Speaker: Kathleen Thomas, Department Head of Finance and Economics
How has collaboration with Student Affairs & Access, Opportunity and Success enhanced the student learning experience?
Kathleen Thomas: So I partnered with the Disability Resource Center to obtain a swell form graphics printer for the university. So this is a special printer that takes an image printed on any standard copier and swells the black ink to form a tactile image. And it does this using special paper that reacts to heat. This will help any instructor who has a low-vision student in their class have a tactile representation of the images that they use to convey course content.
How did your students benefit from this additional learning opportunity?
Kathleen Thomas: I actually obtained this swell formed graphics printer in fall of 2022 with a Schillig teaching grant. So shout out to the Center for Teaching and Learning. And to my knowledge, I had never had a low-vision student in any of my classes, but I was trying to make my course content more accessible and quickly realized that the use of alternative text was really woefully inadequate for what I needed. So enter the swell form graphics printer and then lo and behold the very next semester, a student with macular degeneration enrolled in my class. And I was able to use that printer to help this student interact with the graphical content that I present all the time in my economics courses.
Why is collaboration with Student Affairs & AOS important for providing students with these opportunities?
Kathleen Thomas: The goal of the Disability Resource Center, and Student Affairs more broadly, is to keep the student at the center and create a place where all students belong. And the Disability Resource Center helped me do that in my own classroom. Honestly, I can say that working with the Disability Resource Center has been some of the most meaningful work of my entire career. I encourage you to reach out to Student Affairs and see what they can do to help you with your students in your classroom.
