USM Accessibility in Action - September 2026 Issue

Repost from the USM Kirwan Center for Academic Innovation and the USM Digital Accessibility Work Group

September 2026 Issue

As the fall semester gets underway, accessibility moves from planning into practice. Whether you teach courses, support students, manage programs, or create communications, September is when we discover what's working and where our next opportunities for improvement lie. This month's newsletter focuses on accessibility as a shared responsibility that belongs to all of us, regardless of our role. Inside, you'll find a recap of our fall course prep day, an invitation to gather feedback and make real-time improvements, and a deeper look at why accessibility truly is everyone's job. Let's make this semester one where accessibility isn't just built in—it's continuously improved through the insights and actions of our entire USM community.

Ready, Set, Accessible! Fall Course Prep Day Recap

On August 3, 2026, faculty and staff from across Maryland joined us virtually for a half-day of practical accessibility strategies to start the semester strong. Participants explored how to evaluate course resources for accessibility, redesign assignments for clarity and inclusion, and create learning experiences that support all students.

We Featured:

Digital Accessibility 101: A Coffee Chat Refresher with Nancy O'Neill
A foundational overview of accessibility concepts and why they matter for all learners.
Recording

Before You Assign It: Checking Course Materials for Accessibility with Haley Cristea
Practical strategies for identifying accessibility barriers in PDFs, videos, websites, and publisher resources before students encounter them.
Recording

The 10-Minute Assignment Makeover with Teresa Valais
How to pair generative AI with the Transparency in Learning and Teaching (TILT) framework to quickly redesign assignments that reduce ambiguity and strengthen learning outcomes.
Recording

Sense-Sational Design: A Full Spectrum Approach with Karen Silverstrim
Moving beyond document fixes to design learning experiences that offer multiple ways to access information, engage with ideas, and demonstrate understanding across visual, auditory, cognitive, and interactive dimensions.
Recording

Missed the event or want to revisit a session? All recordings and resources are available on the Ready, Set, Accessible! resource page.

 

September Challenge: The Accessibility Feedback Loop

Whether you teach courses, support students, manage programs, or create communication, ask for input, and act on what you learn. This month, gather feedback on accessibility from the people who experience your work:

• Faculty: Ask students: "What's working well in how course materials are presented? What could be clearer or easier to navigate?"

• Staff: Ask colleagues or students who use your services: "Is there anything about how we share information or resources that creates unnecessary barriers?"

• Administrators: Ask your team: "What would make our communications, documents, or processes more accessible?"

Then take action: Choose one piece of feedback and make an adjustment. It might be as simple as adding headings to a document, providing materials in an alternative format, or clarifying instructions.

When we ask students and colleagues about accessibility barriers, we're not just fixing individual problems; we're building a culture where accessibility feedback is welcomed, expected, and acted upon. This transforms accessibility from a compliance checklist into a continuous improvement practice.

 

Why Accessibility Is Everyone’s Job

If you’ve ever heard (or thought) the phrase "that's not my job" regarding accessibility, you're not alone. Inspired by Dr. Katie Grennell’s insights on navigating pushback to accessibility work, we will explore why these concerns are common across higher education, and how they reflect real challenges: unclear expectations, competing priorities, and uncertainty about where to start. Despite these challenges, accessibility is woven into the work we all do—teaching, communicating, creating content, supporting students. And it doesn't require becoming an expert overnight.

When colleagues express concerns about accessibility, they're often communicating something legitimate:

• "I don't have time" → "I'm overwhelmed and don't know where to start."

• "That's disability services' job" → "I'm unclear about my role."

• "I don't have disabled students" → "I don't see how this benefits my class."

These aren't excuses, but rather they're signals that we need clearer expectations and better support.

Accessibility connects to things we already care about as higher education professionals:

Student success: Accessible courses remove barriers that prevent disabled students from engaging fully. Accessibility wins such as clear document structure, captions, and transparent instructions help ensure that disabled students including those with visual, auditory, motor, cognitive, or learning disabilities, can engage in learning effectively and independently.

Practical efficiency: Building accessibility in from the start saves time later. You won't be scrambling to fix materials when a student requests accommodations.

Universal Design for Learning: Accessibility and UDL go together. When you offer multiple ways to access content and demonstrate learning, all students benefit.

Everyone Plays a Role

• Faculty design accessible courses and create clear materials

• Staff ensure communications and processes work for everyone

• Instructional designers provide practical guidance and support

• Administrators set expectations and allocate resources

• Students give feedback that helps us identify barriers

When accessibility becomes part of how we work, it transforms from a compliance task into a shared commitment to student success.

 

Applications Open for Fall Cohort of USM Digital Accessibility Fellows

The USM Kirwan Center for Academic Innovation is accepting applications for the Boosting Course Accessibility Faculty Fellows program. This initiative supports up to 12 USM faculty members in digital accessibility-related course redesign to reduce barriers and improve access for all students.

What You'll Receive:

• $1,500 stipend

• Structured support for accessibility-focused course improvements

• Connection to a cohort of faculty working on similar goals

Application Deadline: Thursday, September 11, 2026

Whether you're ready to tackle captions for an entire course, redesign assignments for clarity, or systematically improve document accessibility, this program provides the time and support to make meaningful progress.

Learn More and Apply 

Faculty Spotlight: Dr. Angela Freeman, Associate Professor of Biological Sciences, Salisbury University

Angela Freeman's entry into digital accessibility started long before the updated Title II regulations. She is a millennial who keeps her phone with the sound off all the time, which means uncaptioned videos are a particular pet peeve. It was such a pet peeve, in fact, that Angela has been captioning her own videos, for class or otherwise, for 9 years.

When colleagues began discussing the approaching Title II deadline, Angela found herself already ahead of the curve on video captions. But her home discipline, Biology, presented STEM-specific challenges that standard accessibility guides don't always address. How do you make a lab handout screen-readable when it's full of underscores for fill-in-the-blank answers? How do you write alt-text for an anatomy quiz without providing the answer? Angela addressed the first by moving away from the “hundreds of underscores” that screen readers often skip or misread, instead using Word’s developer tools to create accessible form fields. For the second, she navigated assessments by using descriptive but non-identifying language, describing a "vessel colored red" rather than simply naming it an "artery."

Rather than tackling these disciplinary challenges alone, Angela brought her colleagues into the conversation. At the November 2025 Biological Sciences Department meeting, she presented a 21-slide roadmap that addressed why improving digital accessibility benefits everyone and provided practical "how-to" steps for headings, captions, and alt text. Drawing on her background as a "tech-native" who grew up with command-line computers, she didn't just tell her colleagues what to do; she showed them how to do it efficiently. She created a Word template so that accessibility is baked in the moment a colleague opens a new document, preventing them from having to "reinvent the wheel" every time. She also volunteered to help fellow faculty with ongoing accessibility questions and made her presentation available to the entire department.

Angela's leadership has moved the department to an estimated 85-90% compliance rate. Beyond her department, she now sits on the curriculum committee for the Henson School of Science and Technology, where she catches the small but vital details, like ensuring a syllabus file has a proper title rather than a string of characters. She's also become a go-to resource for colleagues who are working on improving the accessibility of their course materials.

But Angela hasn't abandoned her original passion: captions. She still goes the extra mile for videos, even when they're not her own. "A lot of YouTube videos don't have captions," she explains. "And so I end up including links [to the video], but then I usually screen record, put new captions on, or I share a transcript that I just made with all the students, and I'm like, take this. You should have it. Because this video is great, but it's from 10 years ago, and no one captioned it." Even when auto-captions exist, she provides corrected transcripts for her students, warning them that "the captions are okay, but some of those science words are mixed up." For example, auto-captions often want to turn “caecilians,” the amphibians, into “Sicilians,” the people from Italy. If you don’t check, a student will get the wrong answer.

Angela's approach demonstrates that accessibility is most sustainable when it's integrated into daily habits rather than treated as a compliance checkbox, and her work has created a ripple effect across SU’s Henson School of Science & Technology. What started as a personal pet peeve about uncaptioned videos has become a shared departmental practice to make materials more usable for everyone.

 

Get Involved

Whether you’re ready to lead, want to share an accessibility success story, or are looking for practical guidance, we want to hear from you.

Share or Nominate an Accessibility Win

Visit the USM Digital Accessibility Hub

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