In celebration of the 10th annual Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD), Teach Access is pleased to announce that we have selected 15 faculty members to receive our 2021-2022 Teach Access Curriculum Development Awards of $5,000 each. These awards will be used to develop modules, presentations, exercises or curriculum enhancements or changes that introduce the fundamental concepts and skills of accessible design and development in existing, classroom-based courses. We hope that the teaching of these concepts will help close the accessible technology skills gap that the Partnership on Employment & Accessible Technology (PEAT) identified in 2018.
These awards are made possible through funding from Teach Access industry members. A full list of Teach Access members can be found on our Supporters & Contributors page.
We received many applications from qualified faculty across the country! We gave each application serious consideration, and selected those that we felt would have the largest impact, had the strongest outreach plans, were the most sustainable, and had clearly laid out evaluation plans. We also gave preference to faculty who have not taught accessibility topics in their courses before, and we strove to choose faculty who represented geographic diversity across the United States.
The 15 award winners are (in alphabetical order):
- Omar Badreddin (University of Texas at El Paso)
- Michael Ball (UC Berkeley)
- William Bares (Whitman College)
- Dr. Tracy Christofero (Marshall University)
- Samantha Corcoran (Wichita State University)
- Mine Dogucu (University of California, Irvine)
- Jenny Kowalski (Temple University)
- Anastasia Kurdia (Tulane University)
- Lauren Lee McCarthy & Claire Kearney-Volpe (University of California, Los Angeles)
- Mac-Arthur Louis (Hudson Valley Community College)
- Michael McQuaid (Rochester Institute of Technology)
- Meredith Moore (Drake University)
- John L. O’Neill (University of Minnesota, Duluth)
- Alyssa Taylor (University of Washington)
- Dr. Elissa Weeden (Rochester Institute of Technology)
View the full list of our past winners at the bottom of the Faculty Grants page.
Teach Access appreciates the thoughtful considerations of our selection committee who represented industry, academia and the disability advocacy community, and thanks everyone who took the time to apply.
Special thanks go to all of the applicants who demonstrated their dedication to helping make systemic changes in higher ed curricula, to assure emerging technologies will be “born accessible.” We anticipate similar awards will be available in the future and encourage all to join our email list by writing to info@teachaccess.org to stay current with Teach Access activities
