Teach Access Fall Update 2019

Dear Teach Access members, supporters, and champions,

We are happy to share our activities and accomplishments since our last update. Take a look at all Teach Access is doing to enhance accessibility awareness and to ensure the fundamentals of digital accessibility are included in college and university technology curricula.

Teach Access is in the running for a Shorty Social Good Award!

Verizon Media’s Accessibility marketing and outreach initiative funded a submission for Teach Access to the Shorty Social Good awards, under the categories of B2B and Accessibility. The Accessibility category is new to the Shorty Awards this year, and “honors a program, project or initiative executed to provide complete access and support for people with disabilities.”

Check out our entry!

Study Away 2019 Recap

This year’s Study Away Silicon Valley (SASV) program was another rousing success! It featured 25 students from seven different universities. Participants visited the campuses of Walmart, Google, Verizon Media, LinkedIn, Apple, and Facebook, (with additional programming from Microsoft, Intuit, and LightHouse for the Blind and Visually Impaired).

Check out the recaps from University of Washington Professor Emeritus Richard Ladner and University of Washington Human-Computer Interaction Ph.D. student Ather Sharif! SASV will also be featured in an article coming out in EDUCAUSE magazine later this month. Keep an eye out on Teach Access’ social media channels for the link!

Please share UDUC survey with your students and colleagues

Howard Kramer from the University of Colorado is working on a grant project for Promoting the Integration of Universal Design into University Curricula (UDUC), and is conducting a survey to gauge the benefits to individuals of taking college level courses that include accessibility and Universal Design topics. Here is the survey invitation for professors to share with their students, and a version for employers and companies to share with their employees.

New Teach Access mission and vision statements, bylaws, and financial policies

The Teach Access Organization Task Force and other Task Force leads have been hard at work the last few months finalizing official mission and vision statements, bylaws, and financial policies for Teach Access. The mission and vision statements are now available on our About page. The bylaws and financial policies are available internally and available upon request.

Read our new mission and vision statements

"Why Teach Accessibility?" One-Pager

Earlier this spring, we published a one-pager (which was developed by Teach Access members) that can be shared with your university colleagues and leadership to make the case for why teaching accessibility in higher education is a win-win for everybody involved. It provides clear and compelling reasons to support the Teach Access mission of making technology accessible and making accessible technology ubiquitous via enhanced curricula, academic leadership, online learning tools and industry partnership. It also addresses the significant skills gap corporations are facing when trying to address the increasing demand for digital accessibility.

Check out the "Why Teach Accessibility?" one-pager

New Teach Access Members

Welcome to the members who have joined us over the last few months! A complete list of Teach Access members can be found on our website.