IT Accessibility: What Campus Leaders Are Saying

University presidents, CIOs, and other IT leaders discuss the importance of IT accessibility on college campuses.

(Michael K. Young) We are committed to the notion
that everyone should have an opportunity

to participate in higher education

whether it be from the learning perspective
or the research perspective

or an opportunity to work here at this institution.

We benefit from that because we get to enjoy the talents and the skills of those people who come in,

and also their perspective

which in many cases will be different
from the perspective of others on campus.

So accessibility becomes a very important
value at the university.

(Tracy Mitrano)
We're a leading university globally.

We want the best talent in the world
for our students, our staff, and our faculty.

And we want to be sure if that talent has a disability

that they know that we are a welcoming community.

(Pablo Molino) We're competing with other
prestigious and highly accomplished institutions.

We want to make sure that we can target the
right candidates to join our community

regardless of their disability status.

(Pete Siegel) We want to do everything we can to ensure that they have the same access

to smart faculty, to fellow students, and to the resources at UC Davis.

(Edward Ray) In fact, we genuinely believe that excellence is achieved through diversity

and that a commitment to equity and inclusion really enriches each of our lives.

(Linda Cahill) It would be inconceivable not to have a social conscience at least,

and be completely committed to making our resources at Barry University accessible to all students.

(Edward Ray) We believe that the use of technology
can be very powerful.

It connects people to each other, but it also enhances their learning capabilities;

it increases what they can do through their research and creative work;

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.

And we want that to be true for every member of our community,

regardless of limitations, of physical, spacial, time or other dimension.

(Hernan Londono) As an IT professional,

sometimes some of us concentrate in the technical side of the house only

and we forget that finally the technology is to serve the people.

(Michael K. Young) What the university offers and makes available has to be offered to everybody.

We can't afford to waste the talents or the brilliance or the minds of anybody

and making things accessible allows everybody to engage in the university.

Equal opportunity is a part of our value system, but it's also required by law.

(Pete Siegel) Compliance is extremely important. Compliance is the law.

But that isn't the motivator for most of us at universities.

Our motivation has always been to provide
easily accessible tools,

excellent experiences for our students,

and really to give them the sense that this is a place they want to be,

a place they want to learn, a place where
they can thrive.

(Michael K. Young) Universal design is a very
powerful concept because what it means is

we look at the issue of accessibility at the
outset rather than

buying something or engaging something or developing something that we have to retrofit

which not only makes it cheaper and more efficient

it likely makes it much better

in terms of both the quality of the product and the accessibility to those

all the people that we want to be able to use it.

(Tracy Mitrano) I think the other direction that colleges and universities could and should take

is to think about accommodation

as really the beginning of the conversation about disability.

It was the appropriate measure that was taken in the Americans with Disabilities Act

that was passed in 1990

and that's well over a generation ago.

I think now we really have to think less about how we're going to measure

specifically this accommodation or that accommodation

and recognize that we can make accessibility open and available

so that individual staff, faculty or students do not have to go to get an accommodation.

It will be automatically available

in the webpage that they visit, in the device that they use.

(Brady Deaton) We envision a campus that has a concept of universal design

in all aspects of information technology,

that a student is not impeded in any way,

but in fact, that technology is utilized not only directly by those who benefit

because of certain challenges they may have,

but also is illustrative to the broader student body and to the faculty and to alums

about what an inclusive learning environment is.

(Pete Seigel) We have some things we have to learn in order to move into accessibility space,

but the basic goals and the basic values are things we already know and love.

Then we bring in things like universal design,

the notion that if we design things well right from the start

they actually aren't more expensive.

This is something that we can fit into even our very, very tight budgets.

(Eileen McDonough) We make a great effort
in our graduate and our undergraduate counsel

to make sure that faculty and deans are aware
that in program design, in offering a new major,

that they take into account that they might have to have specialized software available

and they have to build that into their program
development.

And then to certainly just be aware of all the different ways that students can learn,

to help faculty and deans understand the concept of universal design.

(Gerry Hanley) The first step really needs to be an assessment of where we are

so we can then inform our planning process, develop plans, implement a project,

and then really assess the results of it.

(Pablo Molino) Key to our approach to making
sure that our campus and our technology is

accessible to people with disabilities, is
to ensure we do this by design.

This is not an afterthought that we do after we have implemented a new classroom.

Instead, this is something that we do from the initial conception of a new project or idea.

The same way we do this for privacy and security, we do this for accessibility.

(Bruce Maas) It is less costly, in the long run

to be thinking through the issues of accessibility comprehensively.

Therefore, having a plan for accessibility ensures that from the beginning

we think through our issues with regard to the delivery of our services.

Doing so in a strategic way means that we
can hold down costs over the long haul and

actually deliver better services in the bargain.

(Brady Deaton) It is very important that a university follows a policy and a process

that is a can-do kind of process.

It assumes that we are going to undertake the investments that we need,

we're going to demonstrate the value that we need,

that not only address the needs of students

who may be challenged with vision or hearing or other disabilities

but also draw on the technology

that is not only exciting for those people who are developing the technology,

it's intellectually exciting, it provides new jobs for that matter,

and it stimulates learning in so many parts of the university.

So that attitude of the university administration, as well as faculty and staff and students,

becomes very very important because everyone gains from this.

It's a win-win situation.

(Tracy Mitrano) A policy really is an important way to go

because it will focus everyone's attention.

It's also probably the way that you have to go

now that there are legal pressures on higher education in this area.

The second thing I would say about policy is there are
really two types in general.

One is a policy that you have because you have a law,

for example the Family Education Rights Privacy Act Policy,

so you want to be clear and sure that you're going to have compliance on your campus.

There's another kind of policy that I would call aspirational policy

and maybe accessibility fits a little bit in both

but you most certainly can err on the aspirational side.

An aspirational policy is something you establish for your institution

as a path moving towards something, moving forward.

It does not have to have one hundred percent compliance

because it's really a direction that you're setting strategically for your institution.

(Gerry Hanley) I'd say another critical aspect around our strategy is a shared governance strategy.

Because education is a shared responsibility across faculty, staff, students, venders,

all of us working together have to share in that responsibility.

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 manage the implementation of these services.

(Brady Deaton) The administrators of the university

must reflect the values that demonstrate the importance of this to the learning environment

and it has to be built in then to every aspect of what we do.

(Michael K. Young) Right now we have a number
of projects and initiatives underway at the UW

in which we're testing new technologies.

Accessibility is an important consideration in these evaluations.

Many of the vendors we work with

have completed Voluntary Product Accessibility Templates or VPATs,

which offer a checklist of accessibility criteria

and vendors' self-assessment as to how well they meet those criteria.

It's a good starting point, but we go beyond that
to ask a vendor specific questions

and to test their products with respect to accessibility.

(Gerry Hanley) We begin with our vendors saying (a) this is not only important,

that this is required for working with the CSU.

Every student who comes into our institution

we have to provide equally effective access to those services

and you are a partner in delivering those services to us.

So we will tell you what we need

and then we will help you inform your staff, educate your staff,

provide them some consultation and guidance in partnership with us,

so you can deliver the successful service for us.

(Pat Burns) So we work with our vendors to try to put pressure on them to make things accessible.

We actually have a purchasing process where we work through and ask the issues about accessibility

for software and hardware that we buy as well.

(Bruce Maas) Individual efforts really need to be able to scale well.

If we go about things in an ad hoc approach, one by one, we're not likely to get the same results

as if we work together as a community in higher education,

to work with vendors to improve accessibility
for everyone

with regard to the products that are offered.

That's a much more pragmatic approach rather than institution by institution.

(Gerry Hanley) Making accessibility a priority
in their development roadmap

is going to be driven by the market demand.

And if an institution never says a word, the vendor isn't going to do anything about it.

So if we begin to communicate our demands collectively,

then the vendor will recognize the market value of accessibility.

(Joel Hartman) As we acquire IT resources, we have to embed accessibility in our contracts.

As we develop resources, we have to employ
universal design in our thinking about how

to make these resources available and we have
to continue to monitor students to see if

we're really delivering to them the resources
in a form that they can actually use.

(Michael K. Young) Accessibility requires effort
on the part of everyone in the higher education community...

faculty, staff, technology vendors.

If we all do our part, our institutions can provide everyone

with an equal opportunity to participate. And we all benefit from the perspectives of a diverse group.

(Hernan Londono) Having that peace of mind that we are doing all we can to provide an accessible campus is...

gives us a lot of pride and we feel very happy about what, what we do.

(Linda Cahill) Why wouldn't we make our campus
accessible to students with disabilities and

why wouldn't we do everything we could to
see the technology is accessible to our students?

(Tracy Mitrano) The spirit of what has made
higher education the jewel in the crown of American society

is part and parcel of the message of accessibility.

(Edward Ray) Every way in which we touch the lives
of others, whether it's in the classroom,

the laboratory, through live performances,
through events on campus,

we want everyone who comes here and creates those experiences to be as fully engaged

and as fully benefited by the activity as possible.

And that simply can't be done if people have artificial challenges or barriers to try to overcome.

I would say to those out there who are just getting started

or maybe struggling to figure out how to use technology

to advance accessibility on their campuses

that there's no such thing as a bad time to start.