By Dr. Erin Bell, Director
Although the need for accessible materials has grown in tandem with the number of our neurodiverse learners, McAlvage & Rice (2018) enumerated a list of well-known colleges and universities that are still lagging in terms of providing accessible content, even though as the authors report, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was signed into law in 1990, and the Rehabilitation Act dates back to 1973. Citing cases from Harvard, Berkeley, and MIT, to name only a few, McAlvage & Rice (2018) note how even highly renowned institutions of higher education failed to make materials accessible and available to all students.
Girma (2014) highlights how many of the people working at the institution she attended as an undergraduate thought of providing accessible materials as a favor rather than as the law-bound obligation that it is. While Girma began by highlighting the specific challenges she faced as a student who was blind-deaf, she went on to highlight several other complaints that other students have lodged at their respective colleges and universities regarding the lack of accessible materials/processes. As noted, the ADA legislation is not new, but it appears as though universities are slow to enforce it.
The most significant challenge in creating accessible and inclusive courses in higher education is garnering support for these changes at the institutional and instructional levels. One reason for this resistance comes down to budgeting. Colleges are businesses, and making what may be viewed as massive changes to curriculum and practices to become accessible will cost money and time; although, arguably, investing in a more accessible, holistic experience for all students will result in a high return on investment and higher enrollments.
Another challenge is that many administrators and faculty can be tied to tradition and resistant to change, especially in the classroom. I am speaking from personal experience; at my institution, numerous instructors teach their courses the same way from semester to semester and year to year. They are slow to align with newer instructional techniques. This issue is finally compounded by the fact that not all college-level educators are tech-savvy. Asking them to include closed captions can seem daunting when they have only just learned to post video content during the pandemic. Creating accessible materials can seem overwhelming, and they might not have an idea about how to begin.
My recommendation is that all professors attend mandatory accessibility and design courses prior to starting their first courses and that colleges incorporate review processes for all courses on a semester-by-semester basis. I think the most cataclysmic negative outcome would be the general distrust and rejection of higher education by people with disabilities. If content and practices are not accessible to all, this will lead to alienation and isolation of those living with disabilities from higher education. This negative consequence could be prevented by the universal adoption of accessible practices and content now. Not everyone working in higher education understands the scope of accessibility needs. The term remains unclear to many; I have colleagues who are laser-focused on making PDF documents accessible by eliminating tables from the documents, but do not know much else about the topic. I am taking this course specifically so I can learn more about the topic and share it with my colleagues.
References
TEDx. (2014, February 28). Why I work to remove access barriers for students with disabilities Haben Girma. TEDxBaltimore. YouTube.https://youtu.be/Mvoj-ku8zk0?si=85DSP4pggOpqh4nc
McAlvage, K., & Rice, M. (2018). Access and Accessibility in Online Learning: Issues in Higher Education and K-12 Contexts. From” OLC Outlook: An Environmental Scan of the Digital Learning Landscape.” Online Learning Consortium.