Short description: You are cordially invited to a highly confidential planning meeting for a campaign for change here at Anytown University. Only those who are openly committed to the values of inclusion and universal design are invited. Please come prepared to share your ideas and begin the work of opening minds and changing the culture here at Anytown U. and in our community.
Longer description: Most of us recognize the need for change toward a more universally designed, inclusive environment. We value, or even embrace, the concepts of universal design and inclusion. Many of us even try to put the principles into practice in our sphere of influence and incorporate them into our professional development activities. At the same time, many of us feel powerless to initiate change on a higher level in the institutions where we work. We are left with more questions than answers. What is the current organizational culture? How does change happen on an organizational level? How can we play a role in making it happen?
Our challenge is not a new one. Corporations have faced this challenge for many years—the challenge of getting people moving in a new direction, the challenge of obtaining support for new ideas. The problem, then, is not that it cannot be done, but that those of us who are most interested in seeing these changes happen do not have all of the information we need. We can step outside of our discipline and benefit from the knowledge base of organizational change strategists who have worked to change corporations for years. There are many and varied strategic approaches that we can adopt as models.
The facilitators for this session will use a novel approach and format for this session. Rather than simply providing information about organizational change and the implementation of universal design principles, we will take a more experiential approach. The session will be conducted as if the participants are all employees of one institution—AnyTown University. We will act as if we are initiating a campaign for cultural change at our university. We will lead the members through an abbreviated version of a process of identifying the current campus culture, creating a shared vision for the future, and determining the steps for plan implementation. We will facilitate a lively discussion that we hope will both challenge and inspire those who are present.
The staff of Disability Support Services at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock are beginning their sixth year of the implementation of Project PACE—a Demonstration Project to Ensure Students with Disabilities Receive a Quality Higher Education. The ultimate goal of this project has been a cultural change. Our experiences have helped us gain an understanding of what is most effective when it comes to getting university buy in and institutionalizing practices that will make a difference long after this project is gone.
We will incorporate ideas from state of the art literature on corporate change and organizational cultures—including such concepts as identifying early adopters, understanding and overcoming resistance, and becoming a change agent. We will also call upon and possibly “plant” other experts to play particular roles in this interactive process. Participants will leave the session with a better understanding of why things are the way they are and what needs to be done to change the status quo. We hope to inspire each participant to making the commitment to become an agent of change on their own campus.
Learning outcome: Through an interactive, experiential format, participants will 1) learn about ways of implementing Universal Design concepts, 2) learn some principles of organizational culture and change, and 3) identify at least three ways they can begin to act as agents of change on their own campus.
Melanie Thornton is the Director of Project PACE at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. One of the focus areas of Project PACE has been the implementation of universal design in courses, academic departments and institution-wide. She earned her Master’s degree in counseling from Gallaudet University in Washington, D.CA. and her Bachelor’s degree in Psychology from Hendrix College. She has presented at international, national and regional conferences, and is the author or co-author of several journal articles, proceedings papers, and a book chapter.
Sharon Downs has been the coordinator for the Arkansas SOTAC since 1999 and has since presented at several national, regional and state conferences. She received her Masters of Science degree in Rehabilitation Counseling from the University of Arkansas Rehabilitation Research and Training Center for Persons who are Deaf or Hard of Hearing (Fayetteville, 1999) and in 1996 from the Interpreter Education Program at UALR. Sharon has been involved in the profession of interpreting since 1993, and taught classes in the Interpreter Education Program at UALR from Fall 1998 through Fall 1999. She is a member of Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf, Inc. (RID) and Arkansas Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf (ARID). She served as Student Representative for both the CIT (Conference of Interpreter Trainers) conference in 1994 and the RID conference in 1995. Sharon served as Student Representative Coordinator for the convention in Little Rock in 1996. She has served on numerous board positions for ARID (Arkansas Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf) including: Fundraising Chair from 1995 - 1997, Vice-President from 1999-2000, President from 2000-2001, and Immediate Past President from 2001-2002.