1 00:00:00,990 --> 00:00:11,220 Welcome to ASC Live. This is episode four, ASC Live is brought to you by WSU Tech, Concourse Syllabus, Waypoint Ventures, 2 00:00:11,220 --> 00:00:20,460 Innovative Educators, Open LMS, Blackboard, AccessibleLearning.com, Simple Syllabus, D2L, PackBack. 3 00:00:20,460 --> 00:00:25,590 Special Thanks goes out to Mid-America Nazarene University and Stream Yard. 4 00:00:25,590 --> 00:00:30,840 The accessibility summer camp as a virtual conference on the 17th of June 2022. 5 00:00:30,840 --> 00:00:37,170 You can register for this no cost event at accessibilityict.org. 6 00:00:37,170 --> 00:00:44,490 We also have added to pre-conference sessions on the 16th of June, so be sure to get in there and sign up for those. 7 00:00:44,490 --> 00:00:49,080 Captioning is provided by auto captions within Zoom to view the captions, 8 00:00:49,080 --> 00:00:59,310 please captions located on the toolbar by clicking on the "Live transcript" icon and selecting show subtitle or View full transcript. 9 00:00:59,310 --> 00:01:04,350 You have the option to customize how you view those subtitles. 10 00:01:04,350 --> 00:01:12,540 We know that auto captions and Zoom will not be 100 percent when ASC Live concludes, we will make a recording available with corrected captioning. 11 00:01:12,540 --> 00:01:19,740 Within a week of this broadcast, you will be able to find that recording on the ASC Live Menu tab at accessibilityict.org. 12 00:01:19,740 --> 00:01:24,390 We're excited about our panel of guests today. 13 00:01:24,390 --> 00:01:28,290 John Jones, Isabel Medina Kaiser. 14 00:01:28,290 --> 00:01:34,020 I had to make sure I said that correctly because she was telling me other ways not to say that, so I'm glad I got that correct. 15 00:01:34,020 --> 00:01:39,120 And Crissy Magee from Wichita State University. Welcome all of you. 16 00:01:39,120 --> 00:01:43,830 Our goal today is to really explore the accessibility at the university level. 17 00:01:43,830 --> 00:01:51,090 The format today will be about 40 minutes of panel discussion. Then the panel has agreed to field questions from the audience. 18 00:01:51,090 --> 00:01:52,950 Please hold your questions until the end, 19 00:01:52,950 --> 00:02:01,440 but feel free to put those questions in the chat and we will get to those in order as we start the questioning session. 20 00:02:01,440 --> 00:02:08,370 So let's start with the panelists. John, tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do for a Wichita State. 21 00:02:08,370 --> 00:02:13,260 I I'm the executive director of the Media Resources Center, 22 00:02:13,260 --> 00:02:23,040 which is a unit that has several teams that handle the interaction between technology and instruction and a handful of different ways. 23 00:02:23,040 --> 00:02:30,750 So we have the team that supports Blackboard and putting content online, a team that puts technology in the classrooms, 24 00:02:30,750 --> 00:02:40,300 a web team, a video team, and I have a team that does braille and tactile graphics for our students with visual impairments. 25 00:02:40,300 --> 00:02:45,030 Oh, perfect. Thank you. Isabel, tell us a little about you and what you do for the university. 26 00:02:45,030 --> 00:02:49,920 Well, let's see. This is my third year at which State University. 27 00:02:49,920 --> 00:03:00,240 I am the director of disability services and what we do is provide accommodations for our students could be accommodations as far as academics, 28 00:03:00,240 --> 00:03:06,420 it could be housing. It could be making sure that the classrooms are accessible, those kinds of things. 29 00:03:06,420 --> 00:03:10,530 Oh, great. And Crissy, you're fairly new to the WSU team. 30 00:03:10,530 --> 00:03:15,270 Tell us a little about a little bit about you and what your role is there at WSU. 31 00:03:15,270 --> 00:03:22,830 I began my role here in January of this year, so I'm still getting used to higher education. 32 00:03:22,830 --> 00:03:35,340 But I'm the ADA 504 coordinator and I'm responsible mostly for the overarching accessibility throughout campus and our other sites. 33 00:03:35,340 --> 00:03:41,400 And also, I take complaints from everyone students, faculty, 34 00:03:41,400 --> 00:03:49,320 public for people that think they've been discriminated against due to their protected class of disability. 35 00:03:49,320 --> 00:03:55,260 OK. Almost sounds like the Lost Luggage counter at the airport the way you describe that. 36 00:03:55,260 --> 00:04:00,030 But thank you. Welcome all three of you. We sure appreciate you have you on the broadcast today. 37 00:04:00,030 --> 00:04:03,390 Anything we can do to help folks with accessibility, that's what we're going to do. 38 00:04:03,390 --> 00:04:08,610 So let me let me open up the first question to any of you that want to answer. 39 00:04:08,610 --> 00:04:15,720 Who's responsible for accessibility in an institution? And anybody can grab that and who wants that one? 40 00:04:15,720 --> 00:04:22,020 I would say everyone, everyone's responsible. When you when you say everyone, expand on that just a little. 41 00:04:22,020 --> 00:04:30,420 OK. And across the entire campus, I think everyone including faculty, staff, 42 00:04:30,420 --> 00:04:41,280 administration, academics, architecture, people that see problems reporting problems, 43 00:04:41,280 --> 00:04:52,020 including all the way up to the university, president and provost, that they support our endeavor to work towards an all inclusive campus. 44 00:04:52,020 --> 00:05:00,060 And you say students are included in that as well? Yes. You report to us when you see something that needs changed or when. 45 00:05:00,060 --> 00:05:03,960 And we're going to talk a little bit about student responsibilities a little bit later, but thank you for that. 46 00:05:03,960 --> 00:05:06,440 Anybody else want to tackle that question or is that right? 47 00:05:06,440 --> 00:05:14,850 But just like to add, that includes the janitor who's making certain that the garbage cans are in front of the activator of the door. 48 00:05:14,850 --> 00:05:19,050 It's the person that sets up the parking lot, you know, and the ADA parking. 49 00:05:19,050 --> 00:05:24,360 It's the student that notices that an activator on a door is not working, 50 00:05:24,360 --> 00:05:34,860 and we have a very good student government connection and they're very interested in what's happening as far as the accessibility on our campus. 51 00:05:34,860 --> 00:05:38,460 And it's the professor that receives the accommodation letter. 52 00:05:38,460 --> 00:05:45,270 It's the new ADA coordinator. It's everybody. 53 00:05:45,270 --> 00:05:47,640 OK, sounds like we've covered all of it. 54 00:05:47,640 --> 00:05:57,360 There's a real mindset mindset shift that we have to make when we start thinking about accessibility, because for years in higher ed, 55 00:05:57,360 --> 00:06:03,900 we've gotten used to the idea that the Disability Services Office will handle people with disabilities. 56 00:06:03,900 --> 00:06:12,570 For us, the idea that we're going to do something proactive and be ready ahead of time for people who have disabilities, 57 00:06:12,570 --> 00:06:18,360 ships that and requires that we all pay attention to it and we all own our piece of it. 58 00:06:18,360 --> 00:06:26,040 But that's the only reasonable way to handle it. It's way too big a job for one office or a handful of offices to handle. 59 00:06:26,040 --> 00:06:30,630 It has to be an institution wide effort. That really kind of segues in the first question. 60 00:06:30,630 --> 00:06:36,720 The directed for you, John, describe the commitment level that an institution needs to embrace for accessibility. 61 00:06:36,720 --> 00:06:41,340 You kind of got a little bit about that. Is is it much broader than that or is there much more to that? 62 00:06:41,340 --> 00:06:50,610 Or is that pretty much cover? It starts with good policies and good standards, 63 00:06:50,610 --> 00:06:57,690 but it needs to be something that the department's own for their subject matter areas that the instructors own in their classes, 64 00:06:57,690 --> 00:07:04,800 that offices of all stripes across campus and for the content they produce and the way they interact with the public. 65 00:07:04,800 --> 00:07:14,160 Everything that we do has a piece and really to have that kind of investment and that kind of engagement on something like accessibility. 66 00:07:14,160 --> 00:07:27,250 You have to have top level support from the upper administration to value those challenges and make it an important priority for the institution. 67 00:07:27,250 --> 00:07:34,680 It doesn't have to be the most important thing. But access needs to be an important piece of what the institution is trying to do. 68 00:07:34,680 --> 00:07:40,620 So it really needs to be part of the culture. Absolutely do things as opposed to in addition to what we do, 69 00:07:40,620 --> 00:07:46,950 it's really needs to be the culture. And it needs to be something that we don't think we can do once and be done. Right. 70 00:07:46,950 --> 00:07:55,710 But it is, and we're never going to get it right. We always have to keep improving, but it's just hard work. 71 00:07:55,710 --> 00:07:58,980 Sure. So just like education, that's something that needs to evolve, 72 00:07:58,980 --> 00:08:04,290 right as we move forward because as technology changes, I know we run into that problem all the time. 73 00:08:04,290 --> 00:08:09,510 You get new technology, well, how do we make that accessible and have they even thought about that when they designed it? 74 00:08:09,510 --> 00:08:16,670 And nine times out of 10, we find out that they don't do that, so that can be a little frustrating. 75 00:08:16,670 --> 00:08:20,950 Oh, good. Thank you, Isabel, the next one's for you. 76 00:08:20,950 --> 00:08:25,110 How and what do you communicate about accessibility for faculty and staff? 77 00:08:25,110 --> 00:08:32,310 Well, first and foremost, knowing that we don't give accommodations for faculty and staff, that's an H.R. thing. 78 00:08:32,310 --> 00:08:38,610 So making sure that, you know, there's a group that's going to be helping faculty and staff in that sense. 79 00:08:38,610 --> 00:08:47,280 But it's kind of a universal thing. All the things that we're working on is going to actually help anybody, whether it's a faculty, staff or student. 80 00:08:47,280 --> 00:08:52,980 One of the things that John and Chrissy and I and Vanessa from TRIO DSS does 81 00:08:52,980 --> 00:09:00,690 does is we do an about ability Ally training to offer to our faculty and staff. 82 00:09:00,690 --> 00:09:09,600 And I think with all of us being on there, you're getting a really well-rounded idea of what accessibility is. 83 00:09:09,600 --> 00:09:18,150 We also do tons of different trainings for everything from the engineering department, the Office of Adult Learning. 84 00:09:18,150 --> 00:09:29,490 I'm really emphasizing accommodations in the areas of practicums, clinicals, especially for our students, but that are in the health science field. 85 00:09:29,490 --> 00:09:37,260 That's an area that sometimes gets not looked at and thinking, Oh, we need to have accommodations in these internships. 86 00:09:37,260 --> 00:10:27,690 And it's a good way to have that student understand you're going to get a comedy about what's. 87 00:10:27,690 --> 00:10:33,330 Going on, gosh, just every program and including invasion, 88 00:10:33,330 --> 00:10:39,450 which is a program that works with people that are blind and just trying to make sure 89 00:10:39,450 --> 00:10:44,730 that we're connecting with the community along with the community within the university. 90 00:10:44,730 --> 00:10:50,140 So how many times have you heard as you get the information out there about accessibility? 91 00:10:50,140 --> 00:10:55,140 Well, that doesn't apply to my program. And have you heard that all your times? 92 00:10:55,140 --> 00:10:59,460 Oh, yeah, yeah. Well, the auto mechanics, oh, they can't work on a car. You don't. 93 00:10:59,460 --> 00:11:04,380 That's not an electric engine. No. Sometimes they can. Yeah, or they can't be a doctor. 94 00:11:04,380 --> 00:11:14,250 We still have to provide accessible learning. And the idea is to make sure, you know, we need more people in the health field anyway. 95 00:11:14,250 --> 00:11:17,790 And what better than a person who's either been through it? 96 00:11:17,790 --> 00:11:25,560 Oh, sure. You know, to communicate to another person that's going through, you know, so they know, you know, what's going on and. 97 00:11:25,560 --> 00:11:30,210 And again, the accommodations, you know, it's not expensive most of the time. 98 00:11:30,210 --> 00:11:33,420 It's just taking the time to talk to that person, 99 00:11:33,420 --> 00:11:40,740 figuring out what is the best ways to communicate and get information to that student and just supporting them. 100 00:11:40,740 --> 00:11:44,580 It doesn't mean you know, you carry them. It just means you care. 101 00:11:44,580 --> 00:11:51,300 Absolutely. So let's add on to, you know, we talked about how you communicate with faculty and staff. 102 00:11:51,300 --> 00:11:56,340 So how are you communicating accessibility to the student to student body? 103 00:11:56,340 --> 00:12:02,370 Well, one of the things I'm very happy about and Christie's part of this also is that we're connecting with 104 00:12:02,370 --> 00:12:08,070 the student government and those are the students that are controlling the colleges and universities. 105 00:12:08,070 --> 00:12:15,000 If you really want to look at it, is there the client and letting them know what is what is accessible? 106 00:12:15,000 --> 00:12:19,560 I've taken some of our students from student government around our buildings 107 00:12:19,560 --> 00:12:24,450 to kind of talk about accessibility so that they understand and understand, 108 00:12:24,450 --> 00:12:31,440 you know what that means so that they can be the persons that look at things and say, Oh, wait a minute, that that doesn't look right. 109 00:12:31,440 --> 00:12:34,020 And it helps them in their future, 110 00:12:34,020 --> 00:12:44,820 where even doing an internship now for our interpreters so that they get some applied learning in the world of disability. 111 00:12:44,820 --> 00:12:53,220 And that's been kind of fun, you know, trying to grow our own because really, we need more people that can do the interpreting. 112 00:12:53,220 --> 00:12:59,940 And it's not a field that you know a lot of people go into, but it is definitely needed. 113 00:12:59,940 --> 00:13:08,910 Again, as I said before, you know, just making sure that we're connecting with the students, we show up to every orientation you could ever think of. 114 00:13:08,910 --> 00:13:15,420 We go on the bus and do the ones all to Oklahoma City and Tulsa, you name it. 115 00:13:15,420 --> 00:13:21,740 I get to meet the staff that way. You kind of get to know each other when you're on the bus for three hours or so. 116 00:13:21,740 --> 00:13:23,350 So that's another way to do it. 117 00:13:23,350 --> 00:13:32,820 Yep, we're doing deaf the world and silent dinners so that we can get our community and our students to understand what it's like, 118 00:13:32,820 --> 00:13:41,880 you know, to be in that other shoes. Absolutely. And then just monthly awareness table events where I can connect with the students. 119 00:13:41,880 --> 00:13:48,030 I do that personally because I don't get to see my students as much since I'm more administration. 120 00:13:48,030 --> 00:13:51,600 But I want to keep the pulse on my students and seeing what's going on. 121 00:13:51,600 --> 00:13:55,650 So I do a lot of those awareness tables. That's great. Yes. 122 00:13:55,650 --> 00:13:59,610 Can I chime in on that because there are some pieces that we do on the instructional side? 123 00:13:59,610 --> 00:14:07,500 Sure. So I have the team with the Office of Instructional Resources works with faculty on how they teach and stuff like that. 124 00:14:07,500 --> 00:14:15,750 We've done a couple of things to try and help for students and a lot of different classes, a lot of different types of classes. 125 00:14:15,750 --> 00:14:19,410 Students are creating content that is used in an instructional way. 126 00:14:19,410 --> 00:14:26,850 So I composition class may use workshops and those students are swapping papers around and reading each other's work. 127 00:14:26,850 --> 00:14:32,340 If there's somebody in the class who needs that in the accessible format, somebody has to teach the other students how to do that. 128 00:14:32,340 --> 00:14:40,950 Mm-Hmm. So we've created a collection of short like 20 minute free courses that you can get through a 129 00:14:40,950 --> 00:14:48,150 website that an instructor can refer students to students to learn a badge and they get to display, 130 00:14:48,150 --> 00:14:53,070 demonstrate to the instructor that they've earned the badge and then that teaches them how to use Microsoft 131 00:14:53,070 --> 00:15:02,190 Office or whatever the other tools are to create an accessible version of their content for physical classrooms. 132 00:15:02,190 --> 00:15:59,220 We also have what we call text size stickers, which are essentially a reminder you get them. 133 00:15:59,220 --> 00:16:05,270 Do you get attitude, how that doesn't apply to me, just making sure that I have enough time to meet with professors? 134 00:16:05,270 --> 00:16:15,890 That's the biggest issue is to try to get that relationship with them so that we can talk kind of on the same level. 135 00:16:15,890 --> 00:16:23,630 I think with, you know, with disabilities or the ADA, I think there's fear, you know, 136 00:16:23,630 --> 00:16:28,100 fear of, gosh, I've never had to work with a student that have this issue. 137 00:16:28,100 --> 00:16:34,160 What do I do? And I'm married to a professor, and they don't like to not know something. 138 00:16:34,160 --> 00:16:39,590 And so just making sure that you let them know, you know, this is why we're doing this. 139 00:16:39,590 --> 00:16:46,130 This is the legal reasons. This is the reason why you're doing it because it's the right thing of the brain, right thing of the heart. 140 00:16:46,130 --> 00:16:53,060 And just making sure that they understand that and being part of orientation is very important. 141 00:16:53,060 --> 00:17:00,020 And again, trying to develop that relationship with the department heads the individual professors. 142 00:17:00,020 --> 00:17:06,110 And it's so fantastic when you're working with a professor and then it's, you know, there's a little resistance. 143 00:17:06,110 --> 00:17:11,000 And then at the end of the semester, they say, Oh, yeah, this makes sense. 144 00:17:11,000 --> 00:17:18,020 OK, now I understand. And then they, you know, get a new student in and it's like, I got this. 145 00:17:18,020 --> 00:17:21,920 I think oftentimes and I found this out when I first started this whole accessibility 146 00:17:21,920 --> 00:17:26,660 thing five or six years ago that it really is not as difficult as people think it is. 147 00:17:26,660 --> 00:17:29,450 It's just that unknown that makes people nervous. 148 00:17:29,450 --> 00:17:38,930 And we've done many little workshops with different colleges and groups that say to ease their minds and show just it's doable. 149 00:17:38,930 --> 00:17:41,460 It's really not that tough. And here's kind of things. 150 00:17:41,460 --> 00:17:48,140 And I think once people come to things like accessibility, summer camp or they view these broadcasts where they realize, 151 00:17:48,140 --> 00:17:51,840 Oh, really, there's really not all that much I need to do, I just need to address it. 152 00:17:51,840 --> 00:17:56,660 And one thing I like that you said that I think we should all carry with this 153 00:17:56,660 --> 00:18:01,750 is it's the right thing to do and not because it's the legal thing to do. 154 00:18:01,750 --> 00:18:04,190 And if we can wrap our heads around that concept, 155 00:18:04,190 --> 00:18:10,540 I think a lot of us would be a little bit more open to doing things and not as scared because of the legal aspect. 156 00:18:10,540 --> 00:18:15,680 Mm-Hmm. Just the right thing to do, whether you think it is or not, but it is the right thing to do. 157 00:18:15,680 --> 00:18:18,920 So that that's going to stick with me for a while. 158 00:18:18,920 --> 00:18:23,240 So thank you. You're welcome. And I'll quote you for the rest of my life. 159 00:18:23,240 --> 00:18:28,060 OK. You go to you guys about the highs are not Keyser. 160 00:18:28,060 --> 00:18:35,150 Exactly. So Christi, the next one's for you where you really kind of expound on your responsibilities 161 00:18:35,150 --> 00:18:41,450 and really what you're looking for as part of what you do over there WCM. 162 00:18:41,450 --> 00:18:54,650 Well, I'm basically looking at accessibility across campus and programs, making sure that, you know, 163 00:18:54,650 --> 00:18:59,840 somebody goes to Coke Arena and is at the ticket office trying to get an accommodation 164 00:18:59,840 --> 00:19:07,670 that the staff are trained to know what to do or where to direct the individual. 165 00:19:07,670 --> 00:19:13,280 My other roles are just monitoring processes and procedures, 166 00:19:13,280 --> 00:19:22,280 making sure they're staying compliant and moderate during the ADA audit process and the transition plan that's going on, 167 00:19:22,280 --> 00:19:32,960 and to ensure that it keeps moving forward and doesn't become stagnant to be a resource of knowledge for ABA, 168 00:19:32,960 --> 00:19:41,780 for campus partners and to be a resource for the community also when they need public accommodations. 169 00:19:41,780 --> 00:19:46,820 They have a place to call her or get information from. 170 00:19:46,820 --> 00:19:53,420 And then I touched on that earlier that I'm a point of contact in a liaison for individuals 171 00:19:53,420 --> 00:19:57,720 that want to file a report where they feel like they've been discriminated against. 172 00:19:57,720 --> 00:20:01,520 Sure. And we can't have that. We know it happens. 173 00:20:01,520 --> 00:20:08,180 But and I think sometimes, you know, they don't even realize the folks that make those violations, 174 00:20:08,180 --> 00:20:12,680 that they're actually violating somebody's rights to be in the classroom or of the cases. 175 00:20:12,680 --> 00:20:19,340 And that's where this education piece comes on. And that's why we talk so much to you, Isabelle, about how are you getting it out there? 176 00:20:19,340 --> 00:20:28,040 You know, how are you discussing accessibility with with the university and and I assume that your two offices probably are pretty close to you. 177 00:20:28,040 --> 00:20:33,890 Yeah. So you coffee every day and almost have a little laugh about some complaints that come in. 178 00:20:33,890 --> 00:20:37,940 I'm sure we check a lot of bathrooms, you know? 179 00:20:37,940 --> 00:20:48,320 So let's expound on that just a little bit more and talk about some of the physical requirements on campus that night. 180 00:20:48,320 --> 00:20:54,230 For instance, sidewalks or access to buildings that you really look for that may help our audience 181 00:20:54,230 --> 00:20:59,480 understand what needs to be there if they have a classroom or or a building that. 182 00:20:59,480 --> 00:21:06,130 Know, quite frankly, it probably doesn't have 88 compliant, right, so physical aspects. 183 00:21:06,130 --> 00:21:13,240 It includes all kinds of things, from the ramps getting into the building and the indoor pathways. 184 00:21:13,240 --> 00:21:19,480 The door activators making sure doors aren't too heavy aren't more than five pounds, 185 00:21:19,480 --> 00:21:25,660 making sure door handles are are correct and faucets in the bathrooms. 186 00:21:25,660 --> 00:22:14,170 Definitely making sure bathrooms are our site. And how accessible it is. 187 00:22:14,170 --> 00:22:19,770 You know, once they get on campus or do the dorm rooms have ADA bathrooms? 188 00:22:19,770 --> 00:22:26,460 What about the dining hall? Are they able to get around, you know, easily when they go in there? 189 00:22:26,460 --> 00:22:39,000 The libraries? And then it it does include making sure that our programs and all our processes are accessible to everyone. 190 00:22:39,000 --> 00:22:42,960 So when you talk about access to buildings and the buttons or whatever. 191 00:22:42,960 --> 00:22:53,940 Expand on that. What does that mean? Well, a door has to be less than five pounds for it to be compliant under ADA. 192 00:22:53,940 --> 00:23:01,230 And if it's not, it requires a door activator, and that's something they can push some now. 193 00:23:01,230 --> 00:23:06,360 They can just make a motion in front of it, and it will automatically open the door for them. 194 00:23:06,360 --> 00:23:13,650 And the ramps have to be a certain height and their projection. 195 00:23:13,650 --> 00:23:17,670 I'm not thinking of great, great, great story. Can't be too steep. 196 00:23:17,670 --> 00:23:20,400 I was wondering about that. If there is, you know, 197 00:23:20,400 --> 00:23:27,600 what are the what are the angles or the or the degrees that those ramps can or cannot be because I've seen some pretty steep ones. 198 00:23:27,600 --> 00:23:35,830 Right. And we're working on that. I think that's going to be a big, big one for us to because they're expensive to replace. 199 00:23:35,830 --> 00:23:42,810 And but it's something that has to be done because if they can't get into the building, you know that building's not accessible anyway. 200 00:23:42,810 --> 00:23:49,860 Sure. But they touch on everything. 201 00:23:49,860 --> 00:23:52,710 So. So are you from Woodstock Prison? 202 00:23:52,710 --> 00:24:01,530 So as you go around the city, what kind of things just make you cringe being in the job that you're in as you get out into the community? 203 00:24:01,530 --> 00:24:05,040 And what are some of the hugest what are the biggest, hugest? 204 00:24:05,040 --> 00:24:12,240 Is that even a word? I'm not an English major by any stretch. What are the most common, I guess, 205 00:24:12,240 --> 00:24:17,160 pet peeves that you see out in the community that the city not calling out which to all the 206 00:24:17,160 --> 00:24:21,130 communities is a community community that you see that the community could be anywhere, 207 00:24:21,130 --> 00:24:29,580 whether it's Woodstock or as you travel. What are some of the things that really just get on your nerves as far as lack of compliance or whatever? 208 00:24:29,580 --> 00:24:39,600 I think I'll start with the good. I think the good that the community has really made progress on 88 party. 209 00:24:39,600 --> 00:24:46,020 I think it's gotten a lot more noticed and used. 210 00:24:46,020 --> 00:24:52,050 I think that in older areas like we have the Latino district, 211 00:24:52,050 --> 00:25:02,490 they don't necessarily have a lip of getting into the door to their establishment, and those do require a ramp up to it. 212 00:25:02,490 --> 00:25:09,060 But those are the things that bother me the most because yeah, it is expensive to fix. 213 00:25:09,060 --> 00:25:14,130 Everything involving concrete seems to be expensive, but you know, 214 00:25:14,130 --> 00:25:19,230 I always think about if you don't fix the little things, it's going to cost big in your checkbook. 215 00:25:19,230 --> 00:25:24,900 Sure. But those are the ones and the door handles. 216 00:25:24,900 --> 00:25:30,390 They're easy to change, but it seems like they're often forgotten. 217 00:25:30,390 --> 00:25:35,910 So tell us a little bit more about the door handles, but what are the most common ones that are not good? 218 00:25:35,910 --> 00:25:41,670 Just the round door handles that you have to grasp and twist? OK, and they need to be levers. 219 00:25:41,670 --> 00:25:49,140 And you know, it's not hard to change those. So I would say that's probably my biggest pet peeve. 220 00:25:49,140 --> 00:25:56,490 But for the faucets in the bathroom basket, I keep talking about bathrooms with Isabel Isabel. 221 00:25:56,490 --> 00:26:02,280 But yeah, the bathrooms. You know this everything. I mean, even if you're sitting down on the plot, you know this. 222 00:26:02,280 --> 00:26:07,150 If it's high enough to say, Well, there you go. 223 00:26:07,150 --> 00:26:13,390 So we'll transition to something else. Okay. Thank you for that and for me. 224 00:26:13,390 --> 00:26:21,270 You know, when I was in the service, they beat safety in our head for 21 years, and I guarantee you I'll walk around and say, Oh, yeah, that's unsafe. 225 00:26:21,270 --> 00:26:26,010 That's on, say, drives my wife crazy. I think sometimes now she's used to it so they can think about it. 226 00:26:26,010 --> 00:26:31,860 But you know everything. But getting into that culture, that mindset of accessibility as well, 227 00:26:31,860 --> 00:26:36,150 I'm starting to see things in the mall that doesn't have those little rumble strips here so 228 00:26:36,150 --> 00:26:40,510 that wheelchairs people can't go out in the middle of the road or whatever the case is. 229 00:26:40,510 --> 00:26:45,110 So I start to notice things. And so that's why I was curious about what you see in the community. 230 00:26:45,110 --> 00:26:48,840 It's also I'll just add to this. It's been frustrating. 231 00:26:48,840 --> 00:26:51,150 I just opened up a can of worms. Yes, you did. 232 00:26:51,150 --> 00:27:00,390 But signage, I mean, yeah, we've even tried to find bathrooms in our own buildings and walked in circles. 233 00:27:00,390 --> 00:27:06,960 So signage, I think, gets overlooked too. Sure. And also, I've noticed like parking spots. 234 00:27:06,960 --> 00:27:11,800 It's not just enough for me for them to just put a sign that's a handicapped spot, but the. 235 00:27:11,800 --> 00:27:17,490 Make sure there's room on each side, so if they have access and equipment that they can and a lot of them don't have it, 236 00:27:17,490 --> 00:27:24,940 they have the signs and the parking spots are there, but they don't have they're not wide enough to accommodate certain stuff. 237 00:27:24,940 --> 00:27:32,320 And Chris Christie and I were at we took a wheelchair with us the other day. 238 00:27:32,320 --> 00:27:37,180 It gives you a whole other different perspective of, you know. 239 00:27:37,180 --> 00:27:43,010 So the ADA bathroom stall is at the end of this corridor of bathrooms. 240 00:27:43,010 --> 00:27:51,580 It's not dark. And yes, it's ADA standards, but it's like, OK, how are you going to get in there? 241 00:27:51,580 --> 00:27:57,230 And her subject? Yeah, really struggled to get in and try to turn the chair around. 242 00:27:57,230 --> 00:28:00,490 Well, she never did get it turned around in the bathroom. 243 00:28:00,490 --> 00:28:09,230 But yeah, it was initially the experience not only for us and our facilities person, but my our new intake person in my office. 244 00:28:09,230 --> 00:28:15,720 They really opened her eyes to Ada and why it's important culture. 245 00:28:15,720 --> 00:28:20,710 All right, John, let's go back to you. Yeah, you are. 246 00:28:20,710 --> 00:28:29,860 Aren't you lucky? What have been some of the hurdles or barriers of UVA that you currently have or have had to overcome at the university? 247 00:28:29,860 --> 00:28:41,080 That comes accessibility? So a lot of my focus on engagement on accessibility has been around instruction and working with faculty. 248 00:28:41,080 --> 00:28:51,010 There's big challenges with the technology that we rely on a lot of the time. 249 00:28:51,010 --> 00:28:57,760 I mean, Chris, you mentioned the website. Our website is doing a lot better than it was years ago, 250 00:28:57,760 --> 00:29:03,070 and we've done things like building an accessibility checker for web pages that you publish 251 00:29:03,070 --> 00:29:09,190 through the website so that you can't publish it if it doesn't pass basic accessibility jobs. 252 00:29:09,190 --> 00:29:16,150 So that does a pretty good job of making sure that we're hitting the basics. But there's so many documents that are posted online. 253 00:29:16,150 --> 00:29:19,600 A university runs on paper, even if it's digital paper, 254 00:29:19,600 --> 00:29:28,600 and we're trying very hard to work on cutting down the amount of that that we do because PDF serves especially difficult to make it accessible, 255 00:29:28,600 --> 00:29:31,720 especially if they weren't designed with accessibility in mind. 256 00:29:31,720 --> 00:29:37,960 But I've got a team that's churning through PDFs just as their full time job, trying to to process all of that. 257 00:29:37,960 --> 00:29:43,540 And it's it's that's a big hurdle that we're trying to make our way through. 258 00:29:43,540 --> 00:29:45,370 PDFs are really hard to mitigate. 259 00:29:45,370 --> 00:29:54,280 It can be very, very difficult without data, and we're especially when we're talking about instruction, you're always generating new ones. 260 00:29:54,280 --> 00:30:00,880 So, you know, faculty will want to use an article in class and they'll make a quick scan of it and share it with their students. 261 00:30:00,880 --> 00:30:06,250 And that's, you know, nine times out of 10. It's an optical scan and it has no real text on it. 262 00:30:06,250 --> 00:30:08,770 That's, you know, programmatic text. 263 00:30:08,770 --> 00:30:15,880 And then you have to rely on optical character recognition software to try and turn it into text so that a screen reader can read it. 264 00:30:15,880 --> 00:30:21,700 And that creates errors. And so now it's inaccurate and blah blah blah, it creates a lot of problems. 265 00:30:21,700 --> 00:30:25,840 So just building new habits there. 266 00:30:25,840 --> 00:30:34,120 When we talked about how accessibility isn't that hard, if we're creating a word document to make it accessible a lot of the time, 267 00:30:34,120 --> 00:30:38,920 it's just about learning new habits around how we create that document. 268 00:30:38,920 --> 00:30:45,790 It's about using the style buttons that word provides rather than I'm going to make a header, 269 00:30:45,790 --> 00:30:53,620 so I'm going to just underline it and hold it and make the tax bigger by hand. Using coherent headers and stuff like that. 270 00:30:53,620 --> 00:30:58,690 Using those style tools makes it much more accessible. 271 00:30:58,690 --> 00:31:07,450 And actually, once you get used to doing it that way, it's easier to create your document and it's easier to go back and swap out style quickly and 272 00:31:07,450 --> 00:31:12,790 see how the whole document changes when you just change from one style palette to another. 273 00:31:12,790 --> 00:31:20,890 But it's it's about getting over the fear and just learning how to do those couple of things that make such a big difference. 274 00:31:20,890 --> 00:31:24,940 You know, making sure that if you're getting a PDF that you do it in a way that's going 275 00:31:24,940 --> 00:31:29,470 to make sure that you have an accessible version of that particular article. 276 00:31:29,470 --> 00:31:35,230 A lot of the times that can be done in the easier way because you do things like request it through interlibrary loan and 277 00:31:35,230 --> 00:31:40,360 the library will provide it to you in an accessible format and you didn't even have to stand at the copier and stand it. 278 00:31:40,360 --> 00:31:47,770 So it's new habits, its different ways. Who knew all about lazy so. 279 00:31:47,770 --> 00:31:55,330 But there's so many little mindset shifts that we have to have, and it ends up. 280 00:31:55,330 --> 00:32:00,250 People are only ready to hear these ideas when they're ready to hear them. 281 00:32:00,250 --> 00:32:03,490 And so you spend a lot of time providing training and you spend a lot of time talking to 282 00:32:03,490 --> 00:32:08,050 people and then you spend a lot of time having one on one conversations with people. 283 00:32:08,050 --> 00:32:11,860 The minute they need, they ran up against it. And then finally, you've made the. 284 00:32:11,860 --> 00:32:15,820 Convert and then, you know, two more times that week, you make two more converts. 285 00:32:15,820 --> 00:32:21,670 And it's just this process of gradually winning people over and getting them to understand. 286 00:32:21,670 --> 00:32:29,770 But I mean, we are all in higher ed because we care about people and we want these sorts of things for the people we work with, 287 00:32:29,770 --> 00:32:35,110 people we teach and that's we tap into that. 288 00:32:35,110 --> 00:32:41,320 I mean, that's that's it's the right thing to do and people respond to that once they understand. 289 00:32:41,320 --> 00:32:50,510 And so it's just about getting people when they're ready and making sure that they understand that was it's a right thing to do by Isabel Smith. 290 00:32:50,510 --> 00:33:03,970 So the reason I cited my sources, can you talk a little bit about some of the financial barriers to overcome? 291 00:33:03,970 --> 00:33:15,010 That's a huge topic, and I think that's a huge barrier for a lot of people and it can really be and and well, 292 00:33:15,010 --> 00:33:23,320 OK, we've had to invest a lot in infrastructure to support the accommodations that we're providing, 293 00:33:23,320 --> 00:33:28,090 and we have transitioned away from providing those accommodations with external 294 00:33:28,090 --> 00:33:32,980 resources and are doing a lot of trying to provide those resources ourself internally, 295 00:33:32,980 --> 00:33:35,920 which is why I have a team that does braille and tactile graphics. 296 00:33:35,920 --> 00:33:44,650 And I took some investment to create, but it allows us to make better decisions about those resources. 297 00:33:44,650 --> 00:33:55,060 But as far as pure accessibility goes, there are things like ramps and remodeling and stuff like that. 298 00:33:55,060 --> 00:33:57,650 I mean, doorknobs are not expensive that one or two. 299 00:33:57,650 --> 00:34:01,630 But when you're a university and you're buying hundreds of them, it starts to add up pretty quickly. 300 00:34:01,630 --> 00:34:06,370 And so those sorts, those expenses become real. 301 00:34:06,370 --> 00:34:12,700 And, you know, they're not flashy, they're not exciting. 302 00:34:12,700 --> 00:34:16,060 They're not a new building, which the big banner that sure they're new for. 303 00:34:16,060 --> 00:34:22,570 It's a new doorknob. And that's not exciting. Not ending up in court is also really exciting. 304 00:34:22,570 --> 00:34:27,220 Yeah. So that's staying out of litigation. That's probably a good idea. 305 00:34:27,220 --> 00:34:37,180 But when we start talking about faculty and stuff like that, a lot of them have content that needs to be remediated in one way or another. 306 00:34:37,180 --> 00:34:43,750 It needs captions. So they are using videos that they've used for years, but they don't have captions on them. 307 00:34:43,750 --> 00:34:50,500 Or we need to figure out a way to caption that that's either a question of time spent reviewing captions that 308 00:34:50,500 --> 00:34:57,850 were automatically generated or paying to have them generated by a service that provides human captioning versus. 309 00:34:57,850 --> 00:35:02,750 While the automatic captioning is getting better and better all the time, it's still not perfect. 310 00:35:02,750 --> 00:35:07,510 And the thing I like to point out with automatic captions is the one percent of the words 311 00:35:07,510 --> 00:35:12,850 that the algorithm hasn't heard is the new vocabulary you're teaching to your students. 312 00:35:12,850 --> 00:35:20,710 So that's what it's going to get wrong. Is that really the right stuff to get wrong or medical class, right? 313 00:35:20,710 --> 00:35:25,240 It'll struggle that big time with the. 314 00:35:25,240 --> 00:35:31,960 So we need to make sure that that stops right. And that is either something that we can use money or people to fix. 315 00:35:31,960 --> 00:35:37,660 So and in a lot of cases, because accessibility is something that we all have to own. 316 00:35:37,660 --> 00:35:41,110 That means I have to give that work back to the faculty and say what? 317 00:35:41,110 --> 00:35:45,460 You're going to have to check these captions. Besides, you're also the expert. 318 00:35:45,460 --> 00:35:48,820 Who else is going to know that that word is spelled right? 319 00:35:48,820 --> 00:35:56,960 It's it's very hard to rely on that caption or you doesn't have your expertize to make sure that that spell correctly. 320 00:35:56,960 --> 00:36:01,000 So those are challenges we. 321 00:36:01,000 --> 00:36:06,190 So there's there's always money that becomes a piece of this. 322 00:36:06,190 --> 00:36:13,390 We've been able to take advantage of a couple of opportunities institutionally when 323 00:36:13,390 --> 00:36:21,970 we transition for Cobra to having a whole lot more online classes online video. 324 00:36:21,970 --> 00:36:29,380 We use some of the federal money that we got to buy a lot of that human captioning for a video to make sure that that video would be captioned 325 00:36:29,380 --> 00:36:37,630 because so many of the faculty members who were creating those videos hadn't been through our training or they weren't teaching online before that. 326 00:36:37,630 --> 00:36:42,190 So we had been creating a lot of video. So that was very powerful. 327 00:36:42,190 --> 00:36:46,690 But it takes resources. 328 00:36:46,690 --> 00:36:51,070 It takes support from upper administration to make sure those resources are available. 329 00:36:51,070 --> 00:36:54,340 It takes relationships with the bodies that have control that money. 330 00:36:54,340 --> 00:36:58,840 I mean, Isabelle's relationship with the Student Government Association is very powerful 331 00:36:58,840 --> 00:37:03,400 because they provide some funding to make sure these sorts of things can happen. 332 00:37:03,400 --> 00:37:09,250 I've used reserves from my unit to make sure that we have the right equipment in some cases and that we can get services. 333 00:37:09,250 --> 00:37:11,930 We've worked with the Office of Online learned. 334 00:37:11,930 --> 00:37:19,550 To make sure that we can have Blackboard Ally to support instruction and make alternate formats for instructional materials available, that's it. 335 00:37:19,550 --> 00:37:29,660 That's a no brainer, incredibly important tool. So all of that stuff requires money and focus and energy to make sure it happens. 336 00:37:29,660 --> 00:37:37,880 So how many how many students you think you maybe percentage wise have disabilities that need accessibility? 337 00:37:37,880 --> 00:37:43,460 So right now, we have seven hundred and three students that are registered with our office that are actively 338 00:37:43,460 --> 00:37:47,540 and those are the ones that are self-identifying when you talk about the folks that struggle. 339 00:37:47,540 --> 00:37:56,630 Percentage wise, they did a survey about, I think it was five years ago, maybe three years ago, and it said 19 percent. 340 00:37:56,630 --> 00:38:04,010 Now the national stats are saying twenty six percent of your student body have a disability. 341 00:38:04,010 --> 00:38:10,490 That's a big number. Yes. So how do you triage John when you're limited budget? 342 00:38:10,490 --> 00:38:13,970 I mean, how have you guys had to triage or is that just a general term? 343 00:38:13,970 --> 00:38:18,740 Or you just have to kind of pick and choose, which is, I mean, how do you? 344 00:38:18,740 --> 00:38:22,010 That's a difficult question, I think, because you know, 345 00:38:22,010 --> 00:38:28,160 what's more important is that one student or this many or this thing or that, I mean, have you had to deal with that? 346 00:38:28,160 --> 00:38:36,890 And we have to do it for individual students sometimes when we're working with disability services to support accommodations. 347 00:38:36,890 --> 00:38:44,090 A lot of the times we have to make tough decisions about what we can provide. 348 00:38:44,090 --> 00:38:50,270 And that's one of the advantages of having in-house braille and tactile graphics support because we 349 00:38:50,270 --> 00:38:56,090 don't have to limit ourselves to what we can afford to have produced for us by an outside company. 350 00:38:56,090 --> 00:39:03,380 Right. We have, however, much time that the team can put into it to get that work done. 351 00:39:03,380 --> 00:39:06,830 There are limits there. They can't do as much as we would love to be able to have them do. 352 00:39:06,830 --> 00:39:15,260 But we have found over the years that we've been able to produce more than we would be able to do working with an outside company. 353 00:39:15,260 --> 00:39:21,020 But there are the Isobel's in a situation I'm speaking for you now, 354 00:39:21,020 --> 00:39:28,400 but Isabelle's in a situation where we have to encourage students to try methods that may not 355 00:39:28,400 --> 00:39:35,660 be that may put a little bit more power in the student's hands like the life's great parents. 356 00:39:35,660 --> 00:39:43,550 You know, rather than having a scribe, take notes for the student, let the student take their own notes with a pen that does audio recording for them. 357 00:39:43,550 --> 00:39:47,810 That's an incredibly powerful tool. It puts the student really in charge of what they're doing. 358 00:39:47,810 --> 00:39:54,690 And it happens to be a thing that helps save us some funding and having to have student employees, scribes and stuff like that. 359 00:39:54,690 --> 00:40:00,350 And it makes that student understand there's tools that they can use when they go to work. 360 00:40:00,350 --> 00:40:06,650 And so that's really important, too for them to know, you know, I want them to be independent, 361 00:40:06,650 --> 00:40:13,550 not dependent upon people are independent and being able to use the different technologies that are out there. 362 00:40:13,550 --> 00:40:20,720 I'm not techie. He's my tech. So whenever I need anything that's techie, that's who I go to. 363 00:40:20,720 --> 00:40:26,150 Isn't that the whole goal, though, is to help people help themselves. That should be and should be. 364 00:40:26,150 --> 00:40:34,430 And there's power in that for them. I know there's power in it for me when I understand something and I think I, I go, I got it. 365 00:40:34,430 --> 00:40:39,740 And when I'm I'm in, I'm going to invest in. I think that's a powerful thing. 366 00:40:39,740 --> 00:40:44,770 I know that before we take some questions here, 367 00:40:44,770 --> 00:40:56,090 I know the whole COVID thing has really pushed us to do all this stuff at least virtually faster than we were probably ready to do. 368 00:40:56,090 --> 00:41:04,130 And but that's all that has really done is better for the student and the faculty member for that member who has to learn how to do those things. 369 00:41:04,130 --> 00:41:09,410 And I know here this institution that we really had to buckle down, 370 00:41:09,410 --> 00:41:17,360 strap in and then just hit the ground running up to try to catch up to things that we were already doing. 371 00:41:17,360 --> 00:41:27,590 But we really had to do it on steroids at that point. And I think COVID, if there was any positive out of that mess of of a virus or whatever it is, 372 00:41:27,590 --> 00:41:33,230 that was a positive that came out of that as it forced us to do what we were supposed to be doing already. 373 00:41:33,230 --> 00:41:41,360 And that's just how I've looked at that whole situation. But I think it got a lot of people to try tools they would never have used before, 374 00:41:41,360 --> 00:41:48,260 and that's opened up a lot of opportunities that wouldn't have existed before. 375 00:41:48,260 --> 00:41:53,780 And, you know, even classes that are going back to face to face will now have a much stronger online 376 00:41:53,780 --> 00:41:59,600 presence and faculty are more comfortable in those spaces and stuff like that. 377 00:41:59,600 --> 00:42:03,500 I think there are a lot of things that we have gained from the experience, 378 00:42:03,500 --> 00:42:11,790 and there's a lot of companies that made sure that they I mean, the air has come light years from what it was two years ago. 379 00:42:11,790 --> 00:42:19,890 I mean, it's fantastic now. I mean, Microsoft Teams is a really good job resume, does a pretty good job as well, 380 00:42:19,890 --> 00:42:26,160 but a lot of these and there's a lot of companies that came out of the dust for for caps. 381 00:42:26,160 --> 00:42:32,580 I know one of the sponsors we had last year vervet in anyone that does a pretty good job as well, 382 00:42:32,580 --> 00:42:41,920 that they're not sponsors this year, but they're welcome to be sponsors. But, you know, I think it's fantastic that we had to do it. 383 00:42:41,920 --> 00:42:48,910 And so that I found that interesting. OK, so let's take some questions from the audience. 384 00:42:48,910 --> 00:42:57,750 So if you have questions there as an attendee or want to ask any of the panelists any questions, please put that in the chat now. 385 00:42:57,750 --> 00:43:10,380 Otherwise, we're going to sit and just talk about other things. So we'll wait a few minutes if we get any questions in the chat. 386 00:43:10,380 --> 00:43:25,430 This is where we play the jeopardy thing. Do you? 387 00:43:25,430 --> 00:43:35,070 Two, two, two, two two. So I we're waiting from some questions and please feel free to ask some questions 388 00:43:35,070 --> 00:43:41,090 we've got about looks like about 10 15 minutes so we can field some questions. 389 00:43:41,090 --> 00:43:45,290 Let's talk about some of the positive things that have come out of all this 390 00:43:45,290 --> 00:43:50,030 training and all of this effort that we've done over the last couple of years. 391 00:43:50,030 --> 00:43:57,150 What are some highlights that you've noticed at WSU that maybe a student just really come out saying, Hey, this was fantastic? 392 00:43:57,150 --> 00:44:02,600 Or what are some things that you know, I kind of noticed over the years? 393 00:44:02,600 --> 00:44:08,060 I noticed that the students really appreciate, you know, assistive technology. 394 00:44:08,060 --> 00:44:19,370 They appreciate the smart pens, they appreciate that people want to hear what they're saying and, you know, help them as best as they can. 395 00:44:19,370 --> 00:44:29,180 And I think that I think the students just want from what I'm hearing from students is that 396 00:44:29,180 --> 00:44:35,810 they just want people to understand that they're just an average Joe and they're no different, 397 00:44:35,810 --> 00:44:38,990 no different, you know, different, you know, they may learn differently, 398 00:44:38,990 --> 00:44:47,150 they may walk differently, but they're still humans and want to be treated as such. 399 00:44:47,150 --> 00:44:53,750 I think that the covered part of it is bringing out an understanding for a lot of 400 00:44:53,750 --> 00:45:00,740 students about anxiety and depression that they've never had to deal with before. 401 00:45:00,740 --> 00:45:08,090 And I think they're having a better understanding of that, and they're going to want to make sure that there's services and programs to help students. 402 00:45:08,090 --> 00:45:15,920 They're going through that. And we're seeing a lot more students with some psychological issues coming into our office. 403 00:45:15,920 --> 00:45:20,240 And again, part of it's covered and it's just the other part, just life. 404 00:45:20,240 --> 00:45:34,450 Mm-Hmm. John, if you think of anything, I think that one of the real treats has been watching the way students react to a lot of the awareness. 405 00:45:34,450 --> 00:45:47,720 Mm-Hmm. And speaking up for their peers and really taking an interest in accessibility as a value on campus government associate is interested. 406 00:45:47,720 --> 00:45:54,050 We've heard of students speaking up in class and this and reminding faculty that they need 407 00:45:54,050 --> 00:46:00,470 to be teaching in a way that to meet a particular student's needs and stuff like that, 408 00:46:00,470 --> 00:46:05,570 that's incredibly hard. It's really powerful to see. 409 00:46:05,570 --> 00:46:18,510 And at the same time, there's such a. Faculty can be resistant to change, sometimes like lots of groups and lots of people. 410 00:46:18,510 --> 00:46:26,110 But really, when we get down into the weeds with folks, they are. 411 00:46:26,110 --> 00:46:34,150 They can be so invested in the success of students with particular challenges and the success of students in 412 00:46:34,150 --> 00:46:40,390 those particular situations becomes a success for the department or the faculty member and stuff like that. 413 00:46:40,390 --> 00:46:47,710 And that's where everybody gets to win and we get to do things and open doors for people for. 414 00:46:47,710 --> 00:46:56,120 Ten years ago, 15 years ago, those doors wouldn't have been open. And that's a really, really powerful place to be. 415 00:46:56,120 --> 00:46:56,920 And for us, 416 00:46:56,920 --> 00:47:07,510 we we have several faculty across the campuses that really volunteer and excited about getting out there and doing their part in training other folks, 417 00:47:07,510 --> 00:47:12,100 and they do it in their hearts. We don't have stipends. 418 00:47:12,100 --> 00:47:15,430 We used to have stipends for those communities, but we don't anymore. 419 00:47:15,430 --> 00:47:21,700 They continue to serve because it's the right thing to do right as though exactly. 420 00:47:21,700 --> 00:47:29,530 We just had the Black Allah, if it's your content day and you guys get involved with that, but a lot of folks on campus. 421 00:47:29,530 --> 00:47:32,100 That's why we want to get up in the rankings and we want to do well. 422 00:47:32,100 --> 00:47:42,360 And and a lot of them did a lot of work to fix some stuff to to really do their part as well as for their content. 423 00:47:42,360 --> 00:47:51,100 It's a great thing that the watching the gamification actually work on faculty or too smart for gamification, and it's super fun. 424 00:47:51,100 --> 00:47:58,360 Last year we had the department that had the most that being got a pie in the face and they meant something about. 425 00:47:58,360 --> 00:48:05,970 We brought the thing out there, and so several people got pies in the face because they met certain thresholds with that. 426 00:48:05,970 --> 00:48:10,540 That's funny. OK, looks like we got some questions here, the first ones for John, 427 00:48:10,540 --> 00:48:17,080 but this is regarding facilitating the procurement of born, accessible instructional materials. 428 00:48:17,080 --> 00:48:21,970 Are you seeing any regional or National Consortium consortium? 429 00:48:21,970 --> 00:48:25,960 Can you read that projects in the works to help get more published? 430 00:48:25,960 --> 00:48:33,400 So again, I have no vocabularies. Yeah, so that could have read Super Bowl when I read something else. 431 00:48:33,400 --> 00:48:41,740 All right. So the it's very different from publisher to publisher. 432 00:48:41,740 --> 00:48:47,380 I haven't seen a lot of we were able to leverage pressure from agencies like the 433 00:48:47,380 --> 00:48:55,240 National Federation of the Blind to try and encourage publishers to be more accessible. 434 00:48:55,240 --> 00:49:02,560 But an institution like ours has the faculty make their own choices about what textbooks they're going to use? 435 00:49:02,560 --> 00:49:12,220 And so it becomes so diverse, it's really hard to see a lot of that kind of effort of that grant level. 436 00:49:12,220 --> 00:49:18,160 It's very, very different from one publisher to another. Some are very invested in making their work accessible. 437 00:49:18,160 --> 00:49:22,300 Others are less invested in it. 438 00:49:22,300 --> 00:49:28,270 And I won't be naming names. But it's it's can be very challenging. 439 00:49:28,270 --> 00:49:36,460 Of course, all of those textbooks come with online, or many of those textbooks come with online resources and tools that plug into the elements. 440 00:49:36,460 --> 00:49:45,460 And then those students go off into those areas and they can be inaccessible. So that creates its own set of challenges for us. 441 00:49:45,460 --> 00:49:52,780 What we've had to do is invest a lot in educating the faculty on how to try and evaluate their resources. 442 00:49:52,780 --> 00:49:58,690 But we run into situations where the faculty are making decisions that are very good decisions for other reasons, 443 00:49:58,690 --> 00:50:01,900 like a professor who's teaching a subject matter area where, 444 00:50:01,900 --> 00:50:07,630 yes, there are new textbooks, but this 20 year old textbook has essentially the same content in it, 445 00:50:07,630 --> 00:50:09,940 and it's a lot cheaper for my students to buy it used. 446 00:50:09,940 --> 00:50:15,020 And I don't use the online tools anyway, so they don't need to be paying for a new version with access to those as well. 447 00:50:15,020 --> 00:50:19,030 So let's get them this one that's more financially accessible for the students. 448 00:50:19,030 --> 00:50:24,370 And unfortunately, that's much less accessible for a student with a visual impairment. 449 00:50:24,370 --> 00:50:29,290 And so we're running into tensions and stuff like that where even though it's more expensive, 450 00:50:29,290 --> 00:50:38,290 very often we have to be encouraging faculty to make the choice for a more modern textbook or more up to date textbook because it's accessible. 451 00:50:38,290 --> 00:50:41,710 And then there are long tail quartz areas where there just aren't new textbooks. 452 00:50:41,710 --> 00:50:47,920 That nothing's new has been printed in 20 years, so it's very, very diverse. 453 00:50:47,920 --> 00:50:53,140 It's very challenging, and nobody's got a great foothold yet. 454 00:50:53,140 --> 00:51:01,690 And publishers are starting to hear enough of us as a chorus of voices saying, We need accessible content. 455 00:51:01,690 --> 00:51:07,870 We need accessible content. They are paying attention. They are trying to provide that stuff and we put them through their paces. 456 00:51:07,870 --> 00:51:14,320 When we do need an accommodated version that it's very expensive for them, it's very hard for them to provide that for us. 457 00:51:14,320 --> 00:51:25,330 And so they're trying to make sure that they're newer stuff is better in most cases, but it's messy and it takes a lot of effort. 458 00:51:25,330 --> 00:51:32,840 We did find that even though they they give you their VVPAT, which you know, how they're explained and how their stuff is accessible. 459 00:51:32,840 --> 00:51:35,270 Look, though, we'll fact check it, 460 00:51:35,270 --> 00:51:43,620 and it's not even close from what that publisher says that they're doing that or they used a different platform, whatever the case is. 461 00:51:43,620 --> 00:51:48,020 So we found that that could be an issue, too. So even though they say they're accessible, 462 00:51:48,020 --> 00:51:54,370 you want to make sure that you fact check that VVPAT to make sure it indeed what they're saying is what they're delivering. 463 00:51:54,370 --> 00:51:56,530 And I know for us, 464 00:51:56,530 --> 00:52:03,020 we've we've had to put some pressure on some publishers to say they either make your stuff accessible or we're going somewhere else. 465 00:52:03,020 --> 00:52:06,700 And unfortunately, you can't do that with every everything. 466 00:52:06,700 --> 00:52:13,160 At least they feel that pressure well, but a lot of them, because like I said, go over there, they're doing it anyway. 467 00:52:13,160 --> 00:52:21,130 Well, one thing we've done institutionally is we for for tools like a publisher, resources and stuff like that. 468 00:52:21,130 --> 00:52:27,970 If we identify one that doesn't meet accessibility standards and this would be like an online tool that's usually packaged with the textbook. 469 00:52:27,970 --> 00:52:36,190 Mm-Hmm. We have a web page and our accessibility pages on the Wichita State website where we list these are the tools that are approved. 470 00:52:36,190 --> 00:52:42,190 These are the ones that are not right. If you're going to use one of these, you're going to have to register for an exemption. 471 00:52:42,190 --> 00:52:46,040 And publishers don't like seeing their names on the bad list. 472 00:52:46,040 --> 00:52:48,910 Yeah, it's Sandy's bad list and you don't want to be there. 473 00:52:48,910 --> 00:52:55,540 And so we've had a couple of publishers and a couple of vendors reach out to us and say, How do we get off that list? 474 00:52:55,540 --> 00:53:04,360 It's like, Well, let me introduce you to the topic because I like the little red indicator and black for the cap that everybody is freaking out about. 475 00:53:04,360 --> 00:53:07,450 It is genius. Make it red. They don't like red, they want. 476 00:53:07,450 --> 00:53:14,380 But if more institutions are doing that, if we're sharing information about who's meeting the standards and who isn't, 477 00:53:14,380 --> 00:53:20,110 they're going to hear, well, one more question looks like here, and then we'll kind of wrap things up. 478 00:53:20,110 --> 00:53:27,100 What are some of the ways you get the word out to students that these services and assistive technologies are available to them? 479 00:53:27,100 --> 00:53:37,780 Well, we do a bunch of roadshows. So as I said before, we're almost almost all the way to Colorado, but we take our smart pens with us. 480 00:53:37,780 --> 00:53:42,220 And then we also have a C pen that reads text. 481 00:53:42,220 --> 00:53:47,410 Mm-Hmm. And so that way, the students can see them when they're coming into orientation. 482 00:53:47,410 --> 00:53:55,150 They get to see them when they come in for intakes. We let them know what different assistive technology that we do have available. 483 00:53:55,150 --> 00:54:02,590 We are hopefully going to purchase program called Curve. That's really excellent for students with dyslexia. 484 00:54:02,590 --> 00:54:09,100 It even helps with students that have an English language type of issue. 485 00:54:09,100 --> 00:54:11,320 For our international students. 486 00:54:11,320 --> 00:54:19,660 And again, that's going to be available to all of our students because part of the problem is we know the ones that are coming in. 487 00:54:19,660 --> 00:54:28,450 We don't know about the ones that are still out there. Right. True that you want and I presume you won't say ditto. 488 00:54:28,450 --> 00:54:34,990 Ditto. That works, OK? It's like that was the last question that I can see there. 489 00:54:34,990 --> 00:54:41,230 So let me ask you one additional question, and I'll wrap things up for each one of you to answer. 490 00:54:41,230 --> 00:55:31,240 If there was one thought or idea or to. 491 00:55:31,240 --> 00:55:38,950 Tick you off, we're coming at you because we're trying to advocate or we want our programs to be inclusive. 492 00:55:38,950 --> 00:55:44,080 All right. Because it's what right? Right. We're doing this all as a group now. 493 00:55:44,080 --> 00:55:48,220 I love it, I guess. But what about you? What's the one thing you want, people? 494 00:55:48,220 --> 00:55:55,480 Oh, there's a saying. I'm not sure where it came from, but it's basically if you're not at the table, you're part of the menu. 495 00:55:55,480 --> 00:56:04,630 And so that means you have to be active. You have to talk about stuff that you have concerns with, whether it's popular or not. 496 00:56:04,630 --> 00:56:13,780 And just making sure that, you know, we're vocalizing what our concerns are and that our students need to do that too. 497 00:56:13,780 --> 00:56:19,200 It's very important because again, they're our clients are good. 498 00:56:19,200 --> 00:56:27,640 All right, John. John, well, the thing that I would want to say is for the folks who are listening to this and we're preaching to the choir here, 499 00:56:27,640 --> 00:56:34,420 you're invested enough and that's to be watching this, right? This is across the board. 500 00:56:34,420 --> 00:56:40,210 It's a community effort. It's what we all have to own as an institution, as part of our responsibility. 501 00:56:40,210 --> 00:56:47,650 But it's higher ED in general. We need to support each other and help each other overcome these challenges. 502 00:56:47,650 --> 00:56:56,770 Share resources, share ideas. When we started our big ramp up at Wichita State about six years ago, 503 00:56:56,770 --> 00:57:03,550 we were inspired by which is the nice way to stay stole liberally from Ohio State University 504 00:57:03,550 --> 00:57:11,980 and some of the other institutions that are really knocking it out of the park already or. And there's so much to learn from each other. 505 00:57:11,980 --> 00:57:21,370 Nobody has all the right answers, but we can all make each other better and I'll help each other and we're all really invested in that. 506 00:57:21,370 --> 00:57:31,270 The the accessibility summer camp is a great example of that kind of community effort to make everybody's experience better. 507 00:57:31,270 --> 00:57:40,870 And when we talk about the expense, if only a couple of institutions take on this work, it becomes inordinately expensive for those schools. 508 00:57:40,870 --> 00:57:47,740 If we all do it, if we all lift all boats, we share the expense, we share the challenges, we make it easier for everybody. 509 00:57:47,740 --> 00:57:55,480 It's important that we understand it as a community effort. That's great, and I agree with all of you. 510 00:57:55,480 --> 00:58:04,090 Your insight today has been invaluable. I know that the summer camp was one of the main reasons we put this on at no cost. 511 00:58:04,090 --> 00:58:10,390 It's because we don't want anybody to have the excuse not to get awareness or education or training or tools. 512 00:58:10,390 --> 00:58:16,360 And we're hard core with trying to keep this at no cost at all possible. 513 00:58:16,360 --> 00:58:21,770 And that's why we do this. And it's in June when nobody has budget money anyway. 514 00:58:21,770 --> 00:58:30,550 So this is why excessively summer camp is a great forum for for this and and for those of you that are watching the broadcast. 515 00:58:30,550 --> 00:58:36,940 WSU, this group of folks has agreed to to help us out in the next coming years so we can partner together and do exactly what John. 516 00:58:36,940 --> 00:58:45,400 So we come together as a community and we really do our best to help each other out so everybody has an equal chance to to feel as normal as possible, 517 00:58:45,400 --> 00:58:49,540 whatever normal means. Thank you all. 518 00:58:49,540 --> 00:58:53,170 John was well received for joining us today. 519 00:58:53,170 --> 00:58:59,380 The next broadcast will be the week after summer camps and the next thing you will have is accessibly summer camp. 520 00:58:59,380 --> 00:59:05,530 Remember to register for whatever sessions that you want to watch or be a part of. 521 00:59:05,530 --> 00:59:12,580 We do have the two additional sessions the day before. I think it's at nine or 10 o'clock in the morning at two o'clock. 522 00:59:12,580 --> 00:59:16,210 So please sign up for those sessions. There are so much great information there. 523 00:59:16,210 --> 00:59:18,314 Affect John. Here is.