UC Accessibility (A11Y) Newsletter

November Module

Our second Canvas module launches in November and examines disability definitions, models, and terminology; and color contrast, heading levels and styles, and audio description.

Sign up to be added to the UC A11Y Canvas course!

Suggest content or nominate an Access Hero at your campus here!

(Note: as an accessibility best practice, links will open in the same tab)

Zoom Meeting: Wednesday, November 6 @ 3 PM

Please join us for a Zoom training with Dr. Joel Snyder on Incorporating Audio Description within your Lectures.

ASL interpretation provided (tips for working with ASL interpreters on Zoom)

➡️ Register ⬅️ This workshop will run for 90 minutes.

What is audio description (AD)?

Although dialogue can help blind and low vision folks follow a show, film, or theater performance to an extent, additional narration is necessary for true inclusion. Audio description is narration that describes scenery, costumes, actions, facial and physical expressions, and other visual elements on screen or on stage.

Check out this brief video demonstration of a clip from the show Community first without, and then with, audio description:

Audio description is also important in accessible instruction. If you’ve ever found yourself saying “As you can see on this slide…”, this workshop is for you!

Suggested reading (written by UC Berkeley faculty! 🎉):

Georgina Kleege and Scott Wallin, “Audio Description as a Pedagogical Tool,” Disability Studies Quarterly 35, no. 2 (2015), http://dsq-sds.org/article/view ...

November Disability and Accessibility Dates:

World Usability Day (WUD) is the second Thursday of November (November 14th this year). Since 2005, WUD has celebrated advances in accessibility and usability of products and services. This year’s theme is “Designing for a Better World.”

What did Harriet Tubman, Leonardo Da Vinci, and Beethoven have in common? They all had epilepsy. Learn more about the neurological disorder for Epilepsy Awareness Month, which has been observed each November since 1969.

International Stress Awareness Day is observed on the first Wednesday of November (November 6th this year). This is especially timely with election season—consider how you’ll protect your mental health during this especially anxious time. Check out UCLA’s Guided Meditations in a number of languages — included American Sign Language!

Disability Hero: Dr. Paul Longmore

Dr. Paul Longmore earned a doctorate in history from Claremont Graduate University in 1984 and taught at San Francisco State University. Because of paralysis resulting from polio, he worked on his dissertation, “The Invention of George Washington,” for a decade, punching letters on the keyboard with a pen in his mouth.

To earn tenure, he needed to publish the work as a book. However, at that time in the late 1980s, royalties earned on books were considered unearned, and publishing his book meant forfeiting the social security he needed to afford the round-the-clock care he needed to survive.

In protest, he burned his book after it was printed by the University of California Press.

Longmore's activism led to passage of the Longmore Amendment, which allows authors with disabilities to remain eligible for Supplemental Security Income.

Check out Why I Burned My Book and Other Essays on Disability by Paul Longmore.

University of California connection:

The Paul K. Longmore Institute on Disability at San Francisco State University is run by Dr. Catherine Kudlick, a former History faculty member of UC Davis. Kudlick is blind and a graduate of both UC Santa Cruz and UC Berkeley.

Subscribe to their mailing list for information about upcoming events.

Universal Design for Learning:

The UDL Higher Education Network (UDLHE) is hosting their 2024 Digital Conference this November 7th and 8th. Check out the conference schedule, with a dozen sessions on GenAI and UDL, below!

A11Y Tip: Headings and Styles

When sighted folks navigate a website, document, or Canvas page, they look for differentiated text to indicate organization and structure. Large text across the top, for instance, visually demonstrates a title.

Instead of just typing a title or heading and making it bold with large font, we should arrange our documents according to the formatting tools built into MS Word, Google Docs, SiteImprove, and Canvas. This ensures that the underlying code is set correctly for screen reader use and allows for easily skimming and navigation.

Organize your content hierarchically, from Title (sometimes called Heading Level 1, or <h1>), to subheadings, to normal text. Note that in Canvas, like in HTML, normal text is called “paragraph.” Heading levels should go in order: Heading 2 → Heading 3 → Heading 4 (not Heading 4 → Heading 2)

If you’ve seen a Google Docs document with an organized outline on the far left panel, that’s a result of correct formatting.

Again, we should format text according to its function and not how these styles look. We can always change how they appear after we’ve correctly identified the purpose that text serves in your document.

Check out the UC A11Y Canvas course for more on this topic and other accessibility best practices.

Access Hero:

November’s Access Hero is Yvette Doss! Yvette started a Neurodiversity Taskforce at UC Santa Barbara and has been facilitating excellent workshops on supporting neurodivergent students, including sessions on "Supporting Students with Autism and ADHD in the Classroom" as part of the Certificate in Inclusive Teaching at UCSB. Her work has greatly contributed to creating more inclusive and supportive learning environments for all students. 

Thank you, Yvette, for your important work!

Nominate an Access Hero who works to make your campus more accessible!

Nominees can be anyone on campus -- staff members, students, or instructors.

We’ll give them a shout-out in a future newsletter.

UC Updates:

UC Santa Barbara recently launched a Certificate in Inclusive Teaching! The program is designed for UCSB graduate students and postdocs to help them foster inclusive classrooms, effectively mentor a diverse student body, and enhance their professional development.

UCLA hosted an action-packed Disability Pride Week October 7-11 with wheelchair basketball, talks on the Deaflympics and Paralympics, workshops on accessible research and disability allyship, time with and education around service and support animals, a screening of Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution and viewing of Green Day's American Idiot: An American Sign Language-Powered Rock Musical for Today!

UC Davis hosted a Disability Awareness Symposium on October 16 and screened a documentary on Dr. Steven Tingus, a UC Davis Aggie born with Schwartz-Jampel syndrome (a form of muscular dystrophy) and director of the National Institute of Disability and Rehabilitation Research.

The All Access Employee Resource Group at Berkeley Lab hosted workshops on "Neurodiversity and Inclusive Excellence" and "Mentioning the Unmentionable: The Language of Disability” for National Disability Employment Awareness Month (NDEAM).

News:

Wicked, the film adaptation of the Broadway musical and novel by the same name, comes out November 22.

A prequal to The Wizard of Oz, Wicked tells the origin story of Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West. Elphaba’s sister, Nessarose, uses a wheelchair, and, due to bitterness around her disability and unrequited love, becomes the Wicked Witch of the East. She convinces Elphaba to use her powers to reverse her disability; magical ruby slippers allow her to walk for the first time in her life. But Nessarose’s vengeance and use of spells is not without consequence.

The good news? The actress cast as Nessarose, Marissa Bode, uses a wheelchair herself. Able-bodied actors playing disabled characters is problematic; check out this short blog post by UCLA’s Disabilities and Computing Program for another famous example.

However, the character of Nessarose is controversial, as her disability catalyzes her villain arc. Wicked seems to employ what David Mitchell and Sharon Snyder call the narrative prosthesis, a device “that reveals the pervasive dependency of artistic, cultural, and philosophical discourses upon the powerful alterity [the state of being other or different] assigned to people with disabilities.”

Learn more:

Haller, Beth. "‘Wicked’ Gives Disability an Evil Name.” Disability Studies Quarterly 24, no. 2 (Spring 2004), <www.dsq-sds.org>

Mitchell, David T. and Sharon L. Snyder. Narrative Prosthesis: Disability and the Dependencies of Discourse. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 2000.