Pellissippi State Community College recently initiated a project to create a collaborative environment where faculty members work together to increase the accessibility of their course materials.
The first cohort of 10 faculty members – five accessibility experts and five novices – met weekly throughout the spring 2025 semester to teach and learn how to make their courses accessible. At the initiative’s closing ceremony, faculty members shared their progress with some increasing the accessibility of their course up to 45%.
The grant-funded program, Access by Design, is part of a larger institutional effort to be fully accessible by 2026, in accordance with updates to the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).
“It’s the responsibility of everyone to make sure they’re making things as accessible as possible,” said Charity Davenport, instructional technology specialist in the Pellissippi Academic Center for Excellence, who led Access by Design.
A common misconception is that faculty needn’t make their courses accessible until they have a student who requires an accommodation, Davenport said. Many students may require those accommodations but lack the resources, time, or finances to obtain a formal diagnosis. Accessibility can benefit all students, not just those with a disability. For example, a student who is also a parent may benefit from captioned videos that can play without sound and not disturb sleeping children.
See the entire story about this innovative project: here.
Pellissippi State Community College is a public community college based in Knox and Blount counties in Tennessee and operated by the Tennessee Board of Regents. The college operates four campuses: Hardin Valley, Blount County, Strawberry Plains, and Magnolia Avenue.
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