Americans with Disabilities Act Committee
MEETING MINUTES – AUGUST 23, 2013
August 23, 2013
11:00 AM – Library 102
Members present: Thomas Kearns, Beverly Bavaro, Bo Murdock, Paul Davis, Teresa Golden, Fred Lokken, Dave Roberts,
Joan Loustalet
Project updates
Facilities: All of the 7 recommendations made by the OCR Compliance Review in Fall 2012 are either complete or in the last
stages. In addition an automatic door opener has been installed at the North Entrance to the Sierra Building. The total cost
for the modifications is approximately $127,000.
Web College: money has been committed from the DE fee to caption introductory and other videos instructors are using in
their online classes. Web College has hired a student worker for this project. The idea is it capture new videos as they are
produced and then go back to capture existing videos. The committee discussed the scope of captioning needs and the
likelihood that the demand will grow. Ideally, all video content will be captioned, including those for internal use such as the
President’s addresses to the campus community. The committee discussed various options for making captioned videos
easier to produce, such as using Dragon Naturally Speaking to convert audio content to text. While not ideal, having
transcripts available would be an intermediary step when captioning isn’t ready available.
The DRC is sending advance notice out to faculty when we know they have students with visual or hearing impairments in
their classrooms (we call the process SNAAP). This process has alerted us to situations where captioning has been needed
and helped to be pro-active in providing access to students with sensory impairments.
Fred indicated that there may be a possibility to piggy-back on to a contract California Community Colleges have with a
captioning service that would be more economical than we could negotiate on our own. Fred and Joan will look in to this
possibility.
Web page
We need to review the content for the committee webpage and add content as needed. Beverly will update the members list
and add a link to the DRC page. Joan will be responsible for posting agendas and minutes.
The suggestion was made to add a comments box or some other way that folks could share an ADA concern or suggestion
with the committee.
Regarding the new web site, it is accessible and Web Services is using a third party accessibility checker that flags inaccessible
content. There is a lot of inaccessible content on faculty webpages. The question came up as to whether the same
accessibility tool, or something similar could be used in conjunction with Canvas.
ADA / Disability awareness activities
Beverly suggested that the DRC produce its own newsletter and publish quarterly as a means to educate students, faculty
and staff regarding disability – what it is, what it is not, resources.
At the next meeting the committee will brainstorm on Disability Awareness activities for spring. For fall, Tom is working on
bringing a wheelchair rugby demonstration to campus and we will have an event on 9/27 – “How to Raise a Rocket Scientist”
Page 1 of 2; ADA Committee Meeting Minutes
TMCC is an EEO/AA institution. See http://eeo.tmcc.edu for more information.
Created: 10/2/2013; Rev: 10/2/2013
author Steven Browne will speak about the challenges and triumphs raising a child with Cerebral Palsy who now works for
NASA.
Review of new and proposed policies related to ADA
Accessible Electronic Information and Technology Policy was distributed and reviewed
ADA compliance and academics
Tom also thought it would be helpful to identify a review team that would confirm compliance.
New Business
Fred suggested that we invite folks from the CA Community College System to talk to us about compliance and what they are
doing, this could be a good source for information and collaboration
To Do’s before our next meeting
Dave – send out minutes from this meeting and google poll to determine next meeting
Tom and Travis – look in to access checker for Canvas
Fred and Joan – check on CA’s captioning contract and see if TMCC can be included
Beverly and Joan – review website, post agendas and minutes, set up DRC newsletter
Agenda items for next meeting
1. Reports on to-do list items
2. Recommendations for a plan regarding captioning
3.
4.
5.
6.
a. Contract with CA
b. Dragon availability for faculty/staff
c. Other strategies
Brainstorm awareness activities for spring semester
a. Campus wide awareness activities
b. Advertising of Canvas accessibility modules to faculty
c. Professional Development Days presentations/workshops
d. Content for DRC newsletter
Discuss the idea of forming a compliance committee
Issues around math accessibility – information from Tom’s training at the High Tech Training Center in California
New Business
Page 2 of 2;ADA Committee Meeting Minutes
TMCC is an EEO/AA institution. See http://eeo.tmcc.edu for more information.
Rev.: 10/2/2013