Community is the Key to Accessibility with Mark Nichols

Welcome to Episode 97 of the Think UDL podcast: Community is the Key to Accessibility with Mark Nichols. Mark Nichols is the Senior Director of Universal Design and Accessible Technologies at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia. Mark’s team has had great success in implementing accessible learning materials campus-wide with the help of many offices and fellow advocates on campus. In today’s conversation, we will talk about how to create a culture of accessibility, how he has been able to improve and think systematically about accessible materials at his university, and the various tools, ideas, and programs Virginia Tech is employing to help students achieve their goals and succeed in their academic pursuits. Mark mentions Virginia Tech’s C. A. L. M.  campaign which stands for Choose Accessible Learning Materials in which his team introduces a new accessibility idea periodically on campus with the slogan, “Keep C. A. L. M. and use accessible slides…” (or PDFs or some other tool). He would be happy to share the templates they used if anyone would like to borrow this campaign or learn more. Just reach out to Mark via email which is linked on our resources page for this episode at ThinkUDL.org. Thanks so much for listening to this conversation.