability as a diversity issue.
And one of the approaches to dealing with those approaches
is universal design.
And so I'll talk for a minute about universal design.
One thing to keep in mind is that most disabilities are not
obvious to other people.
So you don't know if you have a person with disability
in your class or even if you have a person
with a disability as a faculty member in your department,
necessarily.
Also, most people with disabilities
do not report them, whether they're an employee
or whether they're a student.
Why?
Well you'd have to ask them, frankly.
But some of the things that we hear
is, they're worried about being discriminated against.
In the case of a faculty member, they
want to be recognized as an equal player
and producer in that department, and may not
disclose their disability.
And campus disability services offices primarily
offer accommodations to individuals,
and that's after some inaccessibility is discovered,
like a computer system that's not accessible to someone.
So when you look at an accommodations-focused approach
to access, that again is adjusting
a product or environment for a particular person.
So it might be recreating documents that
are in an inaccessible form.
Primarily these days it's PDF documents,
so they are mostly not accessible to some people
with disabilities.
So we remediate those.
We reformat those to make them accessible to someone
who is blind or someone who has a reading-related disability.
Those two populations use technology
that reads the content on the screen.
And often PDFs prevent barriers for doing so, sometimes
not even allowing access to the text
so those screen readers can read that aloud
to the person who would like that to happen.
Captioning videos.
Some people are surprised that this is an accommodation.
When you look at YouTube, for example, all the videos
are captioned, right?
Well they're captioned by computers.
And so even in this day and age, when
we can create drafts of captions when we post a YouTube video,
many people do not realize the feature within YouTube
to go in and edit those videos, to give proper punctuation
and spelling of words, which seems
like that's a part of a minimum standard in the case of video.
When you think about it for a minute,
if you're working with someone who
relies on those captions, which could be a student who's deaf
or a student who is an English language learner,
it's kind of a mean trick to give them misspelled words
and sentences without punctuation
when it's so easy to reformat those and edit those videos
to make them caption correctly.
Sign language interpreters.
Again, we usually use that as an accommodation
because it seems reasonable to most people
to not provide a sign language interpreter
in every single class.
For instance, in our presentation today,
a person could request a sign language interpreter
and we would provide it.
We do provide captions automatically
as a universal design feature.
But then the sign language interpreter,
if we provide it in all of our classes,
it would be very expensive, of course.
And there aren't enough sign language interpreters
to even make that humanly possible.
So what's universal design?
Well the basic definition is the design
of products and environments to be usable by all people,
to the greatest extent possible without the need for adaptation
or specialized design.
And universal design is not just about disability.
There's an image on the screen right now
that shows a name tag.
It actually has my name on it.
It's a Do It standard name tag that we use in conferences.
Remember those conferences we used to go to in person?
Well we're going to be back there using
this name tag again.
We'll have to dust them off.
But we take a plastic name tag-- and I've
learned from talking to people that run conferences--
that people tend to like a lanyard.
It's easy to wear on your clothes.
Some people like a pin to pin it to a sweater or whatever,
or a clip if they have a collar, they can clip it on.
Usually a conference will choose one of those three
and offer it.
Once in a while, they'll give you an option
and have three different things that you can use for your name
tag, to wear it.
But in the Do It program, we offer a name that
includes all three options.
And so this name tag, there is a lanyard.
But the lanyard is clipped to the lanyard with your plastic
name holder with a clip.
That if you unclip it from the lanyard,
you could clip on your collar and just
avoid using a lanyard at all.
And if you look closely, there's actually a large safety pin
that goes through that clip.
And so if you want to clip it to a sweater or something,
if you don't have a collar, you can do that, too.
Also the name is very large.
Sheryl is very large.
It has my second name, very small.
There, we've made a decision in our conference
that we're on first name basis.
And so we made that clear.
Many times it's the name of the organization
that is largest on a name tag.
And really, I think most people at conferences
know what conference they're at.
They want to know your name.
So that kind of represents the process of universal design,
where you try to make something usable
and comfortable and desirable by a broad audience,
rather than looking at the average person and saying,
well most people like lanyards, let's do that.
So if we take a look at the three characteristics
of a universal design practice, it's
accessible, that means technically
accessible to a person with a disability.
Back to that PDF, that they can technically access that content
with their screen reader.
It's usable, as well.
And so in the case of that PDF, if you just
make access to the text, but not to the formatting
by using a screen reader, then it's
like reading one long sentence.
You can imagine trying to read a paper that way.
But you can format the headings and the list and so forth,
so someone can actually, who is using a screen reader
and doesn't have sight, can actually
find out what that organization of that paper
is, the heading structure and so forth.
And then it's inclusive.
And there we just mean that, as much as is possible,
that everyone's using the same product,
but flexibility is built into the product itself,
as the name tag.
This is a real quick review.
And so I'm just going to mention the scope of universal design
and post-secondary education.
The primary applications can be divided into instruction,
to services like a teaching and learning center,
to information technology and its design,
and to the physical spaces that we use,
including classrooms and maker spaces and places like that.
All these practices can apply to faculty, staff, students.
If we took a look at instruction,
if we're concerned about the students being involved,
we take a look at the class climate,
the interaction of class, the physical aspects
of a class, delivery methods, information resources
and the technology you use, feedback, assessment,
and accommodation.
If we're looking from a faculty perspective,
for a faculty member who's teaching a, class then
we have different categories.
And that's what our new checklist is all about.
So there are basically three sets of universal design
principles that can provide us guidance
in post-secondary education, so we
can deal with all of these different applications,
as well as things like professional conferences,
and presentations like today, and so forth.
And so there are three sets of principles.
The seven principles of universal design
really talk about the physical environments and products
we might use, but they can generally
apply to everything that we design,
including instruction, and services, and so forth.
And so those were enacted at the same time as the definition
of universal design.
But what came along later are two sets
of principles that really give some fine tuning
to specific aspects of what we do on a post-secondary campus.
The first set, the three principles
of universal design for learning--
and those zero in on how we provide instruction,
really focusing on instructional methods.
And then there are four guidelines or principles
that underpin the guidelines that we typically
use for our design.
The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, for example,
is underpinned by four general guidelines
for making technology accessible, usable,
and inclusive of everyone.
And in the image here, we have a large circle
with universal design and then the two smaller circles
for the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines
and the universal design for learning.
They intersect, but there are two circles
within universal design.
So universal design gives us the broad guidance and so forth.
So you can thank me very much.
I'm not going to go through all these principles
and guidelines.
But in a nutshell, what it means to me--
this is my personal perspective here--
is if you do these things, that are appropriate for whatever
you're offering, a course or a service
or whatever, provide multiple ways for participants
to do stuff, to learn, to demonstrate
what they've learned, to engage with one another.
For instance, if you have a student services or a faculty
services organization, making sure people
can contact you using email or telephone or Zoom or whatever,
rather than just relying on one way.
And the second one is to ensure that for all
of these different methods you're
using, that all the technologies and the facilities
and the services and the resources and the strategies,
are accessible to individuals with a wide variety
of disabilities.
Sometimes people practicing universal design,
particularly of instruction, forget this second part.
And so they might offer multiple ways for students to learn,
using videos and documents.
That's a universal design approach.
But they don't make sure that those documents
are accessible to people with disabilities.
And similarly, they don't make sure those captions
are available and are accurate for them as well.
So that's the universal design.
I think what we need is a paradigm
shift from a reactive to a proactive design of products
and environments on our campuses.
Think about making things inclusive,
make things more accessible rather than
have to fix them later on.
And from design for the average person to design for everyone.
And this applies to our diversity, equity inclusion
efforts, as well.
The disability then, should just be one category of diversity
that we address through those efforts.
But once upon a time, we actually already did this.
So let's look back at that.
1970, here's a picture that was on the front page
of the University of Washington Daily, which
is the student newspaper.
There's a young man in a wheelchair
and he has a sign on his back, or on the back
of his chair, that says "Ramp the curbs,
get me off the street."
This was his little protest of one.
But it grew into a big movement around the country
to put ramps or little ramps, or curb cuts, we call them,
in sidewalks.
Back then, that was revolutionary.
And the University of Washington and other campuses
really pushed back on that.
Wow, we only have a few students in wheelchairs.
We're going to put ramps all over the place.
Do you know how expensive that's going to be?
And guess what?
It was.
Because they hadn't thought about accessibility
in the design.
Now we expect that sidewalks will have ramps and curb cuts.
And we know those old ones now have cut in curb cuts.
That was probably very expensive, but not
when we're building the new sidewalk.
And so we just expect it.
That's that paradigm shift, where
that's an expectation in sidewalk design.
If you notice, some of the newer ones
also have little bumps on them.
That's for people who are blind and using a white cane
and want to know that they're just
about to step into a street, which is actually
kind of a nice thing to know.
I'd like to emphasize the inclusiveness
of universal design.
In the picture on the screen right now,
we have a typical entrance to a building.
At our University of Washington, this
is one rather modern building.
It has two steps in.
And on the left, there's a nice, gently sloping ramp
with handrails, perfectly ADA compliant.
It is accessible.
It is usable, sort of.
But when I'm walking up to the door with my colleague
who's using a wheelchair, what happens then
at this point when we're trying to enter the building.
They go one way and I go the other way.
So we interrupt our conversation and we go up the ramp.
So it's accessible, it's usable, it is not inclusive.
The second picture shows another building
that's actually much older, that has a gradually sloping ramp
into the building for the main entrance.
And the entrance is quite wide, that ramp.
Again, if I'm walking down there,
I have an extra person in a wheelchair.
We continue our conversation.
And the ramp is wide enough that people can pass us
as they go the other direction.
And we are going in to the entrance the same way.
Trust me.
There are many steps in that building.
If you want to go up the steps and down the steps,
you have many opportunities.
But the main entrance is the one that's fully inclusive.
And that's what we're trying to accomplish
in what we're doing in our project
here, for women with disabilities
to have inclusive practices to minimize the need that they
need any special considerations between what's built in,
to what we're offering.
We look at technology, you need to look no further
than your smartphone.
We've gotten used to being able to enlarge
the characters on the screen, change the background color
and so forth.
That's a universal design.
Those features used to be assistive technology.
They would be add-ons to computers.
Back in the days of the Apple two and the old PCs,
you would add those on just for people who had disabilities.
Now we all use them, so it's universal design.
We also need to be sure that we ensure compatibility
with assistive technology.
For instance, a blind person might use a Braille embosser
to produce their own Braille.
And yes, that is possible.
Braille translation software can be connected
to a Braille embosser.
But it requires then the technology
that we use can interface with that Brailler.
So who's the beneficiary of all these inclusive practices?
I'll just give you one example.
Those videos I've been talking about, who benefits?
Well certainly people who don't hear,
people who are English language learners, but many more--
people who are in noisy environments
or a noiseless environment like a baby's room
when the baby is sleeping, those who have slow internet
connections-- so they want to turn off the visuals
and so they can just see what is being spoken,
those who want to know the words because it's a chemistry video
and that will make sure you're getting them spelled right,
and people that want to search through those captions
and find content that they're looking for.
So a lot of people benefit from those captions
as other universal design features.
I'm being careful today to describe visuals
that are of importance for you to understand
what I'm talking about.
But I don't over describe them.
There's a visual on right now that's more decorative.
And so I'm not going to describe that,
but that's a universal design feature.
I always assume that there's at least one person
in this audience today that can't see the screen.
Could be because they're blind, but more likely
it's because they've turned the visuals off
because they have a slow internet connection.
They're worried about their connection or whatever.
I don't know.
But if I just make that a practice,
then I don't have to provide an accommodation as far
as the description.
It's already available.
We can have access to these visuals, these PowerPoints
after the presentation.
And you'll see that all of those images, if you
look in the accessibility features of PowerPoint,
they are also described, every one of them in that case.
And so a person who has a screen reader,
that screen reader will read that content aloud to them.
And so let's just summarize this universal design
aspect of our presentation here, that as an attitude,
that we want to be inclusive.
It's an attitude.
It's a framework.
And I've just given you some enough for you
to be interested in maybe learning more
about that framework, which you can find on our website.
It's actually a goal that we'll probably never reach.
That nametag, there'll be somebody
that, that isn't exactly the way they want to have a nametag.
Maybe they want to one stick on or something.
I don't know.
But we'd make an effort to be more inclusive.
And by making that effort, going through that process,
you make the product satisfactory and accessible
to more people.
So what is universal design about?
Well it values diversity, equity, inclusion.
Can be even part of your model for designing
all of your DEI efforts because it's not just about disability.
It promotes best practices and it does not lower standards.
If you're lowering your standards
in a class because of universal design or accommodations,
something's wrong there.
It may provide alternatives.
It's not to lower standards.
It's proactive.
Can be implemented incrementally.
Benefits everyone, or that's their goal anyway.
And minimizes the need for accommodation.
So what can we build into our environments
on post-secondary campuses so that courses and services
and everything else will be inclusive?
And so as you're thinking about these things in chat,
again, you can share some steps that you've taken.
Can you think of anything right now that you are doing
or have done?
Think of one thing that you've done
and you all of a sudden maybe you think about that way?
But it's like, oh yeah, that's an inclusive practice
and universal design practice.
And maybe think of something that you could do now
or very soon that would make your faculty more inclusive
of faculty with disabilities.
I'll share one of my own.
I work in the IT organization.
And within that organization, we have our own DEI efforts.
And one of the things that we did
is, we decided to go through all--
I'm talking about all the websites
to support people with IT on our campus, not just disability,
and look for language that stigmatizes people
from various groups-- women, racial ethnic minorities.
And in contrast to most I believe,
but certainly many, DEI efforts, disability was included there.
And so I was on the team.
And so I could look through those words.
And we made up a list of words that we were no longer
going to use when we described the services we provide
and technology and so forth.
So Brianna, do you want to add something to that chat
or have your own
BRIANNA BLASER: You know, I think
we've talked a lot about just making sure
that you are checking in with people
who you know need accommodation and that they are getting it.
There's a lot of discussion in the chat, too, about looking
at policies and making sure that those are changed,
in addition to some of these kind of smaller changes.
And I think we're going to get to that in a minute.
But yeah, I'd love to hear more about what
other folks are doing.
SHERYL BURGSTAHLER: Yeah, and I like that first example
you gave-- checking in with people
that might need accommodations.
The accommodation is an accommodation, after the fact.
The checking in part is universal design,
that you thought about those things
and you're proactively addressing issues
that you might see.
So here we are.
We work through a very long process
actually, several months, with people meeting in person.
Some of you were probably in that group and communication
on our online community of practice some of you
have been seeing those messages as well,
and we developed a initial checklist.
We used our past experiences in developing
such things in the Do It Center, started
adding to and modifying.
And I sent out different sections of content
we were working with, and people could give feedback on that
or recommend new sections.
Then we share the whole Google document, which
is a little bit more in place, and let people give back
in their input on that as well Brianna
will put the URL in the chat, so you can look it up.
But the name of our publication now
is Equal Access: Making STEM Departments More
Accessible to an Inclusive of Faculty with Disabilities.
Originally we were going to have female faculty here,
but we decided that list is really mostly about disability.
And so we decided to just leave it about faculty
with disabilities.
And so here I'm going to give you
some examples of the checklist.
And I'll warn you here, I'm going
to fly through some of these things.
I cut them down some, but I think sharing most of them--
not all of them, but most of them, kind of
gives you a flavor of what we're doing.
And we've talked internally about-- we still
feel it's a little bit drafty.
But the way we create documents and do it, particularly
checklists like this, is we--
and you'll see it noted in the publication itself,
at the end--
that we consider this to be a working document.
And so we're still asking for your input on improving this.
In some cases, that's improving the wording
to make it more clear.
Or making sure that the wording we've used
is not offensive to some people, and we haven't really
even thought about it that way.
And then, we think and think how we could make this more
inclusive itself.
And so we also made a decision not
to just list things you should consider that you should do.
But to list them as questions because a lot of these things
wouldn't apply to certain institutions.
And so we're not saying that you should do any of this.
What we're saying is, here are some things
you should think about.
And there are things that other people
have thought about, and perhaps done, at their institutions.
And so here we go.
So our first category was recruitment.
You know, what can we think about as far as recruitment?
The person on my staff, Heidi, who couldn't even
apply for a job with me, wasn't very inclusive.
So what could we do in that process?
What are the things that we think about recruitment?
So do you ensure that the faculty recruitment materials
and application forms are accessible to everyone?
So there we get into a lot of accessibility stuff,
accessible for people with disabilities.
A lot of the forms that we're using
are not designed to be accessible to a person using
a screen reader.
And so right off the bat, to apply for the job
just think about it they have to disclose their disability.
Maybe they didn't want to at that point.
Shouldn't that be a free choice at that point?
But when they find out, I can't even apply for this job
unless I disclose my disability.
So making sure those are accessible,
and how are you going to do that?
Well, you can involve maybe some people with disabilities
on your campus.
But you probably have in your IT organizations,
a group like my group, the IT Accessibility team
that knows how to make things accessible.
And so get them on it.
Or sometimes working with your compliance officer,
they might be interested in this whole issue.
Do you omit irrelevant physical requirements?
We don't see a lot of these, but sometimes things
like, particularly for an employee,
perhaps not a faculty member, but must
be able to lift 10 pounds or something like that.
Leave that stuff out from that faculty position announcement
or in other employee announcement.
In this day and age, there are very few jobs
where that would be required.
I mean, there's some that it would be, but make sure
that it's really required.
We had a person who worked for us who was quadriplegic.
And certainly, he couldn't do some
of the things you would expect a person to do in that job--
keeping files organized and so forth.
But that's a student helper job.
And so absolutely, we could provide assistance when needed.
Do you share how to request disability
related accommodations?
This is a really important one.
In your application, sometimes it says,
or in your announcement, sometimes it says,
we welcome people from all diverse groups,
including blah, blah, blah.
Maybe it even includes people with disabilities.
And it doesn't say how to get an accommodation in the interview
process or the application process.
And that person shouldn't be going to the Department
to get those accommodations.
It should be centrally funded.
So their first communication with someone in the Department
they're applying for isn't with someone in that department,
saying, oh, by the way, I have a disability.
I need this, this, this, and this.
Because you don't know how that person might react to it.
We would hope positively, but we know that that's not the case.
And then if you look at policies and evaluation,
are new hires and other faculty made aware of the workplace
accommodation process?
A lot of them are not or it's just so obscure somewhere.
It's not really on the departmental web page.
It's somewhere else, that there's a disability services
office.
We talk to faculty that don't think there are accommodations
for faculty and staff.
It's just for students.
I think that's because the disability services
office is so prominent on our campuses,
particularly for students.
They know that exists.
But that might not be the office that provides accommodations
for faculty.
For faculty and staff, the accommodations
are often provided, not through student service type
organization, but through the HR organization.
And so, anyway, make that real clear.
Is the process clearly explained on faculty and public websites
with examples of accommodations provided?
Some faculty members say, too, I don't
think they'd help me with this.
I don't think they'd help me with that.
I don't think you should ever list the accommodations
as a definite list that these are the only accommodations we
provide, but providing examples that
make it clear that accommodations are provided
for people with physical disabilities,
sensory impairments, for people who have learning disabilities,
health impairments, other types of invisible disabilities,
are provided as well, as is required by the Americans
with Disabilities Act and Section 504.
The policies and procedures require
that accessibility be considered in the design, development,
and in procurement.
When you're procuring things for your department,
could be tables for a maker space you're creating,
do you consider accessibility?
For instance, in a maker space, is there at least one table
that has adjustable height, where someone, for example, who
is very short in stature, very tall, or is using a wheelchair,
that might not fit under that standard height of a table.
And so is that included?
And procuring technology, as well,
do you ask that the product be accessible to people
with disabilities?
You might think, well, we don't have
anyone with a disability in our department right now.
Well you might be lucky and get one and have that diversity
within your unit.
Are disability-related access issues
addressed in evaluations?
And so do you specifically ask for feedback
on the physical environment and if people
find accessibility issues?
And sometimes you can word it in a way,
do they consider some facilities not
being fully physically accessible.
It doesn't need to be just about that individual person that
noticed some accessibility issue.
We have an auditorium, for example, that's very modern
and is very accessible to students with disabilities.
But the podium for the faculty member, that area
is not accessible.
Obviously, those architects thought about disability,
but it didn't dawn on them that it might be the faculty
member with a disability.
So report those things.
Department and campus culture.
Do campus or departmental DEI initiatives
address issues relevant to faculty members
with disabilities?
Do they address issues related to faculty is one question,
because sometimes they don't.
But what about people with disabilities?
Often that is, disability is considered just kind of,
oh that's kind of its own special thing.
Even when a DEI effort is reaching out to say,
Black students, often students with disabilities who
are Black, do not feel welcome.
And maybe it's because there's no mention of disability
on the website or they don't make things accessible,
and so forth.
Do you include disability issues on campus climate surveys?
Sometimes these surveys ask for demographics
and they don't ask if the person who is filling out the form
has a disability.
And they don't ask questions relevant to disability access.
Do policies and procedures move beyond compliance
and accommodations for individuals
and focus more broadly on universal or inclusive design?
This is important, too.
Being inclusive is not just a legal issue.
And some campuses think the very bottom line, the minimum,
that the ADA or 504 might require is accessible.
But is that you?
Is that your conference?
Is that the way you treat other people?
And Well, what's the minimum we can do to make this person
feel comfortable in my department?
So don't think about minimum.
It's important to be compliance aware,
but it's also important for that just to be the floor.
I mean, we have to meet legal compliance issues,
but that shouldn't be the end of it.
And then physical environments, there
are a lot of things to think about there.
I just listed some off here.
Are they easy to find?
Accessible routes of travel?
Do you have a sign that says where the elevator is?
Some people don't like to put that on the wall.
They think too many other people are going to use the elevators.
Well what about the people who need to use the elevators?
Doors with sensors, or opening buttons, if it's a main door,
particularly.
High contrast, large-print directional signs,
Braille signage in some cases.
I did go to a building one time and they had
a Braille sign for the room.
But it happened to be way at the top of the door.
And you don't want to put them up there.
But there are some places where Braille is appropriate,
like in your elevators.
Accessible elevator controls, keeping those
controls low for example, and have those Braille markers.
Well-marked wheelchair accessible restrooms.
Accessible emergency evacuation equipment.
Does your emergency evacuation have both an audio
and a visual indication?
Adjustable height tables, ergonomic chairs,
adequate adjustable light available.
And again, providing some of these things, maybe not
all of them, but some of these things
without having to request an accommodation.
Are there policies and procedures
to ensure that accessibility is considered
when facilities are constructed or remodeled, furniture,
equipment is procured.
We will provide a group on our campus of students
with disabilities, multiple disabilities,
to architects who are designing buildings
and stuff on our campus and give feedback,
give some suggestions.
And they always come up with something
that the architects haven't thought of.
Sometimes they put those buttons to open doors,
for instance, too close to the door.
And so once a student with a disability hits the button,
they have to roll backwards really fast
so the door doesn't hit them-- things like that,
that you might not notice.
And then support services, like teaching and learning centers,
and all of the support services that faculty
engage with on campus.
Do the staff members know how to respond
to requests for disability-related
accommodations?
It's really weird if you go in to a service and say,
I would like to request a sign language interpreter.
You send this on email and the person says, well,
I don't know.
I don't think we do that.
We don't ever do that--
just because they don't know.
When someone asks for an accommodation,
the answer should never be no--
or almost never no.
But it should be at least reflective,
and if you're not in a position to make that decision,
to at least pause and say I'm really not sure
what the answer is to that.
But I'll be sure to find out for you.
And make sure that happens really quickly.
Are staff members familiar with the availability
of alternative document formats?
I mentioned those PDFs.
They can be made accessible, but you
need to take a workshop or something to learn to do it.
And there are major issues with PDFs,
like things are different on the Macintosh and the PC.
And if you want to edit a PDF, to make it more accessible,
you need a special piece of software and so forth.
Where Word, and actually PowerPoint,
Microsoft products, but also just plain old HTML
that you use on a website, is much more accessible.
At least, it can be made more accessible easily.
If you look at our Do It publications,
including the one for this project,
we present that document in HTML,
very accessible to screen readers.
But we also, you'll notice, have a link to a PDF.
Because we know people want to use PDFs.
I do.
Back when we were doing conferences in person,
I always like to have a handout with me.
Even if I give the URL, I like to have a handout
so people, people who can, can actually
take notes in the margins.
And so we want a PDF, but it's for the reason,
for people who want to print the PDF.
Others can use it as well.
But just like in those entrances to the building,
the main entrance, the main document, is in HTML.
The link is to the PDF.
Where, if there are two versions,
most units that we run into will do the PDF first and say, oh
by the way, here's a text based version of this document.
Are staff members familiar with the availability
of alternative document formats?
So that's, making sure that they're aware is the key there.
Do they know that you can get them?
We link to a lot of PDFs, perhaps, that are not our own
and they're not accessible.
Do you know what to do if someone
can't link to that document you recommend they read, and it's
not accessible?
So find out how you do that on your own campus.
Are staff members aware of issues
related to communicating with individuals
of different races, ethnicities, ages, and abilities?
So communication for all of these various groups,
there's terms for people with disabilities
that are inaccurate or offensive, just like there
are for other groups.
So we should be aware of that.
One example is talking about someone
who's confined to a wheelchair.
I have known a lot of people who use wheelchairs.
I have never met one who's confined to a wheelchair.
I'm not even sure exactly what that would mean.
You mean they never get out of it?
Of course, they don't.
Or bound to a wheelchair, wheelchair bound, or whatever,
these negative connotations.
And given I'm a technology person myself,
I'm kind of offended by that.
A wheelchair is not confining.
If you can't walk or you have difficulty walking,
a wheelchair, the technology, is liberating.
That's a very positive thing.
And so now, we shouldn't be giving a bad rap
to the technology people use.
Anyway, so think about those things.
Are staff responsible for designing and developing
websites knowledgeable about accessible web design?
They may not know to do that.
But if they're designing websites,
they have the technical expertise
to learn the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines
and apply them.
Trust.
Me Information resources and IT--
are important meetings captioned, recorded,
posted online?
Do web pages adhere to these Accessibility Guidelines
mentioned in the last slide?
Do publications include a statement
about requesting disability related accommodations?
So it'd be all publications.
Is it clear how faculty can request guidance
in choosing assistive technology?
Are central funds available?
Sometimes the departments on a campus
are required to bear the burden of adaptive assistive
technology.
I personally, I don't think that's the way to go.
Because sometimes, some people will look then
at a person with a disability as being
a burden to the Department.
It's a central organization, the University itself,
that should be providing that assistive technology,
in my humble opinion.
And that's what my group gets involved
in, but also disability services for faculty and staff
and for the students as well.
And where can they get guidance in choosing
that assistive technology?
That happens to be my group on campus,
making sure that those funds are available.
And then accommodations-- notice I include a section
here on accommodations.
We do in all of our checklists of this type.
Because accommodations are part of the universal design.
Accommodations are what we provide
when making the product fully accessible to everyone
you can think about is not possible,
which is pretty much always.
So does a simple, transparent procedure
to ensure a timely response to requests
for disability-related accommodations exist?
Are faculty made aware of these services?
Make sure that's in the faculty resources.
Not just when they're hired, because a disability may not
be disclosed at that time, or someone
might acquire one in the process of working there.
Are all disabilities considered in disability accommodations--
emphasizing the inclusion of non-apparent disabilities.
And are accommodations approved and funded centrally?
And so again, it's not a burden on the Department financially.
It's an obligation of the University or college.
And so that's really a quick run through,
as I said, on that checklist.
And it's a work in progress.
If you found something there that you didn't
like the wording, or it made you think of something else
you can throw it in chat right now.
You can email us later and we will
put that on our list of things for our team
to review as we go to the next edition of this product.
So Brianna.
BRIANNA BLASER: Yeah so there was a great question in chat.
Oh we wouldn't talk about ways to engage-- sorry
I got excited about some of the discussion in the chat.
So we just also wanted to share about ways that you
can engage with AccessADVANCE.
So through our project, we have a variety of activities.
We are doing some trainings throughout the project
that we call a capacity building institutes
we held our first one this past spring
and we will hold one again in the following year.
We're holding a series of webinars
like this, that we will continue to share information about.
If you are interested in presenting something related
to our goals in a webinar like this, please reach out to us
and let us know more about your expertise.
We have seed grants, mini grants,
that you can apply for to support
activities on your campus or in your organization related
to our goals.
And give feedback on our products,
like Sheryl has talked about today,
and suggesting updates to our list.
We also have an online community of practice
where we share resources and announcements
for events like this.
So if you're interested in joining that I'd encourage
you to email us at doit@uw.edu.
and we can share that.
SHERYL BURGSTAHLER: And share it with your colleagues.
Anybody could join anyone interested in this topic
that we've been talking about.
Well, we're going to have Q&A now.
But let's just talk a bit about the resources which we'll leave
on the screen and we are going to put in chat and so we have
the URL for AccessADVANCE, for the DO IT Center--
which includes the Center on Universal Design and Education,
and then our email addresses S-H-E-R-Y-L-B at uw.edu
and B-L-A-S-E-R at uw.edu.
Again, those will be in chat.
BRIANNA BLASER: So one of the questions I saw in the chat.
And, again I'd encourage folks to either put questions
in the chat or raise their hand and we can call on folks.
But one of the questions I saw--
a lot of the context when we're talking about disability
in higher education and we talk about universal design,
we're talking about universal design
of learning for students.
And Sheryl, I know you're a big proponent of universal design
but what would you say about universal design of teaching.
How can a faculty member think about ways to
or how can an institution when they're talking to faculty
talk about strategies that faculty
can use in their teaching to make it more
universally designed.
SHERYL BURGSTAHLER: Yeah we do have
in our Center for Universal Design and Education,
we have checklists.
Guess what!
There's one, equal access universal design of instruction
that is a checklist similar to the one we have
here but focused on how you can make your courses fully
accessible.
So I'd encourage you to look at that center
on universal design.
And it's connected to the do it website uw.edu/doit.
And then you'll see universal design and that's where you go.
And so there are a lot of things to consider, like the class
climate and so forth.
And again, because it's universal design,
it's not just about disability.
But disability is included in everything on that checklist.
We have a second checklist that is specifically
designed for online learning.
And it is how to design an accessible online course.
And that one is one of our most popular publications.
It's 20 tips.
So if you just Google "20 tips," you'll
probably get it as the first or second thing you'll find.
And that, we get a lot of traction
on because of the pandemic, actually.
And we've got a short list of what to consider.
And so I think, in both cases, there
are your instructional strategies
and then there are the products that you use.
And so in the case of a course, on-site or online,
to offer students multiple ways to learn things,
this really benefits students with some types
of learning disabilities and other invisible disabilities,
who might have learning preferences,
might maybe learn more from a video or something in writing.
I always like something in writing.
But a lot of people like videos.
And so offer both when you can,if not always.
But multiple ways for students to learn things.
I actually teach an online class.
And we have short discussions on topics.
And we have some assignments.
We have big projects, a lot of different ways for them
to learn things and then also to demonstrate
what they have learned.
And so you'll find students in a Project--
my project for this one class I'm teaching,
is they have to design something that has related to the class.
And I give them options on what they do.
They might present a video or a PowerPoint presentation
or write a paper, and so forth.
And so, not necessarily for every assignment you give,
but if it's appropriate to give people options.
Making really clear instructions-- that's probably
the biggest thing I heard from here
from students with disabilities about inaccessibility
or lack of inclusion, is they just
get confused about what they're supposed to do.
And you know, I wrestle with this
because I put a lot of work into describing the projects
and things.
And so when I get a feedback like that,
I'm always disappointed.
But then after my disappointment and I might think,
well I made that really clear.
I always go back to that assignment.
Why did that one person not understand
what was going on here?
I sometimes, I decide I really think I adequately described it
and I just didn't read it clearly or something.
But I always consider whether I can improve on that.
I worked with a faculty member one time
who was concerned because a student on the autism
spectrum in his course, he was worried
that she wouldn't be able to give a presentation
in a computer science class.
And I said, why?
And he says, well you know, she never talked to anybody.
She doesn't make eye contact.
How could she possibly give a presentation?
And I said, well I work with students
with a lot of disabilities, including
those on the spectrum.
And I can't speak for this one person, of course,
but what I find if you just make the instructions really
clear, really concrete, they can often
be successful or they aren't when it's just really unclear.
And I said, what instructions do you give the students?
He says, well I say they can have eight minutes
and they can do whatever they want.
And I said, well I think that could
be a problem for that student, but maybe many other students
as well.
He says,well I like to give them freedom.
I said, I get that.
OK fine I said.
How about if you say that they can do anything
they want with their eight minutes, but here's
an example of how you might want to organize your thoughts?
One minute, describe your project.
Two minutes, the objectives.
Three, two minutes, the barriers you
encounter, whatever you think.
Conclusion at the end.
And say, this is just an example, if you're interested.
And after he gave the assignment,
he came back to me later at a different conference and said,
oh it really worked out great with that student.
And he said, I was watching my watch and she was great.
But she was like, within seconds of my little outline.
And I was not surprised, given what he told me about her.
But I said well Yeah and she said Yeah a lot of other people
use it as well OK Brianna back to you
BRIANNA BLASER: But so, Sheryl, what advice would
you give, though, to support instructors with disabilities
who are teaching or faculty members with disabilities
who are teaching?
We're actually just Yeah
SHERYL BURGSTAHLER: Well I would make sure
that the technology that you're using
is accessible to yourself, certainly.
And most learning management systems
have made great strides in making
that technology accessible.
But also, look at technology that you might choose to use.
But also consider other types of disabilities
when you're actually doing the teaching as well.
Heidi, the person I mentioned who's
blind in our organization, teaches online.
And I've co-taught with him and he does
a lot of different strategies.
He is careful about the technology that he chooses.
So that first of all he can develop the resources.
But then also deliver but it's very specific to the disability
that a person with a disability might have with the faculty
member might have.
Thanks, Sheryl.
Are there any other questions?
SHERYL BURGSTAHLER: I think one thing
I'd add to that, though, is make sure in your faculty materials
for teaching we all have that you have a note on how
a faculty member can request an accommodation for teaching
a class there must be someone on campus
I have someone on my team that I would refer them to
and I sometimes do that but that I would know
would have that expertise.
And so make sure that there's a statement that
says, if you need an accommodation,
contact whatever office or whatever.
BRIANNA BLASER: There was also a discussion
in the chat about reliable data on the representation of people
with disabilities among faculty members
and I know I've seen various numbers for this
but there's a lot of issues with the data in terms
of how questions are asked but also in terms of disclosure
right so institutional data may exist but it likely only has
people who have disclosed to the institution
to request accommodations right so that is necessarily going
to undercount folks who have not disclosed for all the reasons
that we've talked about today.
There is a, like for example, the survey of earned
doctorates, asks about disability
and of course that's for folks who've
just finished their PhD not necessarily faculty members.
But if you look at the way they ask the question, about if you
have a disability, it's asking about functional limitations
that you might have.
And there's reason to believe that that's not always
the most reliable question to get at whether somebody
has a disability.
So I put a link to a paper I wrote
about that last year in the chat,
too, if folks are thinking more about that.
Darla asked if the transcript can be sent to participants.
And we do share our recordings afterwards,
after we've gotten them captioned and in an accessible
format.
And up on our website.
So we will share that with everybody that registered
and on our community of practice.
Well great.
Thank you so much, everybody, for joining us today.
We're so glad to have people come out
and engage in this conversation.
And I think every time we have one of these conversations,
we learn a lot from those questions
that folks are asking.
And that helps us better form our resources
and get back to folks.
So thanks for joining us.
So bye.
SHERYL BURGSTAHLER: Bye.