What’s Happening?

Introduction

Accessibility is an ongoing endeavor, and thus the Instructional Accessibility Group is constantly looking for new ways to guide faculty to proactive accessibility and promote accessibility awareness and inclusion. We firmly believe that proactive accessibility helps all students regardless of accommodation disclosure status.

New and Upcoming Faculty Trainings

The IAG is always looking to improve how we connect and educate faculty to be proactive about accessibility. The trainings listed below are in addition to our current offerings.

Spring 2024

• Open Virtual Office Hours for Faculty on Teams: Wednesdays and Thursdays, 10a-11a. Last Office Hour on 2 May.
  Join with the following link: Instructional Accessibility Group Open Office Hours

Prepare your courses for Fall 2024:

• Quick Tips webpage: Improve course digital accessibility in just a few minutes at a time!
• Step-by-step proactive instructional accessibility guides.

Fall Initiatives:

• Meeting of the Minds: Collaborative Learning Using Empathy in the Classroom or Office. 
  Friday 16 August 2024, 9:30a-2:30p, AD 325.
  A half-day MSU Denver workshop designed to reshape how we perceive and engage with cognitive diversity. Lunch will be included!
  We are currently anticipating having some casual follow-up conversation sessions through out the term or academic year as well with the first conversation on Friday 25 October.
  Registration coming soon!
• Accessibility Bytes: 30-minute virtual instructional accessibility workshops.
  Schedule change for fall: We will be running Accessibility Bytes with four sessions every other week (sessions are the same all week). Mondays/Tuesdays 3pm, Wednesdays/Thursdays 9am.
• Proactive Accessibility Liaisons (PALs): Accessibility Faculty Cohort, similar to Peer Associates model. Stipend available for faculty who complete and present their final project.
• Pilot PDF Remediation Service. We are partnering with one department for Fall and hope to expand soon!

PDF flyer: Get Ready for Fall 2024

In-Progress

• Asynchronous trainings
• Microbadge
• Additional PDF Remediation Services
• Captioning Service?

Upcoming and Past IAG Events

Upcoming Events

• Meeting of the Minds: Collaborative Learning Using Empathy in the Classroom or Office.
  Friday 16 August 2024, 10:00am-2:30pm, Admin 325.

Past Events

Academic year 2023-2024

• Radical Roadrunners Fall Runway, September 2023.
  A radically visible QueerCrip fashion show, featuring Rebirth Garments. IAG collaboration with GITA.
• 2nd Annual MSU Denver Research Symposium. October 2023.
  The IAG participated in the poster session on “What is Accessibility and Why Does It Matter?”
  A digital version of our poster is available.
• 8th Annual MSU Denver Women in Stem Conference. October 2023
  The IAG co-presented a session on Accessibility in Stem with Professors April Hill and Alycia Palmer (both from Chemistry).

Recommended Readings

• Disability and World Language Learning: Inclusive Teaching for Diverse Learners.
  Sally S. Scott and Wade A. Edwards. ISBN-13: 978-1475837056.
• Radical Visibility: First-Person Stories from the Twenty-First Century.
  Edited by Alice Wong. ISBN-13: 978-1984899422.
• Being Heumann: An Unrepentant Memoir of a Disability Rights Activist.
  Judith Heumann, with Kristen Joiner. ISBN-13: 978-0807002803.
• The Future is Disabled: Prophecies, Love Notes, and Mourning Songs.
  Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha. ISBN-13: 978-1551528915.