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We are committed to the notion that everyone should have an opportunity to participate in higher education,
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whether it be from the learning perspective, or the research perspective, or an opportunity to work here
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at this institution. We benefit from that
because we get to enjoy the talents and the
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skills of those people who come in, and also
their perspective, which in many cases will
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be different from the perspective of others
on campus.
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So accessibility becomes a very important value at the university.
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We're a leading university globally.
We want the best talent in the world
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for our students, our staff, and our faculty.
And we want to be sure if that talent has
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a disability that they know that we are a
welcoming community.
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We're competing with other prestigious and highly accomplished institutions.
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We want to make sure that we can target the right candidates to join our community
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regardless of their disability status.
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We want to do everything we can to insure that they have the same access to smart faculty, to fellow students, and
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to the resources at UC Davis.
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In fact, we genuinely believe that excellence is achieved through diversity and that a commitment to equity and inclusion
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really enriches each of our lives.
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It would be inconceivable not to have a social conscience, at least, and be completely committed to
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making our resources at Barry University accessible to all students.
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We believe that the use of technology can be very powerful.
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It connects people to each other, but it also enhances their learning capabilities;
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it increases what they can do through their research and creative work;
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it really makes it possible for them to have a more powerful impact in the world and that's basically what we're all about.
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And we want that to be true for every member of our community
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regardless of limitations of physical, spacial, time or other dimension.
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As an IT professional, sometimes some of us concentrate in the technical side of the house only
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and we forget that finally the technology is to serve the people.
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What the university offers and makes available has to be offered to everybody.
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We can’t afford to waste the talents or the brilliance or the minds of anybody
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and making things accessible allows everybody to engage in the university.
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Equal opportunity is a part of our value system, but it’s also required by law.
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Compliance is extremely important. And compliance is the law. But that isn't the motivator for most of us at universities.
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Our motivation has always been to provide
easily accessible tools, excellent experiences
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for our students and really to give them the
sense that this is a place they want to be,
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a place they want to learn, a place where
they can thrive.
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Universal design is a very powerful concept because what it means is
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we look at the issue of accessibility at the
outset rather than buying something or engaging
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something, or developing something that we
have to retrofit. Which not only makes it
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cheaper and more efficient, it likely makes
it much better in terms of both the quality
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of the product and the accessibility to those – all the people that we want to be able to use it.
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I think the other direction that colleges and universities could and should take
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is to think about accommodation as really the beginning of the conversation about disability.
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It was the appropriate measure that was taken in the Americans with Disabilities Act that was passed in 1990
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and that's well over a generation ago.
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I think now we really have to think less about how we're going to measure specifically this accommodation or that accommodation
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and recognize that we can make accessibility open and available so that individual staff, faculty or students
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do not have to go to get an accommodation.
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It will be automatically available in the webpage that they visit, in the device that they use.
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We envision a campus that has a concept of universal design in all aspects of information technology,
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that a student is not impeded in any way, but in fact, that technology is utilized not only directly by
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those who benefit because of certain challenges
they may have, but also is illustrative to
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the broader student body and to the faculty
and to alums
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about what an inclusive learning environment is.
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We have some things we have to learn in order to move into accessibility space,
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but the basic goals and the basic values are things we already know and love.
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Then we bring in things like universal design: the notion that if we design things well right from the start,
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they actually aren't more expensive.
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This is something that we can fit into even our very, very tight budgets.
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We make a great effort in our graduate and our undergraduate counsel
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to make sure that faculty and deans are aware
that in program design, in offering a new major,
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that they take into account that they might have to have specialized software available,
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and they have to build that into their program
development. And then to certainly just be aware
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of all the different ways that students can learn, to help faculty and deans understand
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the concept of universal design.
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The first step really needs to be an assessment of where we are, so we can then inform our planning process,
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develop plans, implement a project, and then really
assess the results of it.
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Key to our approach to making sure that our campus and our technology is
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accessible to people with disabilities, is
to ensure we do this by design.
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This is not an afterthought that we do after we have implemented a new classroom.
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Instead, this is something that we do from the initial conception of new project or idea.
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The same we would do this for privacy and security, we do this for accessibility.
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It is less costly, in the long run, to be thinking through the issues of accessibility comprehensively.
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Therefore, having a plan for accessibility insures that
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from the beginning we think through our issues
with regard to the delivery of our services.
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Doing so in a strategic way means that we
can hold down costs over the long haul and
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actually deliver better services in the bargain.
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It is very important that a university follows a policy and a process that is a can-do kind of process.
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It assumes that we are going to undertake the investments that we need,
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we're going to demonstrate the values that we need - that not only address the needs of students who may be challenged
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with vision or hearing or other disabilities,
but also draw on the technology that is not
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only exciting for those people who are developing
the technology, it's intellectually exciting,
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it provides new jobs for that matter and it stimulates learning in so many parts of the
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university. So that attitude of the university administration, as well as faculty and staff and students,
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becomes very, very important because everyone gains from this. It's a win-win situation.
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A policy really is an important way to go, because it will focus everyone’s attention.
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It's also probably the way that you have to go now that there are legal pressures on higher education in this area.
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The second thing I would say about policy is there are
really two types in general.
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One is a policy that you have because you have a law,
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for example, the Family Education Rights Privacy Act Policy,
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so you want to be clear and sure that you're going to have compliance on your campus.
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There's another kind of policy that I would call aspirational policy and maybe accessibility fits a little bit in both
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but you most certainly can err on the aspirational side.
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An aspirational policy is something you establish for your institution as a path moving towards something, moving forward.
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It does not have to have one hundred percent compliance because it's really a direction that you're setting strategically for your institution.
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I’d say another critical aspect around our strategy is a shared governance strategy.
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Because education is a shared responsibility across faculty, staff, students, vendors,
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all of us working together have to share in that responsibility.
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Now, a shared governance process means if you are responsible in delivering the service, then you have an opportunity to share in governing how we’re going to
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manage the implementation of these services.
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The administrators of the university must reflect the values that demonstrate the importance of this to the learning environment
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and it has to be built in then to every aspect
of what we do.
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Right now we have a number of projects and initiatives underway at the UW
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in which we're testing new technologies.
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Accessibility is an important consideration in these evaluations.
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Many of the vendors we work with have completed Voluntary Product Accessibility Templates or VPATs,
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which offer a checklist of accessibility criteria and vendors' self-assessment as to how well they meet those criteria.
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It's a good starting point, but we go beyond that
to ask a vendor specific questions
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and to test their products with respect to accessibility.
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We begin with our vendors saying (a) this is not only important, that this is required for working with the CSU.
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Every student who comes into our institution, we
have to provide equally effective access to
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those services and you are a partner in delivering
those services to us.
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So we will tell you what we need and then we will help you inform your staff, educate your staff, provide them
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some consultation and guidance in partnership
with us,
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so you can deliver the successful service for us.
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So we work with our vendors to try to put pressure on them to make things accessible.
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We actually have a purchasing process where we work through and ask the issues about accessibility
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for software and hardware that we buy as well.
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Individual efforts really need to be able to scale well.
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If we go about things in an ad hoc approach, one by one, we're not likely to get the same results
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as if we work together as a community in higher education,
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to work with vendors to improve accessibility
for everyone
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with regard to the products that are offered.
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That's a much more pragmatic approach rather than institution by institution.
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Making accessibility a priority in their development roadmap is going to be driven by the market demand.
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And if an institution never says a word, the vendor isn’t going to do anything about it.
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So if we begin to communicate our demands collectively,
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then the vendor will recognize the market value
of accessibility.
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As we acquire IT resources, we have to embed accessibility in our contracts.
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As we develop resources, we have to employ universal design in our thinking about how
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to make these resources available and we have
to continue to monitor students to see if
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we're really delivering to them the resources
in a form that they can actually use.
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Accessibility requires effort on the part of everyone in the higher education community -
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faculty, staff, technology vendors. If we all do our part, our institutions can provide everyone with
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an equal opportunity to participate. And we all benefit from the perspectives of a diverse group.
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Having that peace of mind that we are doing all we can to provide an accessible campus is -- gives us a lot of pride
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and we feel very happy about what, what we do.
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Why wouldn't we make our campus accessible to students with disabilities and
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why wouldn't we do everything we could to
see the technology is accessible to our students?
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The spirit of what has made higher education the jewel in the crown of American society
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is part and parcel of the message of accessibility.
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Every way in which we touch the lives of others, whether it's in the classroom, the laboratory,
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through live performances, through events on campus,
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we want everyone who comes here and creates those experiences to be as fully engaged
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and as fully benefited by the activity as possible.
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And that simply can't be done if people have artificial challenges or barriers to try to overcome.
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I would say to those out there who are just getting started or maybe struggling
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to figure out how to use technology to advance
accessibility on their campuses that
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there's no such thing as a bad time to start.
