THE ACCESSIBILITY OF THE COMMUNITY COLLEGE CLASSROOM
TO STUDENTS WITH DISABILITIES
Judy Stoneham (judys@blueridge.edu)
Director for Disability Services
Blue Ridge Community College, NC
Abstract
Community and technical colleges, especially those located in rural
regions face significant challenges in effectively addressing the educational
needs of students with disabilities and in maintaining information equality as they
struggle to keep pace with technology. Blue Ridge Community College (BRCC)
in the Appalachian region of North Carolina developed a practice to assess
current educational technology accessibility, implement faculty training, and
upgrade adaptive technology on its two campuses. The project included the input
of a student advisory board, the development of faculty training materials, the
creation of a disability services handbook, an assessment by the NC Assistive
Tech Project, and the proposal of procurement policies.
Introduction
Information Technology in the twenty-first century is vitally important to the
success of students, skilled tradesmen, professionals, workers in all areas of
employment, and those seeking to keep abreast of a fast-paced society. It is no
less important to persons with disabilities. To assure their access, postsecondary
institutions must be on the cutting edge of educational technology. Yet it has only
been in the last ten years that many institutions have begun to recognize this
obligation and set about to provide accessible technology.
The mission of tax-based community colleges is to train local workforces
as well as students who wish to begin college studies at a much lower cost and
then transfer to four-year institutions. North Carolina established 58 colleges
across the state so that no resident would have to drive more than 30 minutes to
attend. With the appearance of community colleges in local areas and their
affordability, the workforce began to expand in the state.
Meanwhile, North Carolina public schools, largely motivated by new
federal legislation, such as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA)
and the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA), offered more programs for
students with disabilities. These programs resulted in more students graduating
high school and entering the postsecondary environment.
Many of these North Carolina students with disabilities chose to attend
community colleges. As reported by the National Council on Disability,
nationwide approximately nine percent of all college students are students with
disabilities (Frieden, 2003); 71 percent of all public higher education students
with disabilities are enrolled in community colleges (Barnett & Li, 1997).
However, the community college system has not been fully prepared for these
students. Many community colleges have no disability service providers, no
trained personnel, limited physical access, little adaptive technology, and no
designated funds for students with disabilities.
The California Community College system estimated the cost in 1992 per
student to provide disability support services as $557 (California Community
Colleges, 1992). Years after this report with costs per student in an upward
spiral, community colleges in the state of North Carolina were still appealing to
the state government to set aside the first funds ever to be earmarked for
disability support in the 2004-2005 budget-planning phases.
Currently, community and technical colleges located in isolated or
economically distressed regions face significant challenges in effectively
maintaining information equality as they struggle to keep pace with technology
and obtain affordable broadband access for all students. To combat the added
disadvantages of rural locations and tax bases much lower than those of major
cities in North Carolina, twelve presidents of Community Colleges formed the
Western North Carolina Community College Technology Consortium in
September 1999. This collaborative effort was for the benefit of sharing
information, leveraging resources, and cooperating in new ventures. Blue Ridge
Community College’s president, Dr. David W. Sink, Jr., who has committed
himself to providing and improving accessibility for students, faculty, and staff
with disabilities, was among the 12 presidents in the technology consortium.
Background of the Institution
The Blue Ridge Community College is located in Flat Rock, NC and
currently has more than 2000 curriculum students (i.e., students taking classes
for college credit) and over 8000 students in Continuing Education. Curriculum
enrollment in 2004 was 2,128, which represented a 45 percent increase since
1997. More than 65 percent of BRCC students also worked while attending
college and at least 550 students received financial aid. The average age of the
student body was 34 and 99 percent of the 2002 BRCC graduates were
employed within one year of graduation in an area hit hard by economic
downturns (Sink, D. 2003-2004).
BRCC is typical of the 58 community colleges in NC. Although a few are
quite small, the largest, Central Piedmont in Charlotte, has 60,000 curriculum
students. The year 2004 was the fourth consecutive year that Blue Ridge
Community College earned a superior rating from the state on how well the
College serves its students and local business and industry, based on
performance measures mandated by the General Assembly of NC to ensure
strong public accountability from the 58 community colleges. Only one other
college in the system obtained this ranking for all four years.
Description of the Problem
For community colleges to remove barriers that hinder access for students
with disabilities, changes must be made in procurement policies, in professional
development for faculty, in the commitment to purchase and understand assistive
and adaptive technology, and in communication with students transitioning to the
postsecondary environment.
Challenges are numerous. Adaptive technology is not always available in
the high school and on many community college campuses. Procurement
policies that require that product accessibility be considered have not been
developed. There is no requirement at the post-secondary level that instructors
receive information about accommodating students with disabilities.
Misunderstanding of the law interferes with the willingness of instructors to
modify materials. Paid release time from the classroom for faculty to engage in
professional development is difficult to obtain and skilled trainers are few and far
between. Few instructors have encountered the technological accommodations
that have emerged in the last five years. The need for professional development
activities for faculty in the use of these adaptations is increasing along with the
large influx of students with disabilities in vocational and technical programs. It is
critical that instructors in these programs become familiar and comfortable with
providing access to their courses.
Adequate communication between the colleges and prospective and
currently enrolled students regarding access barriers and accommodations is
overlooked. Administration is pulled in many directions regarding expenditures
and must deal with shrinking budgets, legislated disbursement of funds, and
response to request from local governments.
Description of the Outcomes
It is with this background that Blue Ridge Community College set about to
improve services to students with disabilities as a partner of the Southeast
Disability and Business Technical Assistance Center (DBTAC), a project of the
Center for Assistive Technology and Environmental Access (CATEA) at the
Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta. The Southeast DBTAC provided
funding for professional development opportunities for faculty, the improvement
of training materials for distribution, the establishment of a panel to solicit advice
from students with disabilities, the assessment of the campus accessibility in the
area of educational information technology, and the expansion of procurement
policies for the future.
The Southeast DBTAC is one of ten regional centers funded by the
National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research (NIDRR) of the U.S.
Department of Education (Grant #H133D010207). The Southeast DBTAC is
responsible for providing technical assistance, training and information about the
Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA), as well as promoting the need for
accessible information technology in educational entities across the eight states
of the Southeast Region, including Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky,
Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee. The Southeast
DBTAC works with colleges, universities, community colleges, and K-12 schools
to improve access to information technology for students with disabilities in a
wide variety of settings and is assisted in this endeavor by a 21-member
Education Leadership Team comprised of representatives from educational
institutions throughout the Southeast Region, including rural community colleges
and historically black colleges and universities.
In order to meet its goals of enhancing accessibility to information
technology, the Southeast DBTAC established an Educational Leadership
Initiative (ELI) to address a variety of issues across educational environments in
the Southeast region. In the initial three rounds of ELI funding, the Southeast
DBTAC provided support to fifteen different education-based projects, in both K12 and higher education, dedicated to removing barriers to information
technology for students with disabilities.
One of the goals of the ELI was to establish at least one school, one
community college, one university, one state department of education, and one
community learning center in the Southeast region to become models in access
to information technology. The focus was for model institutions, such as Blue
Ridge Community College, to implement changes in the following areas:

include access in procurement policies,

improve website accessibility,

remove barriers to classrooms, labs, and distance learning,

improve awareness and skills of faculty and staff,

provide funding for access improvements, and

increase participation of students with disabilities and families.
Several steps were undertaken during Fall semester, 2002, beginning with
the formation of a student advisory board representative of the curriculum
student body. The board was made up of persons with documented physical,
emotional, cognitive, and processing disabilities. The ages ranged from 19 years
old to 44 years old, with 126 students identified to Disability Services in 2002 out
of 1988 enrolled students. The breakdown of areas of disability represented by
members of the student advisory board follows:
51.66 % learning (2)
17.64% other (1)
8.90% deaf or hard of hearing (1)
7.70% visual (1)
5.12% emotional (1)
6.30% speech (1)
2.68% orthopedic (1)
Project staff decided that each member of the student board should
receive an incentive. Each semester the students were given a grant of money
equal to the cost of a four hour course at Blue Ridge Community College
($147.25 in 2002). To work with the Business Office the students’ time was
designated as contracted services.
The first organizational meeting of the student advisory board was held in
September, 2002, and led by Judy Stoneham, Director for Disability Services and
grant recipient. The ten students agreed to survey the accessibility of their
educational surroundings and report to the board at the first formal meeting a
week later. At that meeting, all students cited the lack of training for faculty in
giving equal access to students with disabilities as the number-one barrier to
success in the classroom. The board also cited computer labs that were poorly
designed for maneuverability, online classes conducted in Blackboard that
seemed incompatible with assistive software, and the difficulty in navigating the
BRCC website. The input of the student advisory board set the parameters that
would define the project as faculty professional development, removing
classroom barriers, finding a voice on campus, and developing procurement
policies.
Faculty professional development became the first priority and because 51
percent of the students with disabilities were registered with the Disability
Services office reported learning disabilities, it seemed appropriate that the initial
information would be about that area of disability.

The workshop was held during a 90-minute session on a designated
faculty workday. The support of the Dean of Instruction was vital to the
attendance at the training and all full-time faculty members were present.

The presentation, entitled, “Get the FACTS About Student With Learning
Disabilities” was two hours in length. (FACTS is an acronym for “Faculty
And Counselors Together for Students.”)

Each participant was given a pre-workshop survey and a post-workshop
survey to measure the effectiveness of the training. Survey responses
indicate that all full-time faculty gained a better understanding and learned
new procedures and ways of accommodating students with learning
disabilities. In post-surveys participants tended to “strongly agree” that
accommodations do not compromise the integrity of coursework whereas
pre-surveys they tended to “disagree”.

The adjunct faculty members were trained in basic procedures, law, and
accommodations. It is important to note that most were receiving
information for the first time and were surprised by the responsibility of
accommodation.

A campus-wide training thrust came in April 2003 at an Information
session for which all faculty and staff of the College were required to
attend. The North Carolina Assistive Technology Project sent a
representative to discuss accessible web design with faculty, staff, and
administration. This step of the project was considered unsuccessful
because feedback indicated that the attendees were unable to grasp the
most basic concepts regarding accessibility in web design.
The student advisory board was instrumental in the development of a
Faculty Disability Services Handbook. Before finalizing the handbook for
distribution, students from the advisory board reviewed the material and
commented from personal experience saying such things as: “Whoever wrote the
part on speech handicaps hit the nail on the head…..the layout and arrangement
are easy-to-read and well-designed……I was happy to see the section on
auditory difficulties which for some reason I think few instructors are aware
about……instead of having blue skies and stars, maybe a graphic of a student
studying or working with a computer. Yes, it is more bland, but says ‘This is what
you must do.’” With the approval of the student advisory board the handbook was
printed, distributed to every employee of Blue Ridge Community College, and
posted on the website under a password protected faculty page at
www.blueridge.edu. It is available for public use at the Southeast DBTAC
website at http://www.sedbtac.org/ed/abouted/blueridge/index.html.
The North Carolina Assistive Technology Project (NCTAP) came to Blue
Ridge Community College and spent several days evaluating the educational
technology at Flat Rock and the Transylvania Center. Both campuses were
judged to be progressive, but inaccessible to varying degrees with respect to the
following key areas:
–Web accessibility,
–Campus-wide information technology,
–Computer station ergonomics, and
–Computer input and output.
The NCATP presented both short-term and long-term suggestions for
each of the areas sited as barriers to students with disabilities. The highest
priority was not assistive and adaptive software as expected, but rather to
“improve environmental access and maneuverability in the computer lab
classrooms and media center, elevators, and the library”. Assistive technologies
and accommodations were judged to be in place to meet the instructional needs
of the students enrolled at that time, but it was suggested that usability
evaluations and accessibility checks should be an on-going practice each time
changes are made. Also, the NCATP suggested that all persons contributing to
and designing the Blue Ridge Community College website should consider
training in the area of web accessibility. As a result of that suggestion on
December 3, 2004, web developers from BRCC took part in a Web Training
Initiative conducted by the Southeast DBTAC and improvements to the website
are on-going.
The Information Technology department had never set forth procurement
policies with accessibility in mind. In 2003 the Disability Services Director was
placed on the policy and procedure information technology committee with the
express goal of preparing guidelines for purchasing that can be developed into
policy. With this final piece in place, Blue Ridge Community College can serve as
the model of Promising Practices for improved service to students with
disabilities and hopes to encourage replication in community colleges in North
Carolina and the Southeast.
Lessons Learned
Project staff of this promising practice learned much from the activities
reported in this article. Learnings that can benefit similar projects include:

Faculty have very little understanding of accessible online or distance
learning classes.

Training faculty in accessible online or distance learning classes is best
after basic training in barrier awareness for students with disabilities

Since over 50 percent of disabled students in college report having
learning disabilities, it makes sense to train faculty first in accommodating
these students.

Many disabled students want to give input regarding barriers to the
learning environment but are rarely asked more often than the initial
contact with the Disability Services Office.

Colleges are resistant to procurement policies regarding information
technology, but can be swayed with facts about savings to the College
over the long term.

Information Technology Departments are quite territorial and “invading”
their space must be done with facts and figures. The nature of persons in
the technology field is to be of service and once they see the need, they
are eager to move ahead and go beyond what is expected.
Conclusion
The leadership initiative reported in this article enabled a rural community
college to take a long, hard look at its policies, training, and technology. Many
indicators of outcomes from this initiative were anecdotal, but suggest:

increased input from students with disabilities regarding barriers.

increased interest from faculty in accommodating students who have
learning disabilities.

increased awareness of technology department staff regarding students
with disabilities and their information technology needs.

policies for purchase of accessible copiers, computers, workstations, and
removal of physical barriers in the computer labs and distance learning
rooms.

the addition of the Disability Service Director on the information
technology planning committee.
It is expected that these project efforts contributed to more students with
disabilities completing programs of study and an increased graduation rate of 20
percent in three years. This project clearly removed barriers to students with
disabilities at Blue Ridge Community College and, in many cases, improved
educational services for all students.
References
Barnett, L., & Li, Y. (1997). Disability Support Services in Community Colleges, Research Brief
ACC-RB-97-1."Washington, DC: American Association of Community Colleges.
California Community Colleges. "Student Services and Special Programs: A Report on Program
Effectiveness." Sacramento, CA: California Community Colleges, Board of Governors,
1992. (ED 351 065)
Frieden, L. (2003). People with disabilities and postsecondary education. Retrieved March 15,
2005, from http://www.ncd.gov/newsroom/publications/2003/education.htm
Sink, D. (2003-2004). Blue Ridge Community College Annual Report 2003-2004, Flat Rock,
North Carolina: Blue Ridge Community College.