Category: Provost Messages

Provost Serio recently sent this message to all UW faculty and instructors and a companion message to all UW staff.

Dear Colleagues,
I am writing to share information about the University of Washington’s efforts to respond to the standard for digital accessibility — in our course content, websites, programs, services and activities.

On April 24, 2024, the Department of Justice published a rule on digital accessibility under Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). This rule requires the University’s digital content to be accessible starting on April 24, 2026. Of note for instructors, this applies to course content such as videos, images, slide decks, documents, audio files, e-textbooks, course webpages and online tools.

Meeting this standard is not only a legal expectation but also an action consistent with our mission and values. Students with disabilities leave college at much higher rates than their peers. We all have an important role to play in meeting their accessibility needs by removing barriers at all levels. Together, we can ensure that the UW is a welcoming place to work and study — one where people with disabilities can thrive and make meaningful contributions unhindered.

This is, admittedly, a major effort, and you are not in this alone. It will take the combined effort of individual faculty, academic units, central groups that support accessibility and instruction, UW-IT, and others. New resources will be available in the coming months.

ADA Digital Accessibility Initiative will support the transition

To support this work, I have established an ADA Digital Accessibility Initiative whose action teams, composed of staff and faculty, are working now to develop recommendations for new resources, training, policies and tools — work that will be shared broadly as it evolves on the Digital Accessibility website. Faculty are deeply involved in the course content and innovation and research teams, in particular.

This initiative will help the UW:

1. Chart the course toward substantial compliance with the revised standards by April 2026.
2. Implement sustainable processes and tools to manage digital accessibility effectively.
3. Provide training, tools and resources to faculty, staff and students.

Over the next several months, you may be invited to participate in information gathering efforts to inform the recommendations developed by the action teams. If you are interested in contributing, please send a message to digitalaccess@uw.edu.

What you can do now to prepare

While the action teams are in the process of developing tools, support and resources that will be put toward this new rule, there are initial steps we encourage you and your department to take as you prepare to teach upcoming courses:

1. Delete or archive digital course content that you no longer use in that course (e.g., old versions of assignments, readings that are no longer required, duplicates). Tidying up your digital course materials now helps to clarify what needs attention.
2. View the Ally Course Accessibility Report in Canvas to identify the most common type of accessibility flags in your courses where you can have an immediate impact. If you don’t use Canvas, now is a great time to start. At a minimum, please use the accessibility tools in your current platform (e.g., Microsoft Office).
3. Watch for updates about this initiative and take advantage of opportunities to learn more about digital accessibility best practices.

Creating a campus culture of digital accessibility is an opportunity for us to more fully live our values and support the access needs of students with disabilities.

I am deeply grateful for your support and dedication as we undertake this important work. We welcome feedback about this initiative and encourage you to reach out to digitalaccess@uw.edu if you have concerns or ideas.

Thank you for your partnership in this vital initiative. With steady progress, working together, we’ll get there.

Sincerely,

Tricia R. Serio
Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs
Professor, Biochemistry

Provost Serio recently sent this message to all UW staff and a companion message to all UW faculty and instructors.

Dear Colleagues,

I am writing to share information about the University of Washington’s efforts to respond to the standard for digital accessibility — in our course content, websites, programs, services and activities.

On April 24, 2024, the Department of Justice published a rule on digital accessibility under Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). This rule requires the University’s digital content to be accessible starting on April 24, 2026. It encompasses public-facing digital platforms such as the UW website and mobile apps, in addition to content shared with colleagues and students on UW digital platforms, including academic course content.

Meeting this standard is not only a legal expectation but also an action consistent with our mission and values. Students with disabilities leave college at much higher rates than their peers. We all have an important role to play in meeting their accessibility needs by removing barriers at all levels. Together, we can ensure that the UW is a welcoming place to work and study — one where people with disabilities can thrive and make meaningful contributions unhindered.

This is, admittedly, a major effort, and you are not in this alone. It will take the combined effort of individual staff members and administrative unit leaders, central groups that support accessibility, UW-IT, faculty and academic units, and others.

ADA Digital Accessibility Initiative will support the transition

I have established an ADA Digital Accessibility Initiative whose action teams are developing recommendations for new resources, training, policies and tools. Information on the initiative and related work is available on the Digital Accessibility page and will be updated regularly. This initiative will help the UW:

1. Chart the course toward substantial compliance with the revised standards by April 2026.
2. Implement sustainable processes and tools to manage digital accessibility effectively.
3. Provide training, tools and resources to faculty, staff and students.

What you can do now to prepare

While the action teams are in the process of developing tools, support and resources that will be put toward this new rule, there are initial steps we encourage you and your unit to take as you prepare. More information on the following steps can be found on this What You Can Do Now page:

1. Learn what your unit is already doing to address digital accessibility. Many units have a coordinator for this work and have developed unit-specific approaches.
2. Build your understanding of digital accessibility through new training opportunities, as well as in-depth information about specific topics such as documents, social media and websites.
3. Review and inventory digital content for which you are responsible — this may include webpages, documents, videos, social media, training content and more. This will help you know what kind of resources, support and training to seek to help you improve the accessibility of your content.
4. Delete or archive digital content that is no longer accurate, up-to-date or relevant. A webpage without extra pages and files is easier to make accessible.

Over the next several months, you may also be asked to participate in training sessions, contribute to accessibility reviews or adopt new tools and practices designed to ensure compliance. I urge each of you to embrace this effort as a reflection of our shared values and commitment to creating a campus culture of accessibility that meets the needs of members of our community with disabilities.

I encourage you to reach out to digitalaccess@uw.edu if you have suggestions about this initiative, and I am deeply grateful for your support and dedication as we undertake this important work. With steady progress, working together, we’ll get there.

Sincerely,

Tricia R. Serio
Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs
Professor, Biochemistry

As a small child, I often spent time with my grandmother and our family friend Genevieve, listening to them talk about all manner of things while they crocheted and knit, respectively. At the time, I wasn’t particularly interested in the conversation, but I was fascinated with the intricacies of what they were doing with the yarn, pulling it around hooks and long slender needles at a quick pace and creating something beautiful and functional before my eyes. 

I interrupted repeatedly to beg them to teach me their respective crafts. They finally acquiesced when I was about six, and the talents that they shared are gifts I still carry with me. I have been crocheting and knitting (although I tend to favor the latter) ever since; my most recent project was a pair of Norwegian mittens – knit in purple and gold, of course.

It wasn’t until later in my life, long after they both had passed away, that it occurred to me that they always stuck to their own craft and never taught one another. I’ll never know why that was the case, but I suspect that working yarn alongside one another was more about other things than about their technique. It certainly has become that for me.

The joy of knitting

On one level (and with the benefit of decades of practice), I find the repetitive motions of knitting to be so soothing that I often knit just before going to sleep to clear my mind and ready myself for the next day. But most of the joy that I experience from knitting is through the different forms of connection that it creates.

One form of connection is gifting the things I make to important people in my life as a symbol of my affection for them. A hat for a friend going through treatment for cancer. A blanket for my niece who is welcoming a new baby. A poncho for a favorite cousin. A scarf for my oldest and dearest friend for her birthday. A sweater for my husband. Sock monkeys for our sons.  

To knit is to teach

A second form of connection is sharing something that I enjoy by teaching it to others. I taught each of my sons to knit when they were about five; and during the pandemic, we all taught my husband, who produced a very fine hat that he proudly wears to this day. I am currently in the process of teaching a friend, who, much to my delight, has quickly mastered stitching as he works on a scarf. 

Knitting in community

A third form of connection is immediate awareness of a shared interest. I’ve been approached in airports by strangers who notice that I’ve knit something that I’m wearing. And I have done the same, including on our campuses – during a visit to the iSchool, in the midst of a tour of the new residence halls on the Bothell campus, while attending the UW Facilities all hands BBQ, and during a recent meeting in my office with a faculty member from the College of Arts & Sciences.  

But my greatest joy in knitting comes from the context in which I was first introduced to this craft. To knit with others, whether you’ve just met or have known them a lifetime, is to be in community.

Fortunately, knitters are everywhere – even on the UW’s Faculty Field Tour, a yearly bus trip to introduce new faculty to our state. In addition to seeing the UW’s impact first-hand across the state, the Faculty Field Tour is a chance for UW leaders and new faculty to get to know each other and to make the connections across disciplines that can spark collaboration and creativity. 

Knitting in science

At the introductory meeting for last year’s trip, I immediately noticed from across the room that one of my fellow travelers – Gilbert Bernstein, a faculty member in the Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering – was knitting! As we knit and talked together on the bus throughout the tour, I learned about Gilbert’s work in computer graphics and programming languages, and how he is applying his disciplinary expertise to, among other things, the programming of knitting machines. Gilbert had taught himself to knit during the pandemic, and throughout our conversation, I saw knitting in a whole new light – as an interesting programming problem.  

Later that summer, I toured the Programming Languages and Software Engineering Lab and learned more about his work – along with fellow knitters Mia Tuan, dean of the College of Education, and Nicole Bell and Rachel Northquist on my team. Our conversation explored the similarities and differences between how textiles are created by hand and by machine and the computational approaches used to circumvent the constraints introduced by the topology of the yarn and the structure of the machine in mass production. A highlight of the lab tour was the opportunity to join a fiber arts circle and to be in conversation for an hour or so with faculty and students in the Allen School (read: I’d love to visit your knitting circle – please invite me!)

Connecting through shared interests and curiosity

While I have been writing about knitting in this blog post, I hope that you will see it as just one example of an unexpected way to tap into the infinite opportunities at our university. We tend to be aware of the interesting things that are happening closest to us; but in reality, they exist all across the University. Afterall, we are a community that derives inspiration from curiosity and shares a drive to learn more about the world around us. Connecting with one another around shared interests outside of our primary roles can enrich our experiences as members of this community in ways that we would have never predicted.  

I encourage you to explore new ways to connect with one another this year by joining an interest or affinity group or attending an event on the Seattle, Bothell or Tacoma campuses, and striking up a conversation with someone new. And if you are unsure of where to start, just pull out some needles and yarn, and we knitters will find you.