A University organization focused on making campus more accessible hosted a forum on Zoom to announce accessibility changes and get input from the UT community on Monday.
The University President’s ADA Committee is a group that addresses systemic issues that fall within the Americans with Disabilities Act. The group hosts events each semester to notify the community of changes to make the University more accessible and gather new ideas.
“The purpose of this forum is to provide information about accessibility efforts on campus and to hear from you about accessibility concerns,” ADA coordinator Jennifer Maedgen said.
Representatives from University departments spoke about actions they have taken to make campus more accommodating. Maedgen said some changes have been made since the April forum, including adding more handrails on campus, piloting programs for digital accessibility and furthering resources for UT Parking and Transportation’s courtesy ride service.
“Because it is such a large campus that is constantly evolving, hearing from you all is helpful,” Maedgen said.
One widely-discussed issue was accessible parking. Economics graduate student Christopher Freeman, said that, even with an ADA parking permit, he has difficulty finding available spots close enough to the buildings where he has class. He also said it can be difficult to navigate UT’s pickup services, since they don’t have on-demand options.
“Getting to and from, (and) utilizing those (services) when it’s really busy, it hasn’t been practical for me,” Freeman said.
Chloe Wright, a mechanical engineering graduate student, said she researches improving accessibility for graduate students. She said many graduate students who are also employed by UT as teaching or research assistants have to navigate two different sets of ADA resources.
“It’s really tricky to navigate both the student accommodation system and the staff accommodation system at the same time,” Wright said. “A lot of the student accommodations are more geared towards our undergraduate students.”
Digital accessibility manager Vanessa Ayala said the Digital Accessibility Center is working on improving document accessibility and audio transcription for classes. They are also testing new handwriting-transcription technology.
“As the need for digital accessibility grows, we’ll be adapting and growing our services as well to handle volume and address digital accessibility as a proactive measure along the way with our faculty and staff,” Ayala said.
Sandra Cash, executive director of Student Disability Services, said over 4,500 students are registered for accommodations and they are working on minimizing wait-times and using a new case-management system.
Dennis Delaney, assistant director of Parking and Transportation Services, said that they have increased the number of ADA spaces on campus and there is now a tracking map for PTS pickup vehicles. They are also establishing a program for ambassadors to educate people on campus about ADA policies and enforce compliance.
The committee also emphasized that people can report accessibility barriers to the ADA department.
“Accessibility is an institutional priority and not a job that one person or unit can accomplish,” Maedgen said.