Bellarmine is committed to providing the most inclusive educational opportunities possible for students with disabilities. As that population grows, this commitment is more important than ever. Between 2015 and 2020, the number of students registered with the Accessibility Resource Center rose by almost 31 percent. In response to this growth, Bellarmine underwent a voluntary campus accessibility audit in the spring of 2021 to identify areas in which we could improve the ways we serve students with disabilities. The audit was conducted by a group of consultants from Indianapolis who made a three-day site visit, during which they met with students, staff, faculty and administrators.
In their report, the consultants observed that Bellarmine is a warm and welcoming community for students with disabilities. They were encouraged by the university’s desire to promote diversity and specifically noted the strong advocacy of Dr. D.J. Mitchell, Bellarmine’s chief diversity, equity and inclusion officer, to include disability in Bellarmine’s diversity initiatives. They were impressed by the accommodation process and the programs already in place to support students with disabilities, such as Access BU and Students Beyond Barriers. Access BU is an early transition program hosted by the Accessibility Resource Center that allows incoming students with disabilities to get an advance look at the college experience and be placed with a peer mentor. Students Beyond Barriers is an organization open to all students that focuses on creating advocates and allies for students with disabilities. Bellarmine is at the precipice of becoming a leader in providing accessibility for students with disabilities, said the consultants, who outlined several recommendations for how the university can achieve this goal as the population of students with disabilities continues to grow. An overarching theme of the audit report was the need to incorporate Universal Design principles across campus. Auditors commended Bellarmine’s efforts to make the university accessible to students, faculty and staff but said that further incorporation of Universal Design principles and practices would strongly support Bellarmine’s desire to embrace disability as a valued aspect of diversity. The premise of Universal Design is simple: Rather than retrofitting buildings, environments or consumer products with accessibility features after they have been created, anticipate diversity in users’ needs and incorporate accessibility features from the outset, Sally Scott, Stan Shaw and Joan McGuire wrote in "Teaching College Students with Learning Disabilities" in the ERIC (Educational Resources Information Center) Digest. Examples of Universal Design include sidewalk curb cuts, automatic doors and closed captioning on television screens in public places. While these features are particularly helpful to people with disabilities, they benefit other individuals as well. In the late 1990s, researchers built on the elements of Universal Design originally found in the fields of architecture, interior, landscape and product design and applied them to the college classroom. The result, according to Scott, Shaw and McGuire in "Universal Design for Instruction: The Paradigm, Its Principles, and Products for Enhancing Instructional Access" in the Journal of Postsecondary Education and Disability, was Universal Design for Instruction (UDI), an approach to teaching that consists of the proactive design and use of inclusive instructional strategies that are responsive to the diverse needs of learners. UDI encompasses nine principles that make accessibility an integral focus of instructional planning. By incorporating these principles into coursework, we can increase accessibility not only for students with disabilities, but for all Bellarmine students. Nine Principles of UDI- Equitable use: accessible and usable by everyone
- Flexibility in use: accommodated to individual needs with choices provided
- Simple and intuitive: clear and understood regardless of student’s experience, knowledge, language skills or current concentration level
- Perceptible information: accessible regardless of students’ sensory abilities
- Tolerance for error: anticipates learning pace and prerequisite skills
- Low physical effort: minimizes nonessential physical effort (unless physical effort is integral to the essential requirements of a course)
- Size and space for approach and use: considers physical and sensory access to environment, equipment and tasks
- A community of learners: promotes interaction and communication among students and between students and faculty
- Instructional climate: welcoming and inclusive