Collaboration to Advance Accessibility in Higher Education Through Research, Faculty Fellowships, and Innovative Pedagogy
Teach Access, a nonprofit dedicated to making digital accessibility fundamental to higher education curricula, proudly announces its newest academic hub, the University System of Maryland’s (USM) William E. Kirwan Center for Academic Innovation. This collaboration aims to advance accessibility education, research, and practice by integrating accessibility-focused initiatives into faculty development, curriculum design, and institutional strategy across USM.
The Kirwan Center + Teach Access partnership will focus on several key initiatives, including:
- Establishing a Kirwan Center + Teach Access Faculty Fellowship to support faculty embedding accessibility into their pedagogy and research.
- Conducting joint research on effective strategies for integrating accessibility into academic disciplines.
- Collaborating on credentialing initiatives to ensure students gain recognized expertise in accessibility.
- Developing Open Educational Resources (OER) and contributing to OER Commons to make accessibility-related materials more widely available.
Through these efforts, Teach Access will provide the University System of Maryland with free resources to enhance accessibility education across various courses and disciplines. The collaboration will amplify best practices in pedagogy, research, and institutional implementation of accessibility, ultimately preparing students to create more inclusive digital products?. In turn, the Kirwan Center will coordinate accessibility-focused initiatives across the system and leverage its existing statewide partnerships for even greater impact.
“We are thrilled to partner with the Kirwan Center and the University System of Maryland to further our mission of integrating accessibility into education,” said Rolando Méndez, Teach Access Director of Education. “This initiative will empower faculty and students with the tools they need to champion accessibility in their fields.”
“Designing with accessibility in mind – whether software applications, lesson plans, or museum exhibitions – is a vital 21st-century skill,” said Nancy O’Neill, Executive Director of the USM Kirwan Center. “We are proud to be the first state system-level academic hub for Teach Access in the country, and together we have the potential to develop accessibility-focused initiatives at an unprecedented scale.”
This partnership marks a significant step toward embedding accessibility in higher education and fostering a new generation of professionals dedicated to inclusive design and innovation.
About Teach Access
Teach Access is a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization that brings together industry, education, government, and disability advocacy organizations to address the digital accessibility skills gap by equipping learners to build an inclusive world. Teach Access envisions a fully accessible future in which students enter the workforce with knowledge of the needs of people with disabilities and skills in the principles of accessible design and development so that technology products and services are born accessible.
About the USM Kirwan Center for Academic Innovation
The mission of the USM Kirwan Center is to leverage the power of multi-institutional collaboration to increase access, affordability, and achievement of high-quality credentials for Maryland students. Informed by the diversity of our higher education institutions, findings from the learning sciences, and capabilities of emerging technologies, the Center leads statewide efforts to implement, evaluate, and scale and sustain innovations aimed at student success.
About the University System of Maryland
The USM comprises 12 institutions: Bowie State University; Coppin State University; Frostburg State University; Salisbury University; Towson University; the University of Baltimore; the University of Maryland, Baltimore; the University of Maryland, Baltimore County; the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science; the University of Maryland, College Park; the University of Maryland Eastern Shore; and the University of Maryland Global Campus. The USM also includes three regional centers—the Universities at Shady Grove, the University System of Maryland at Hagerstown, and the University System of Maryland at Southern Maryland—at which USM universities offer upper-division undergraduate and graduate courses.
USM institutions and programs are among the nation’s best in quality and value, according to several national rankings. To learn more about the University System of Maryland, visit www.usmd.edu. To learn about the new USM Strategic Plan, “Vision 2030: From Excellence to Preeminence,” visit https://www.usmd.edu/vision2030/
