In the fall of 2024, a student enrolled in one of my ENG 101 courses used a screenreader to access course materials. Prior to that semester, I was confident my class was accessible. I made sure my videos had accurate captions, I used headings in my syllabus, and watched for Canvas’s blue accessibility warnings. However, working with this student revealed that my course was actually quite difficult for someone with visual impairments to navigate. This experience opened my eyes to the many hidden roadblocks hiding in my courses, and I learned a lot about accessibility on the fly.

Now, when I think about accessibility, I am reminded of what’s at the heart of the community college mission. The community college movement, spearheaded by the Truman Administration in 1947, created institutions that would respond to the needs of their community while providing students an affordable, comprehensive curriculum. The goal of the community college, from its inception, has been to create a post-secondary path accessible to all Americans.

As a community college, it is in GCC’s DNA to serve our community and consistently tend to the post-secondary path we offer to all of our students. When a student comes to GCC seeking an education, we welcome them regardless of their academic background, life circumstances, or how long they’ve been away from education, nor do we turn any student away because of a low high school GPA.

Because we enroll all students, we must also ensure our courses are truly accessible to all students.

A primary goal of GCC’s Center for Teaching, Learning, and Engagement this school year is to support members of faculty, staff, and administration in ensuring that all student-facing materials and course content are 100% accessible. Next week, we are launching a new Accessibility Initiative, and we invite you to join us.

Throughout the semester, we will explore different accessibility roadblocks that we may be unwittingly placing in front of our students, from Canvas pages and PDFs that are unreadable by a screenreader to images without alt-text, videos lacking captions, and myriad issues in between. We will teach you how to spot and repair accessibility issues, and we will introduce faculty to two new Canvas tools (YuJa and UDOIT) that will help us along the way. We will work together to meet the needs of GCC’s students, and we will be in compliance with Title II by the federal deadline in 2026.

And of course, in CTLE fashion, we will have fun and treats along the way.