Learn more about new digital accessibility requirements for course materials, web content
A letter from Provost Jesse Perez Mendez and Vice President Thomas Lane
Wednesday, April 9, 2025
Dear colleagues,
When we last updated you on the progress of the digital accessibility task force in late March and shared the implementation plan and timeline leading us toward the April 2026 deadline, we alluded to forthcoming opportunities that would be announced for our faculty and staff to engage on this topic.
We are pleased to share that the digital accessibility task force will be holding a virtual town hall meeting on Tuesday, April 22, from 3:30-4:30 p.m. Connection details can be found online by signing in with your eID/password. This webinar will serve as an opportunity for faculty and staff to learn more about the digital accessibility implementation plan and timeline, the planned onboarding of content auditing and remediation tools for use by fall 2025, and planned workshops and training in development for fall 2025. It will also be an opportunity to ask questions directly to the task force.
In addition to the virtual town hall, the task force continues to seek additional opportunities this spring and summer to inform and educate our university community about the work being done to lead us toward remediation efforts this upcoming fall. They have visited Faculty Senate, including the Faculty Senate Committee on Technology, the Academic Leadership Council and the President's Cabinet.
They also have plans to share an update with academic department heads and leaders at our next roundtable for that group scheduled in early May. They welcome additional suggestions and opportunities to engage with the university community on this important topic. Please feel free to email the task force co-chairs, Ashley Bourne and Elliot Young, if you have an opportunity you'd like the committee to consider.
As the task force continues its efforts to build awareness around this initiative, please know that the team is also in the process of standing up five working groups/teams to support the following efforts this spring/summer:
- Engaging governance and drafting relevant accessibility policy changes/updates and subsequently communicating those policy updates to the university at large.
- Standing up and completing two RFPs, one for an academic content auditing/remediation tool and one for a web content auditing/remediation tool.
- Working with partners in IT and others across the institution to set up and onboard the selected tools by fall 2025.
- Building out trainings/workshops by fall 2025.
As we've shared before, this is a monumental effort that will require the involvement of the vast majority of our faculty and staff. The task force is working hard to create a suite of support and tools that will help our community manage this work and do it well. As always, we appreciate your engagement in this effort — we're lifting up our learner-focused, people-centered values as we work together to actively demonstrate our land-grant mission of access.
Go 'Cats!
Jesse Perez Mendez
Provost and executive vice president
Thomas Lane
Vice president for academic success and student affairs and dean of students