Let me welcome everybody. Let me welcome you all to the Future Trends Forum. My name is Brian Alexander I'm the forum's host creator and chief cat herder And I'm delighted to see so many of you here to talk about what is one of the most important subjects in higher education Before I proceed I'd like to welcome you to the forum I'd like to explain the forum give you some background and then I'll introduce this week's excellent guest I'm absolutely delighted to bring this week's guest up Sonia is a professor Appalachian State University Where she specializes in higher education administration as a laser-like focus on student experience So first of all welcome welcome Sonia. Thank you. Thank you for having me. I appreciate that. Oh, we're delighted that you could make it Thank you so much now because it's June it's customary on the program to ask one of the great burning questions of our time Which is what's the weather like there? so It's hot and kind of muggy. It's been raining. So it's a mix of things But we are generally in the late 80s or upper 80s lower 90s A hot so I work at App State, which is up in the mountains, but I don't live in the mountains So either face of the mountains so So I still you know, I'm from Louisiana. So humid and hot is not new to me So I'm fine with it. I was gonna say just you know comparing to Louisiana We have a couple of connections. I had told you I worked in Shreveport for a while, but also Vanessa Vail says that she lived in Vadrin Is a Vadrin or Vdream? It's Vdream And I think that she was talking about being from Lafayette, which is like about 45 minutes away from my hometown But it's where we would go for a movie the mall those sorts of things an airport So it's about 45 minutes from up here at house well, I'm glad that I'm glad to hear that and we can we can compare notes on Louisiana in a bit But I'm especially glad that you're doing this work at Appalachian State Tell us looking ahead to the the next say, you know, eight ten months or so What's gonna be taking up most of your time? What are the big topics that you're really gonna be focusing on? Yeah, absolutely So I'm working on several kind of research and writing projects this summer That are kind of a continuation of my existing research agenda with multiple different kind of research teams So kind of colleagues all over the country, but primarily I'm working with a colleague Dr. Georgiana Martin Who's at the University of Georgia and she and I are co-editing a book with stylist publishing Focusing on supports for poor and working-class students in higher education. So it's an edited volume We have about 28 chapters so that manuscripts actually do at the end of the month So we're hoping for a spring 21 release on that new text which we're excited about because it's Faculty and practitioners who are writing about the good things that are happening at their two-year and four-year institutions all across The United States and so hoping that other institutions can scale from those examples particularly as we think about how Both COVID but also the racial injustices that are happening in the United or continue to happen there They're not new happening in the United States exacerbate some of the issues that already exist around social class identity in the US and so Knowing that when we layer social class and race, right? We have amplified dynamics there as well as we we have amplified dynamics if we layer first gen and social class or rural and social class and those pieces I'm also working on a volume for the new directions for student leadership series With a colleague dr. Kathy Guthrie who's at Florida State, which is on looking at how are we? Teaching leadership both in terms of kind of like theory and practice Through the lines of social class and so again another so class component there And working on several projects with some different colleagues on rural and morality and what does that mean? So with my colleague at at-state dr. Andrew Chris itch We're working on a rural transfer project and then he and I are also on a team led by dr. Dares means at the University of Pittsburgh Looking more broadly at COVID and rural students. So we're hoping to get a grant on that So various things there's a team of folks. There's 10 of us who are working on a new project specifically on first-generation college students as well So most of my work falls into the bucket of social class first-gen And Rurality and how that impacts college access and college success. Well, that's fantastic. That's such vital work rate though Badly badly needed one quick question. What is a rural transfer? Does it mean transferring between rural colleges? Yeah, so we how we conceptualized that study specifically was that we are looking at Students who define their background as rural and that they're transferring from either two year to four year Four year or two year to two year. So basically they're just shifting their institutional kind of position And so we're it's a mixed method study So dr. Curtis is looking at kind of distance elasticity with the transfer pieces So, you know, how far students transferring why, you know, all of those sorts things from the quantitative perspective and then I Conducted the interviews with the students that are in the study to follow up and talk about what does it mean to be rural? How has that impacted their transfer experience? Those sorts of things, especially right now that we may see coming into the fall That students are either transferring from an existing institution to two year or they're starting at a two year And then we want to transfer later You know, this is so vital. I mean, that's something that people normally don't pay a lot of attention to and famously as a hobble on community colleges who, you know, succeed by transfers but are often punished by statistics for that I have all kinds of questions With which to Mabard our poor guest And I just want to start off with a couple but I would love to hear from you I mean, that's the purpose of this form is for your questions and comments So already she's just laid out a whole series of crucial topics everything from transfer to what means to be a rural student To the gap between two and four year institutions to poverty first generation racial status Please think of your questions and again either click the raised hand if you want to join us up here on stage Or just, you know, type it into the question mark and we'll be glad to hear from you One of the questions I'd like to ask is looking ahead to this time next year How is covet 19 changing the student experience? Yeah, so I think it's so hard to predict and so it's interesting to say I teach Master students who are studying to be university administrators So to run residence halls to run activity the academic advisors All of those sorts of roles at the institution And obviously in the past several months have had to get really creative in how to continue Providing that student experiences To the different populations of students and having students want that they crave it. They don't You know, there are some students who don't absolutely but the majority of students are wanting to have some kind of connection to their peers to the campus To faculty and administrators who work there And so I think that as we go into the fall, it's going to be different Even campuses that are saying, you know, we're back open and we're gonna, you know, move along I think it's going to look very different in terms of, you know, we're not having concerts, right In society right now. Well campuses generally have concerts as part of their welcome week or the both of the things That's probably not going to happen Whereas some students are used to moving into their residence hall with either a roommate at their selection or a potluck roommate That might not be happening, right? We might have to go to single rooms based on cbc guidelines or where it was A triple it's now, you know, a double or like those sorts of things. So it's going to be different I think also, you know, students will still want to have spaces to share ideas and share experiences and so I've been working with some organizations That specifically work with fraternities and sororities and like what does that look like In terms of recruitment for those organizations, which are traditionally face-to-face And so they're having to get real creative to say how can we do this? And so on the back end, we're kind of working with our colleagues to say Yes, and you can't just rely on oh, well, I know brian So i'm going to invite brian to join that organization because if i'm a first-generation college student And I don't have all those hometown kind of connections or kind of the social capital if you will then I'm going to miss out an opportunity that might be really right for my like learning and connection to campus. So While we're getting creative, we also have to keep top of mind equity issues in how we provide Opportunities and spaces for students to connect with each other and to get that sense of belonging to their campus So in a year from now I would imagine or hope that some of that stuff would have returned to more face-to-face And so I feel like we're going to do some things that are going to be stop gap So that organizations can continue to to exist on our campuses But I think student what students crave is particularly students who are choosing Are able to choose really a four-year campus kind of residential experience They want to have some of those things and so they want to go back and have Meetings of their student organizations and have campus-based events That's going to be scaled back for the fall But the hope is by this time next year that we will be ramping up kind of for on campus Orientation options in addition to maybe some continuation of virtual options Welcome weeks that are kind of full full fledged back those sorts of things because Students still crave that as much as we want to say that they don't they do the research shows it In an elderly conversations with students show it and so the hope would be to have Some continuation but also maybe Thinking about how we can Take what's good out of the innovation and virtual kind of remote options. We also have in place That's an awful lot Thank you. Thank you. I can see why they put you in charge of teaching University administrators because you've got so much information here Um A couple of quick questions about that One is How do you see these changes impacting the finances of colleges and universities? Yeah, all these changes are going to cost money Yes, um, it's and in some ways it's things that we can't even expect so You know in the state of north carolina, for example, we haven't passed the state budget And so we have been kind of operating as a state Uh for the past well, we haven't passed the budget yet this cycle and so Already we were unsure kind of what that looked like and then when we add to it the kind of Uncertainty About all the things and so if we are going to put I saw was it produced some one campus was doing like crowd funding To try to get screens like classic screens for the classrooms similar to how we've had them now at the grocery store and those sorts of things So each one of those if you think about how many classrooms are on a campus two year four year Etc. And every single one needs one. What does that mean if we you know? Are we going to use them in faculty offices? Are we not? Or you know people going to continue teaching online because of how the space is arranged on a on a campus that says Okay, well our classroom usually seats 25. We can only have 12 Well, what does that mean? And then you mentioned earlier high flex teaching, which I think is uh incredibly interesting And not necessarily something as a faculty member I want to do because I think that it also creates an inequitable learning environment sometimes because You can say, you know, brian gets to come this week. Sonja gets to come next week Well, what if this week is the week I need to go for my understanding and my learn kind of learning style? So I think there's a lots of complexities. Um, but I do think budgets are going to be impacted we've already seen kind of furloughs and Layoffs and elimination of academic programs and I think in kind of student affairs Where I'm situated and where my my research is situated I think that's going to be interesting as well because some people see that As you know, not essential to the academic mission But I would argue that there's lots of theories and models and research that show us that if students are engaged in the co-curricular They are more engaged in their academic studies And so they really kind of go hand in hand And so we also need to think about kind of what that means and and counseling services fall under student affairs and health services fall under student affairs and so if we're only cutting to student affairs that could be You know detrimental To kind of students sense of belonging but also their health and safety on campus And this is something in the forum Some of you have observed that we've been exploring this question of students mental health being challenged And how universities can respond through mental health services Some of our participants have been very active on this like Roxanne risk him And we've had several guests looking into all kind of All kind of dimensions for this Friends again, this is the time for your questions and your comments, and we'd love to hear from you. We've already had In the chat. We've had an interesting conversation about the difference between American and European higher education Apostolus Coutropoulos mentioned that European higher education has a lot less in the way of not just residential life, but the social experience Is this something that Is really just America is just a fluke this way or is this a part of the secret science of American academic excellence Yeah, I think that that's a great point and a great question So, you know, we built our American model based off some of the European models And that we expanded it and made it different and so I think that It does, you know, create a different sense of connection to the campus at least for some students And it's going to be different at different campuses. So What that may mean for me is an undergraduate student I went to Louisiana State University or lsu and I have a deep connection to that campus I got my phd at nc state and I have a lot of love for my experience there But it was very different there as a doctoral student than it was for me as an undergraduate student And so I, you know, wear a lot more lsu stuff than I do nc state stuff because of my experience in the co-curriculum at lsu As well as the big time sports and you know, all of those sorts of things as well But um, so I think that there there is some, you know, desire to have and it doesn't have to be attending a concert Or going a welcome week for some students. It's attending academic based lectures for other students It's participating in undergraduate research People can get connected in different ways But I do think that some students do crave kind of the social experience where they meet their Friends who are going to continue on with them into adulthood or they meet people who They attend for example a black lives matter protest on campus and that kind of changes their trajectory of Their thoughts and and actions. Um, and so I think all of those things are Critical at least in the united states to higher education at least to some extent, right? I think if we eradicated it completely so we wouldn't have the same kind of american higher education experience We look at our two-year institutions as examples They may perhaps have less in the co-curricular in terms of quantity But that doesn't mean they have less in terms of quality of their co-curricular experience And there are still student government at two-year institutions where people kind of learn this process of You know utilizing voice and and positional power to make change on their campuses and so I think a lot of those things are In in a lot of ways cultivating the skills that a lot of our students are going to use post-degree How can we reproduce that digitally? the the non-economic parts the plays Protests the just meeting people purely by chance eating together being the same term What are some of the ways that you've seen that we can most effectively reproduce that online? Yeah, so in the past couple of months what we've seen is like for example, I'll use the example of the campus programming board So it's generally a board of students Who decide or kind of vote on or represent their peers to determine? What concerts bring to campus? What art demonstrations or art installations to bring to campus? What? kind of Comedians or those sorts of things come to campus. And so what we've seen them do is Go more local and say, okay Well, we have X amount of bands who are in for example in boon or near in the mountains somewhere And so we're going to live stream it And so then all these people are coming into this live stream and still having this experience of attending a music event together Even if the band is live streaming out of their garage In some ways it's centered it on Localization and what do we have locally that we can then bring to our students? I think for some of the other pieces around kind of cultural political Those art those sorts of things. I think we can do that in virtual spaces as well That we can bring students in and say, okay Well, we have you know a student organization who believes this and a student organization who believes that and so how can we cultivate? meaningful dialogue across Across those viewpoints So I think there's still ways to do that for some people that's not as engaging as being in the same physical space together But it does get to the same. I think ultimate goals, which is how are we expanding people's understandings of themselves in the world? Which is a great ultimate goal to pursue Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate the optimism there and the practicality as well Um, and of course just being a big fan of apalachia. I love the idea of apalachian local music We have one question that's already come up from a long-term supporter and fan of the participant in the forum This is tom hams coming to us from houston Tom asks equity requires additional support for disadvantaged students. What about tutoring and other academic support services? Are you seeing those being cut? Uh, we haven't I mean, maybe at some institutions, but um overall not yet. Um, in some ways, we've seen those expanded um because of the understandings that um, obviously students have different opportunities And so, you know while a lot of literature will frame it as an achievement gap for some students and underserved populations I would reframe that as an opportunity gap It's not that students have less less capacity or less ability. Um is that they have not had the same opportunities? Um as some of their peers um on a campus like for example I went to a small rural k-12 school. So I had no advanced placement. I had no international baccalaureate We had no band. We had no art class. We had none of that And so that's an opportunity gap. It's not that I can't do those things I can't play an instrument But from the most part there are things that I might have the ability to do But I didn't have the ability to cultivate because there wasn't that opportunity um, I think about things like writing and math skills and um, if some schools k-12 schools or high schools don't offer Um calculus, for example, then you might need to have some tutoring and calculus when you get to that course in your academic Uh trajectory. Um, and so we need to have those tutoring services. And so they have moved those appointments online Um, both for kind of academic support services specifically like tutoring like a writing center math lab those sorts of things I would also encourage those folks on the forum who are faculty To also think about how we cultivate our classes that exacerbate those opportunity gaps Um, and so we make some assumptions that students come in that they know x y and z Based on I would offer a more affluent white high schools And so how are we also understanding how we're cultivating the curriculum to either Decrease that opportunity gap or to further exacerbate it Oh An opportunity gap is a great way of framing this I really appreciate that. Um, do you um I more questions, but if you're new to the forum friends, uh, we just hit days here with tom's question That's the perfect example of using the question mark We have a couple more questions that are in the queue right now um, and again, you can see that uh, dr Ardoin is Very very generous and kind and answering questions and she hasn't been anybody's head off yet. Although, you know, we have some time Um, we have another question that just came in And this is from awesome awesome, uh, mark corbett wilson Coming to us from california who says the majority california community college students are adults or online campus for classes Then adds my experience most tenured faculty been resistant to online classes Uh, and then question that follows this guy briefly cut off, but he adds How will community colleges provide quality education since so many the faculty are adjunct Yeah, absolutely. Um, and I think that's also a challenge right now In we talked about budget a little bit earlier, but we're seeing some campuses who are, um, Not renewing contracts, uh for part-time or, um, You know contingent faculty in different capacities, uh, which I think is a huge challenge because I think that In higher education we have at two year and four year institutions We have grown to depend on our contingent faculty, um, and we have not treated them well Holistically and so I think that we expect them to do a lot. Um, and then in some ways They become the first people to be released. Um, or not renewed Because of the status of their of their position line and those sorts of things Um, I do think that we see more adult learners across higher education or I I like to call them like, um, You know people who are coming back for a second career, right? It might look different For different institutions or different parts of the country But um, I think that, um for faculty who are resistant to online learning, obviously kovat has pushed them, uh to Learn some kind of skills And so I had colleagues that I've worked with who had never even used a kind of learning management system um, and so they had to Learn how to do that in two weeks, uh, because we had to go online for kovat And so I think some people are going to start to, um elevate their skill set, um or Bring it up kind of to speed if you will, uh with some of the online platforms And so that's more complicated at some institutions because there isn't Necessarily the teaching support structures that might exist or the it support structures In terms of both hardware and software. And so I think that can be more complicated Perhaps at two-year institutions depending on their funding structure Or even regional publics who may be having some funding challenges as well So I think that we have to encourage faculty to Look at different modalities of teaching and learning, um and to keep up with their skill set in those areas And to learn who their students are and what their students need And so we may say I prefer to teach face to face. Okay, I just do I prefer to teach face to face and You know, we are still kind of on the fence about what we're going to do this fall because it may not be best Even though I want to teach face to face and students might want to learn face to face That might not be the best thing for any of us. Um, and so how do we also understand what our students needs are And if your students are adult learners and you know that their needs are to teach online If they have the access to the things they need to learn online Then how are you responding to those needs? So it's not just about what I want as a faculty member. It's Generally not about that at all. It's about what are the students need in order for their learning? Well, let's let's think about that in a very practical way for a second. How do we learn about these students? I mean that is, um, you know, we don't Um, we have a lot of national surveys. Um, that look at at a broad macro level that are very useful But polling students to find out things like what's your home broadband speed? You know, do you have a video cable laptop? What do you think about online learning versus face to face? What do you miss about that? I mean, how Is this where every institution should survey and poll their students? Are there ways of doing this that you'd recommend? Yeah, so I think um, some we are seeing some institutions do that right now. Um, as they make decisions about the fall semester They are surveying students. They're surveying faculty. They're surveying administrators and staff So basically they're surveying the campus community to figure out. Uh, what is the best way to move forward and sort of this, um Complex kind of situation we find ourselves in um, even campuses who have already definitively made a decision haven't definitively made a decision and so Um, they are doing all this kind of on the back end I would also offer that as a faculty member. I can I know who's in my class for the fall I can see who's registered and so I can take on the responsibility as a faculty member and not all faculty want to do that That's their choice. I don't necessarily agree But I you know, I could survey the students and ask them just for the classes that I am responsible for managing Um and talk to them about what their needs are and those sorts of things and so I would say That's a lot harder if you're teaching a 300 person lecture Um at a you know an institution than it is if you're teaching a 25 student seminar But I would say it's our responsibility to get to know who our students are because otherwise I don't think we're serving them well.  I mean he seems in general COVID or not online or not seems of course incumbent upon Instructors to get to know their students. Um, you know, if you don't do that, I don't think you should be instructed, but um How can an institution uh best support this? I think that I think it's well, like I said, I think some institutions are doing broad surveys I think um, you know for institutions that uh, some of their faculty might have different skill sets in terms of You know creating surveys or like those sorts of things they could create a generalized Kind of survey that they could be tweaked for each individual class. So for example, um Something like the you know institutional research office or the teaching and learning center if those are capacity, you know Things that exist on the campus can say, you know, here are the baseline things You should be asking but then allow for the tweaking of it And you can do those surveys if you have a learning management system You could do a google form There's different ways that you could do it at little to zero You know little to no cost um to you as a faculty member um to be able to get some of that information I have colleagues who on the first day of class ask students to fill out You know a specific form to give them information about those students To the extent the students want to share obviously But I think that's important Those are great ways forward. Thank you. Um, and if uh If you all have questions that you would like to add, uh, again, it's um Really easy to do either by typing the question mark Box or by clicking the raise hand button And as I say that we have another question. Uh, that just came from scott rankie at ball state Uh, and scott asks for first generation students What types of campus engagement or which data points have you been most predictive of student success or failure? And are there ways that this differs for transfer students? Um good questions scott That's a really broad question. I don't know that I would say anything's predictive I would say things have been shown to be more helpful or less helpful, but I don't think that it predicts student success or failure Um, I think it can um, you know advance or you know progress student success Um, and so part of that is how we share information. So, um, I have a book in some of my recent, um research too is on specifically college knowledge and university jargon Um, and so if we are putting out applications like, you know applications to apply to the university scholarship applications Uh, res like whatever any kind of information we're sending out about the institution Uh, and it includes all this jargon that is very higher ed specific Um as well as acronyms that only makes sense to people who are on that campus And we are not, uh help helping progress student success You're actually creating a lot of barriers, uh to student success by doing that and we've seen some shifting of that. So, um The chronicle wrote an article about this last summer, um, but how institutions are starting to make sense of Um, creating these kind of dictionaries for their specific campus It's exacerbated for transfer students because if you are at institution a and kind of get a handle on the lingo Um, the acronyms and the jargon and then you move to institution b And that is new layers of jargon. That's complicated because we have us higher ed based jargon We have institution based jargon and then within each academic unit We have jargon with each student affairs unit. We have jargon. And so as a student I'm trying to make sense of all that particularly as a first-gen student So I can't call my mom and say, you know, what does x what does faffsa mean? My mom does faffsa means um, and so I think, um decoding if you will, um, all of that jargon I think is helpful. Um, the center for first generation student success, which is a Collaboration between naspa, which is a student affairs organization and the suitor foundation Has also doing some amazing work around kind of these measures that Assist first generation students with success and retention and graduation. They did a four-year landscape analysis Looking at everything from how are different institutions defining first gen To how are institutions getting resources to support students and so that's everything from developing specific centers So like brown university has a center specifically for first-gen students undocumented students and low-income students As well as other institutions have some sort of these centers as well Other institutions ucla for example, doc doctor latanya reese miles is using some amazing work over there And they have a specific number of staff who are who are dedicated to supporting first-gen students Other campuses don't have those kind of resources And so they are developing student organizations that focus on first-gen students that let first-gen students meet other first-gen students There are bridge programs outside of the federally funded trio programs other kinds of bridge programs that are homegrown at institutions Examples like the university of florida As a kind of a scholarship program that does some of this work So there's lots of different ways to do it. Um, they're the center is also doing a two-year landscape analysis So for those of you who are at community colleges, uh, that one should be released this fall Those are free and downloadable for you if you um google the center for first-gen student success You can find all of that plus they post tons of research and news articles specifically dedicated to first-gen students I think the only problem that all these projects have is they don't have the ability to come with great titles Like your paper So if you haven't seen this in the chat the title is it's all a bunch of bs Howling jargon creates in groups now groups in higher education But uh, but thank you. That's a that's a fantastically rich answer Really really great question. And thank you scott. I really appreciate that And again, if you're a ball state, uh, you know, rural students are a huge issue for your university as well We have a whole bunch of questions that are coming up We have one video question from uh, ilia mangan at columbia. So let me see if I can bring her up on stage sure Hello, filia Thanks for having me up. Um, so I I'm a first-generation college student and I I'm also a gates and millennium scholar For those of you who don't know starting in the year 2000 The bill and malinda gates foundation made a gift and for 17 years they funded up to 1,000 scholars For up to 10 years of full funding tuition books room board and expenses Easily changed the whole trajectory of my life And I had the honor to to be in some different leadership positions with the organization As it grew and expanded to serve Students many of whom were first-generation students as well And by the time I got to grad school, uh, gms had sort of recognized that there were some institutional You know at each institution There were some issues that were kind of cross cutting for the individual scholars And we worked to create what we they decided to call the campus-based leadership programs So that the scholars at any given institution could come together For a community to help work to help each other out with you know, some administrative issues And it was only in that process that some really key and very important things came to light So just one example, uh, was some students the the scholarship monies were coming to the university After some key deadlines and students were getting dropped from their courses, which is obviously a problem for matriculation And these are students who have financial need Who couldn't just pay the tuition bill to make sure that they have kept their registration You can see where it went from there and it was happy multiple times We were able to identify this and coordinate. So my question for you is What is happening in the contents of conversation between your institution and students there to really create a space where People who may be having similar types of issues can really work together and join forces To figure out the bureaucracy figure out solutions communicate with administrators Rather than having it all be a one-to-one or self identified type of process Yep So I can't really speak to how apple action state specifically is doing that because um, I haven't been a part of those conversations And I mostly reside in the faculty space not in the well not at all in the administrative space at this point In kind of my career pathway But I will say that on the national level that does happen So I just mentioned the center for first-year student success that is happening in that space. And so there are A consortium if you will Of what's called first forward institutions, uh, which are both two year and four year institutions kind of across They're on their second cohort of this kind of program There's I think between 60 and 80 it varies by year Institutions who are part of this and it kind of creates a block To for folks to come and say here and here are issues that we're having in our institution Around first-generation college student status and what are being barriers. So things particularly around drop add We saw a lot of these issues also exacerbated with covet but um around You know when can people take w's when can they not all of those sorts of kind of academic policy pieces But then also, what does it look like across? In terms of fundraising How do we work with our fundraising office or our advancement office? Uh specifically cultivate, uh financial gifts that can go to support First-generation college students or rural students or students of color, you know, etc specific populations of students so that we can get more direct Services staff lines, etc to serve those student populations. Um, so I think some of those spaces. There's also a Um conferences on student success that NASPA hosts and a slice of it's like a five Five, I guess component conference But one of those is specifically on a first-generation college students and so a lot of folks who study first-gen students who His job either directly or tangentially relates to supporting those populations on campus are coming together To say okay. Well, this seems to be an issue on my campus. It's also an issue on my campus And how are we looking at scalability of programs and services? Um, so I don't know how it's happening necessarily on individual campus. I see it more kind of on the broader base of across higher education in the us Well, that's heartening to hear that those efforts are certainly in place and um, and I'll stay tuned to your research As it develops and as you see, I think it is incredibly important You know for scholars to connect and I think most institutions are even smaller, you know, community and rural colleges There are incredible wealth of resources available The hardest part sometimes is actually knowing that they exist and figuring out where where to access them So thanks for your work. Yeah, and I think also to your point I think we also have to think about how are we collaborating on campus across programs and services because sometimes Tutoring is happening in the trio program and tutoring is happening in the tutoring center and tutor is happening in the African-American cultural center, but we haven't connected those dots either and so Sometimes students feel fun old into one specific space and they could be getting assistance across all of those spaces So it's not just kind of from the national level, but also even how are we Organizing and collaborating on campus so that students understand the buffet if you will Of resources available to them and then we can also then notice where the gaps are In terms of those support structures Absolutely, thank you. Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for your question And again, if you're if you're new to the forum, uh, this is uh, this is how video chat works and video questions work So if you'd like to follow Ophelia who is awesome and always asks great questions We're glad to see you Ophelia and again, Sonya. Thank you a fantastic answer I hadn't thought about the you know, the problem of trying to sort being funneled into one particular Set of services at a campus, especially a larger one. Uh, look at the last mistake We have more questions that are just piling in and they're coming from and they're in different topics in different areas So I want to make sure we get a chance to explore them all Here's one from Kathy Pittman at Hillsborough Community College She says the structure has been already struggling to reach students due to the coronavirus pandemic How do we help them work through their feelings about the protests and police killing without being in person? Yep Yeah, I think that's a great question And I think it's something we as educators need to specifically be asking ourselves and so And I think it's multi layered. Um, so I'll give you an example So I posted via social media a couple weeks ago, you know, if folks need to read reading recommendations and by no means am I an expert but reading recommendations for around kind of white supremacy or social justice or You know racial injustice in the united states that I would be happy to offer them things I've read As well as put a call out to if you want to collaborate, let me know and I had a colleague She is at the University of Arizona Dr. Z. Nicolazo Who did reach out to me and said, hey, um, you know, what do you think about? Let's have a chat about what we can do. And so we organize kind of a, you know White educators for black lives matter or racial racial justice A kind of reading group and so we've had, you know 500 plus people who've signed up and we're doing all the organization on the back end and splitting people into small groups But part of what we also recognize is that as white educators. We have to be reading You know all this literature and then not only reading it but making it actionable into our pedagogy and practice And so what does that mean as I redevelop my courses for the fall semester? Everything from, you know, whom I'm assigning to readings and to how am I Providing some autonomy and how students do assignments so that they can, you know, more readily identify with their learning process Um to, you know, also thinking about one of my colleagues emailed me today That they are hosting a processing space for both the recent alums that just graduated in may from our Master's program as well as incoming students to process what is happening because as educators particularly for our graduate students They're processing for themselves as students But then they are also tasked with helping Undergraduate students or other graduate students process in their role as graduate assistants and administrators And so it's this multi-layered piece. And so I think we have to provide spaces for Caucusing work, um, which I learned at the social justice training institute Which basically is how are we working within our racial groups?  How are folks um in diverse issues today? Two of my colleagues Dr. Nicole Garcia, who's at Rutgers and Dr. Claudia Garcia-Lewis who's at the University of Texas San Antonio wrote about what does it mean to To face kind of anti-black racism in the latinx community, particularly if you're Afro latinx You know, what does it mean for folks who are indigenous or Asian Americans? Some of our colleagues Dr. Rosie Perez and some other folks Um held a space for Asian American individuals to talk about what does it mean to be Fighting for racial justice as an Asian American in the United States So I think we need to do some caucusing and some in-group work And then I think we also need to do across race work and do processing that way as well And I thought about that a lot I'm teaching a social justice course in the fall and so how am I going to create space that we can process Um, you know this time in the United States, which again is not new right? We have been fighting for least brutality in the murder of black individuals Since the you know, and set before the United States really was incepted But so I think all of that is important And I think we need some of our own work as well because even if we think that we are Educated on race and social justice issues. We have more to learn We always have more to learn and so I think we have to do self work We have to do caucusing work within our racial Identified groups and then we have to do work across race as well And that's all that we have to work on often remotely What Kathy, that's a great question. Thank you so much. Uh, and if you'd like to follow up, please please too We have one more question coming in from the already named Roxanne brisken So let me put Roxanne's question up here for everyone to see Do you envision the role the library is important in providing any enhanced support services for students? And do you see these as priority in assisting faculty too? Yes, and I will always say so I'm a huge fan of libraries university libraries public libraries I love books. I My grandmother who had a middle grades education brought me to the library every Monday in the summer And it really became my space for for learning and thoughts and ideas and I maintain that to be true And so the university library has been critical In my work as a faculty member both in my research and obtaining literature To do research and writing work but also in Being able to get access and get students access to the readings for my my courses In fact, I won't assign something if the library doesn't have it in their holdings Because I want students to not have a financial barrier to be able to do the readings for class And so I have worked with our librarians in that capacity. I also think that Our libraries And we've seen this with bookstores and some black-owned bookstores have actually put out social media And news articles about this that they're getting flooded right now particularly from people wanting very specific books and so How are libraries also creating in their holdings? great You know multiple copies or ebooks or journals specifically that focus on black scholars and black authors And and their work and elevating their work But then also How are they building that in so that people can access that from multiple whether it's when the libraries open back And they can actually go get a physical copy or they can find it online But I do think libraries are critical Actually lsu my undergraduate institution announced today. They're actually renaming the library Which i'm very proud of that the black student leaders on campus both current and former have fought To do that to rename the library and they are going to do that One of the things I suggested to some colleagues that lsu was okay Well in the renaming can we also create special collections that feature Black authors from Louisiana or from who are lsu alums? And so how are we also? Centering I guess if you will That there are many Ways of knowing there are many scholars and brilliant people That are people of color and particularly black and african-american individuals. So I do think library is critical well, that's a Here here, I mean we have this this program has unashamedly A huge library fan base We address libraries a lot if you're in the chat friends I just shared a a link to the ethical s and r study from 2018 The c-class study where they were taking a look at how community colleges can provide non non traditional library library resources Everything from tech support to financial aid to political assistance So again, that's a great question. Roxanne and thank you very much for that I will add too To mention you sparked something in my brain too is around like technology and access So as I thought about doing like video Journaling or assignments that required students to use technology I also made sure the library had that as well And that was accessible to students because if we were requiring to use all this technology We can't assume that students have the ability to access that kind of technology And so utilizing that component of the library too. I think is also critical Absolutely. Absolutely Um friends, we are down to our last nine minutes somehow. I'm not quite sure how that happened So I want to make sure that you all get a chance to put in your questions So if you'd like us to be talking about everything from comparisons with international campuses If you'd like us to think about particular technologies if you'd like us to address economics Demographics religion any other aspect of the changing student experience This is a remarkable opportunity to ask a remarkable scholar While people are thinking about that I'd like to put in one question myself Uh Depending on how we define it right now. We are in the middle of a recession It looks like again depending on our forecasting models that this is going to continue through the summer Uh fall semester is going to see a Perhaps a cramped student. I'm sorry. It's cramped state budget environment What happens to so many students who are either hit directly that is they've lost a job right now Or their family members have lost jobs They're working through college and atmosphere of of great economic constraint How does this COVID driven economic crisis going to impact students? Yeah, I think there um people often make the assumption that uh, you know a response will be that students will stop out um or not attend um Going on kind of where they were in their trajectory. Um, and I think for some people that's absolutely true I think that um, you know if you For example, if I'm in a family that uh, you know, one of my um caregivers Has lost their job and I still have my job that I'm going to feel compelled probably to work more hours and contribute to my family Um, so that might be true. Um, we may have some other folks who say well, I can't find a job I just recently graduated. I can't find a job. Um, and so they might actually go back to school as a financial, uh strategy Um because they might be eligible for specific loans or grants or you know different kinds of things and so I actually have talked to some folks who said, you know, I might go back to grad school or go back for a second degree Uh undergraduate degree, um because or training of some kind at a, you know, the technical institute In order to have access to that funding And so I think there's different strategies and historically in higher ed We've seen when there is a recession that we do see more people going back to school either for a different type of Training or for graduate school or those sorts of things. Um, so I think I don't know if it's going to be a teeter Todd are right that we're going to have some people stop out To contribute economically to their families or because they don't have the funding to pay tuition those sorts of things with the other lever being that people might be Using that as a funding outlet or a retooling of their skill set to be able to go into a different sector Uh, it's a a teeter. Todd. There's a good way of putting it And it's going to vary depending on on on where we go In the chat box, uh, tom hams calls for the next stimulus bill to fund students, which Think almost everybody here would say that's a good idea. Um, but we may also wonder about it's likely to occurring While people are just hitting their their last questions, um, let me ask a kind of spin-off of this one Looking at the whole panoply of services that higher education offers everything from, uh, you know research support to libraries technology classes What do you think is most likely to get cut? come this fall Well, we've already seen athletics, um, which is interesting because a lot of campuses Well, depending on the campus athletics may or may not be an auxiliary And so The money is in different buckets if you will or different streams.  Um, but we have seen multiple, uh, institutions some in the state of north carolina Uh, have cut some of their, um, athletic programs, um in order to save money. And so I think, uh, Those are not going to be generally your football baseball basketball kinds of, um Sports, but um, so I think that's we've seen that sort of happen. Uh, we have seen some layoffs, um of, um Some of our like custodial grounds dining staff, um, which Depending on what happens for fall they those folks might be able to get rehired But um, so we're starting to see some of the construction perhaps stop or at least pause For now. Um, so some of those kind of building dining, um Custodial it'll be interesting because there's going to be an increased need for cleaning. Um, due to covid So that might be a different kind of space. Um dining Mayor may not come back depending on what happens, um with residents life Or if people like at a community college just says we're not going to have dining on our campus As a covid measure. Um, so I think that's going to be interesting and we have also seen, um, Some layoffs of the student affairs, um administrators as well as contingent faculty positions Um, so, um, but then I wonder who's taking on all the responsibilities because the responsibilities don't stop somebody still has to teach that class somebody still has to Uh, you know, you know regulate title nine on our campuses And so what does that mean and look like especially because a lot of the student affairs positions are tied to Some kind of state or federal policy measure And so things like title nine or things like conduct or some of those things have to happen on our campuses And we know historically that student affairs is created because faculty didn't want to do those things Right. Um, so, you know, how how are we going to manage some of those? So I think that institutions are going to start to say what is not mission critical But I think depending on who you ask, what is mission critical shifts? Uh, uh, and that may vary of course from institution institution Yes, it may vary in a great in a great series of ways. Um, We have oh, no, that's that's a good answer. Um, and I fear for everyone that you mentioned for just about everyone You mentioned and I thought and that's going to hurt students. You know, that's going to hurt the student experience Um, you know, if we if and not to mention the humane the humanitarian cost of uh, of losing all of these We have a question that came in from twitter It was a great question or a comment and I want to make sure see if I've imported it correctly here Let's see if this works uh, yes, this is from ellen knuffer and And she says survey questions and student answer as will or should change as the fall semester approaches And we continue to learn more about covet itself Testing and transmission and the timing matters here Um, I mean that seems like a really really good point. Um, do you have any uh, any suggestions about how we can think about this? Yeah, I think it's extremely critical because um, we don't want to be in a position where uh, we say, okay We're going back face to face and then a week before the semester starts We say oh just kidding We're moving everything online again, right because that doesn't give us time to Appropriately plan to create learning experiences both curricular and co-curricular for students that are meaningful And thoughtfully planned. Um, and so, you know, we want to wait as long as possible to make the most informed decision that we can in terms of contract contact tracing in terms of temperatures in terms of You know kind of space space looks like all of those sorts of things Um, so we want to wait as long as we can and we don't want to wait too long to where we find ourselves in a similar situation to what we were in march, which is we are just um, You know spinning our wheels trying to make something happen so that we can continue operation Um, so I think it's going to be a it's going to be a delicate balance between waiting as long as we can But not waiting too long to where we can't allow ourselves time to adequately and thoughtfully respond That's a great great answer. Uh, and and ellen thank you for the uh, fantastic response For the fantastic prompt. Uh, we have one more question. Um, and then I think we're gonna need to wrap up and this is coming from charles fendley uh, and uh, charles asks us to Aren't we seeing additional burdens pushed to faculty with no compensation to cope? Yes, um, and I would argue that we're doing also we're doing that with student fairs staff. We're doing that sometimes with our Uh custodial folks. I mean, we're doing that with all kinds of people We're doing that with people who are parents or caregivers right now Who are doing, you know more than double duty And so uh, I hear that 100 percent is a faculty member who You know, I'm a nine month employee and I'm working throughout the summer because that's what I'm gonna have to do to get things done And so um, so the answer is yes. Um, and I'm not sure if we truly want to serve students and maintain kind of the Um, ethical obligation we have as educators that we cannot not do that That's just uh, one more thing to do That's a liberal arts approach. Well, here's the last question I have and and I try to end on a future-oriented question And this is a future administrative question Which is if a if a college or university is going to be doing all that you've described I mean the careful balancing of of finances they trying to help faculty along the way to teach better Trying to really reconnect with students to learn their experiences and support them in different ways While coping with the changing environment of the pandemic What kind of administrative shift do you see? I mean that is it's almost like we're in a kind of emergency footing Um, or a war footing or campuses. Are you seeing like? I don't know what to call it with COVID-19 emergency committees or something Yeah, we absolutely are so both at the university level as well as the individual kind of unit level So whether that is like for example for us the college education Or it might be the division student affairs those sorts of things So you're seeing uh, you know even within housing and residence life they have their own committees And so um, we're seeing all of that happen. Um, and then we're also seeing that uh, you know across professional associations So different professional associations are also talking about what this means I have a colleague that developed a crisis management class last summer as also teaching again this summer And has good enrollments because essentially what we're doing right now is just managing crises And so we we do that on a normal basis in kind of higher ed student affairs, but it's it's again amplified Right now as well. And so we're just trying to figure out how do we make it to and through the next semester to the place where we hope that we get Back to Assemblance of things that are more steady So I think we're going to continue to operate in kind of a crisis mode in my opinion Throughout the fall semester And we do we are seeing administrative responses to getting committees So that we can get responses from students faculty and staff There's been multiple surveys that have come out asking for our perspective and opinion on kind of what fall looks like And again professional associations are doing that as well So again, we're seeing it at the unit kind of program Program department college level across the university and then across higher ed through professional associations Wow Well, I can think of very very very few people On earth who are better equipped to not only answer the question as well as you just did But also to track it for the next year And we're really seeing something extraordinary emerge First of all, you've been fantastic. You have just generously answered people's questions And they've come from all directions and you've been so so helpful Let me ask If anyone needs any help in Creating the perfect title for a paper. I'm sorry if they want to follow your research Moving ahead What is the best way for keeping up with all of your work? Yeah, absolutely. So I do have a personal website, which is just my name. Uh, saunjaardwin.com so s o n j a a r d o i n .com I am on twitter. Um, and so that's just at saunjaardwin, which is my name. Uh, so I do stuff there as well Oh, great. Oh, that's excellent.  So you might want to look for the hashtag ftte But in the meantime, thank you again. Uh, really keep up the great work I I envy your students the experience of working with you this fall Absolutely Thank you for allowing me to be here and thanks to everybody for participating and for all you're doing For the students, uh, kind of, uh, wherever you are Well said, thank you. Thank you But don't go away folks because I need to point out where things are headed next And my trusty cat sidekick spider will be here to help So first of all, uh, for the next two months We're going to be continuing to cover the future of higher education by hitting a whole series of topics Again coming up, uh, the changing demographics Improving teaching the impact of public universities High flex teaching and more looking at the impact of cobin 19 Now if you'd like to keep talking about this, uh, twitter is a great way of doing it Just use the hashtag ftte or tweet at me as you can see right here We also have groups on facebook and linkedin and slack Um, and if you want to go into our archive, our archive is completely up to date Has more than 205 recordings So please just head there and just go to tinywarel.com slash fdf archive And above all in all of this stay safe Really take care of yourselves. Thank you all for your great participation today And we'll see you next time online. Take care. Bye. Bye


When I go to make money, I'm like, how can I emulate and learn from Steve Ballmer? That's the richest guy I've ever been, you know, one-on-one kind of mentor conversation with. He made $100 billion. He built Microsoft with Bill Gates. He was the CEO for 20 years. I can trust his opinion. I asked him hard questions like, how can I have kids and I'm a busy entrepreneur? He told me he managed his time with an Excel spreadsheet to always be sure he had time for his son, even though he was the CEO of the largest company in the world at the time. And so I like learning from that guy.


Hey yo, this is Melanie Sumner. I'm a disabled military veteran turned software engineer and I'm delighted to speak with you all today. I wish I could be in person, but I'm looking forward to next year. I'm a member of the Framework Coroutine and the WAI ARIA working group and I do these things as part of my job as a senior software engineer at Luton where I work on digital accessibility products at scale. As many of you will be familiar with my usual style of talk, I want to let you know that this talk is a bit different. In my other talks, I've spoken about what accessibility is and the things that we can do now, and if you're interested or new to accessibility and want to learn more, you can find my previous talks by visiting my speaking profile. But this talk is different because it's my vision for about, for how I want the world to work and how I think we can get there. And just in case this is the first time you're hearing about accessibility, let's run through a few common terms since over the next couple of days you're likely to hear other people talking about accessibility too. When we say accessibility, we're specifically focused on making inclusive websites so people with disabilities can use what we create. You might also hear it referred to as A11Y, which is a shortened abbreviation. There are 11 letters between the A and Y and the word accessibility. I'll also refer to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, or WCAG for short, as a standard by which our applications are evaluated through the use of the success criteria they provide. And finally, assistive technology includes hardware or software that people with disabilities use to access the web or mobile devices. For example, a person who is blind might use a screen reader to browse and use websites on the internet through desktop browsers or mobile devices. So today, I'm going to share with you my vision, and that's a vision I'm calling continuous accessibility. Let's jump right in. I want you to take a deep breath and let yourself imagine. Imagine having greater confidence in the accessibility of your code. I want you to imagine more easily delivering accessible experiences at scale. And finally, I want you to imagine not being afraid of losing customers or facing expensive lawsuits due to accessibility blockers on your site. It's a pretty great feeling, isn't it? In software engineering today, we have continuous delivery, and we also have continuous integration. And these two things have drastically improved our lives, unless, of course, you're the engineer working on bugs for these things, in which case you probably swore a lot, and I'm sorry, but we really appreciate your sacrifice. But now I want us to turn our thoughts to this new idea, continuous accessibility. How will we get there? How will we deliberately achieve this vision? As I like to say, we have to be on purpose. The well-established principles of continuous software engineering remind us to build quality in, to work in small batches, to let computers do the tedious stuff and humans can do the hard stuff, to always be improving, and that everyone is responsible for doing these things. In this talk, you will learn the essential points of strategy for continuous accessibility. So, what does that strategy look like? Well, this three-part strategy includes a plan for the code we already have, a plan for the code we'll have in the future, and a plan for how to measure our work. And we'll discuss why that is so important. But before we dive into that, I have some exciting news to share with you. I'm excited to share with you that we have already started on this continuous accessibility journey with the newest version of Ember template lint. As of the latest version, no longer in beta, we deliver template linting in such a way that it ensures our code has a path to become more accessible if it already exists, and that our future code will be more accessible by default. And that's really exciting to me. At LinkedIn, we manually rolled out this feature to some of our apps already in production. We also took what we learned through manual implementation and built automated tools to do this work in the future. And we are also building trackers to ensure that the configurations remain correct over the lifetime of the codebase. It's pretty cool. Any plans we make to improve accessibility in our products should include plans for the code we already have. We need to think about the age of our codebase. We need to think about how we plan for library upgrades, because it's cool that we improved accessibility on that popular UI add-on, but what does this mean for existing users? What does the upgrade path look like? We need to think about how we will deliver new features or developer tools. The code that already exists will not be able to consume the latest and greatest upgrades unless we've done this thoughtfully and purposefully. And it might take some trial and error. This is especially true for apps at scale. It can be tricky to update dependencies, especially when they include breaking changes. Depending on the size of your codebase, taking in a new version of a dependency can mean extra developer coordination about which new features to use. And there are product and business priorities to consider. Features that we create for accessibility automation should make it simpler to deliver improved products and tooling to support accessibility as a facet of our craft. For the code we have now, we can wait for our users to report issues to us, but at the risk of losing customers. We can also rely on audits to tell us where the issues are. Ideally, we're automating our code linking and tests and periodically checking the code we already have. This gives us higher confidence that as technology progresses, our sites will still work as expected. Of course, there's a lot of improvement we can do in this area. But this approach allows automation to be our first line of defense. Backed up by accessibility audits and user reports because users will still let us know when they run into blockers. We need to plan for the code we will write in the future, or we will be much more likely to make the same mistakes of our past. Who knows what comes next? The way we wrote code yesterday is different from the way we'll write code tomorrow. What is our strategy need to include to prepare us for these unknown unknowns? Of course, we'll continue to follow the principles of continuous software engineering. One of these, letting computers perform repetitive tasks so people can solve hard problems, is what I want to focus on. This is something that we have and will continue to improve on. Let's take a look at the way automation and accessibility can help. Today, developers have access to automated testing through the X-Core library that can be integrated into our CI and CD mechanisms that are already used to test and deliver our code. We have a lot of options too. We can use Lighthouse, or Microsoft's Accessibility Insights, or the Ember A11y testing add-on, or even the X-Core library itself. For static analysis, of course, we can use ESLint, although it doesn't have any accessibility support, and we can also use Ember TemplateLint. Developers can get linting feedback while they're writing their code. It also supports a plug-in system that allows teams to define and use custom rules. Some rules have automatic fixes built right in, and running a fixed flag will clean up all of the auto-fixable issues. Finally, it supports sharing configs across projects so you can ensure that all of your teams are on the same page. Before version 3.0 of Ember TemplateLint, the print pending flag gave us a way to roll out new rules. You could take a list of current errors, and we could basically ignore these errors list in the linter, but it relied entirely on teams to be proactive and treat that list as a burn-down list, not a ignore-permanently-forever list. Of course, teams understood that we didn't really want to ignore these forever, but sometimes it's easy to forget something if it doesn't have a deadline. One approach was to turn a rule off entirely until all existing instances of that error were fixed. Of course, this led to a never-ending cycle of trying to turn a rule on, finding new bugs, fixing those bugs, trying to turn the rule on, and starting all over again. This is because by the time you fix the errors, new code would appear with those same errors. At scale, this is time-consuming and costly and can really disincentivize teams to keep up with best practices. So we had issues that could go into the last void of forever or stuck in a never-ending cycle of almost ready to turn on, and we needed something different. Enter the to-do. In the latest versions of Ember TemplateLint, we now have the to-do. Instead of only having the option to set a rule to a warning or error, we can now instruct the linter to find all existing instances of a rule being broken and create a to-do for each. After a period of time, this to-do turns into the warning and then into an error. Look at this from a different perspective, from the perspective of the code we already have and the code we will create. When a new lint rule is released, existing code will have to-dos created and teams can plan to fix incrementally. For new code, it's linted as the code is written, so no to-dos have to be created and no extra planning is needed. How great is that? And this feature was intended to mirror the queue unit to-do feature, which gives better consistency for developers who already use that. You can try this out yourself today. Once you've installed the latest version of Ember TemplateLint, you can run the linter to create to-dos with the update to-do flag. You can see the to-do count when you run the linter with the include to-do flag. And once an issue is fixed, you can automatically remove the to-do with the fix flag. It's so incredible that we can try this out now and even more incredible that it's built into all new Ember apps by default. This kind of accessibility consideration is just one of the many reasons I enjoy using Ember. But let's now turn our attention to the third piece of this puzzle, the metrics, because we need a way to quantify our progress. Right now, there's no common shared standard for metrics and accessibility engineering, but my vision is to change that. Metrics play an essential part of our strategy because our goal is to demonstrate the business value of accessibility and make it a default part of our engineering practice. Just in case you haven't had to quite work with metrics just yet, let's review four of the commonly accepted key criteria of quality metrics. Wow, say that five times fast. Anyway, metrics must be meaningful. They must be connected to the goals and strategy of our organization. They must be controllable. If a metric is not under our control or our influence, it's not meaningful to report. Metrics should be easy to find, easy to identify and visible to management. And metrics must be actionable. All metrics that we define must have an actionable outcome. But what do we mean by that when we say actionable outcome? Well, we can diagnose a problem or improve a process or set goals or even observe trends that inform future work. But before I get into the specific metrics I think we should be measuring, I wanted to remind us. Metrics themselves should never become the target. We won't reach our goal if we're gaming the system. Now, we all know that there are nearly infinite number of ways that anything can go wrong in our application. And that's not what I mean here when I say potential violation count. With potential violation count, I think this metric should be the baseline metric. We want to make an unknown problem, a known problem, then solve for each. This baseline metric is the total number of individual ways an application could fail legal accessibility requirements. But how do we get that itemized number? A few things feed into that. We've got the web standards from WCAG, success criteria, known techniques, common failures. We have location-specific legal standards. For an example, in America we have Section 508 and the Americans with Disabilities Act. And there are different standards for the European Union and Canada and different countries around the world. We also have failures identified by audit findings. Because no matter how much spec anyone has written or how many laws anyone has written, developers will find a way to make an inaccessible interface. Of course, all of these potential violations represent a massive effort that has already been completed by user researchers. So how do you get this information in a practical way? We do this by making an itemized list. There will, of course, be some overlap and we should document that. But this work is worth doing because it gives us a peace of mind that we really know the edges of this problem. We're turning an area of ambiguity into an area of clarity. We're making the unknown edges of this problem known and that will give us confidence.  It's, of course, an open source project called the A11Y Automation Tracker and it's just for developers. And it intends to compile each one of these itemized details. There's an overall details list, but there's also the ability to dive into each potential violation and see the status about how it can currently be tested, the possibilities for the future, and the relevant criteria with links to documentation. Of these potential failures, of these potential violations, my initial analysis is indicated that about half of them are either already automated or potentially automatable. But what about the other half? Well, this means that the rest still require manual testing. And I want to emphasize this again. You still need manual testers. If you're a small company, just remember that accessibility is a journey. Do what you can now and do more as you're able. If you're a large company, I want to encourage you to not outsource this work. In my experience, a few well-trained testers that share your company's values will be much more resource efficient than an entire army of outsourced testers. No matter what size company you are, though, I strongly encourage you to make manual testing an essential part of your accessibility strategy. Some of you who are already familiar with WCAG's success criteria might be wondering, why not just use the WCAG's success criteria? Well, here's why. They're generic. They cover generalities rather than specifics. For example, WCAG's success criteria 1.3.1, information and relationships, is a single success criteria, but can relate to at least 25 or more different failure scenarios. When I write a lynching rule, it needs to cover one specific failure, even if that failure can present in different kinds of syntax. By identifying the edges of a potential violation count, we can then determine several related metrics, violations for which we can provide automated lynching for static analysis, violations for which we can provide automated testing for dynamic analysis, violations that require developer author tests, and violations that require manual testing. There are also metrics that we can look at from the accessibility audits that we receive. What is the total bug count? What is the bug severity count? How severe of an impact do these bugs have for our users? Some are worse than others. What is the time to fix? How long does it take a team to resolve an issue? And violation frequency. How often is a particular violation occurring? So I've given us some essential metrics to track, but what sorts of things are we hoping to learn? What impact do we expect to have? We should expect, at a minimum, to see some trends as a result of the actions we take. We can expect, for example, to see an increase in the number of automated lynching rules and tests, since we have a better way to identify specific potential violations. We can also expect to see a decrease in some things, a decrease in support requests, in accessibility issues, in new code, and fewer issues in code that has the new automation applied. Our audit-related metrics could also inform process from a business and legal perspective, since they could be used to help quantify risk of legal action. When risk is quantified, we can then reduce that by taking specific steps to remedy the issues. And while this might be a business justification, the result is that our users have an improved experience. Improved monitoring also means that development teams know sooner if a product's digital accessibility conformance deteriorates at a rapid rate. It can also help us determine a threshold for new learning opportunities. If a high percentage of developers keep writing the same non-conformant code, we can produce materials that will help them on their learning journey. We can also use these trends to determine an app's overall accessibility help. We could even maybe put that in, well, what's that thing Ember is really good at? A dashboard? In addition to trend analysis, we can use the metrics we gather to inform future work, such as which possible violations currently require manual testing, but could reasonably be automated. What violation is happening the most? Is there a tool we could create to make that problem go away? How could we make it faster for developers to fix the issues that seem to take a long time to resolve? There are additional metrics to be considered here, but I think the ones we've discussed give us a solid start to quantifying accessibility in our engineering practice, bringing us closer to continuous accessibility. I think there might be a new tool that our community could create. I have a vision of this being maybe available as an open source tool, something that anyone in the community could use to improve the measurements of accessibility in their code base. Of course, this slide is a little ugly and maybe a little bit on purpose, if you're offended by the design, please consider helping out on this dream and designing something better. With our metrics in hand though, we could use this data to see clearly and quickly how we're doing. As we have looked at how to think about our code and what metrics to consider, I hope you've seen a path forward to the vision of continuous accessibility. I hope I have inspired you to create something new or to contribute to an effort already in progress. I hope I have empowered you to think about accessibility and your code in a new way. A lot of the strategy I have talked about today is of my own creation, but I'm part of a team and I stand on the shoulders of absolute giants. And I'd like to take a moment to recognize the contributions of others on the project. Robert Jackson, of course, among other things helps maintains Ember Template Lint and directed the idea to add the to-do feature to Ember Template Lint. My colleague Steve Calvert drove the to-do implementation and designed the decay days feature. And internal teams at LinkedIn have been enthusiastic early adopters. It's really allowed me to work out the key of our strategy to implement template linting at scale. I'm really grateful to every one of you. And of course, my husband Joseph, he supports me and my career. And he's the reason I can take time to speak with you today. As a research scientist, he has taught me to think more like a research scientist. And I am really grateful for that. In closing, I'd like to say this. This talk has been focused around providing a strategy to achieve continuous accessibility. But when a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure. It's so important. I'm saying it twice. Keep the end goal in mind. We're doing this work for real people. Accessibility is for everyone.


Thank you very much. Thank you. I don't know why, but it seems to sound better. Thank you Well Welcome to the White House. You may not have thought this building was a part of the White House That's what they call it. Maybe White House complex would be better, but and that sounds like a neurosis Well anyway, it's a pleasure to be here with you today As you know, we're here to honor the top guns of the federal establishment the best of the best in serving the American people When our administration came to Washington six years ago We promised the American people a government that stopped doing what it shouldn't be doing and did Well, whatever was left Our honorees today are helping to fulfill that promise They lead the leaders of the federal establishment They've been chosen the most outstanding members of the senior executive service We should always remember that their work is important not only in the immediate sense of what they do But in a broader way as well As their jobs may be managerial or technical but in a broader sense Their work is to help ensure the success of the greatest experiment in self-government in the history of the world An experiment called the United States of America Just in case you're thinking that when I went over to Ireland a few years back I Sneaked in a side trip and kissed the Blarney stone. Let me tell you about just a few of our awardees Among them is Frederick Raul who's been called the father of the modern Air Force Then there's John Simpson the director of the Secret Service the man who planned protection for all the presidential candidates in 1984 for the Los Angeles Olympics for the 40th anniversary celebrations at the United Nations and Who currently serves as president of Interpol and There's one of the world's outstanding researchers on the workings of the human brain dr. Frederick Goodwin To give you an idea the impact of dr. Goodwin's work I'm told he's in the top one-tenth of 1% of all scientists most frequently cited in scholarly writings I Could go on and on but Some of you are leaders in the critical work of getting federal spending under control Some of you are leading and rebuilding America's defense Charles new focus is helping to bring the 600 ship Navy to reality under budget Others are helping to formulate and implement policy at the highest levels of diplomatic military and trade issues Still others are enforcing the laws of our country while others are making federal programs give good service to their clients I'm very proud of every one of you, and I know your colleagues and your families are proud So let me just say on behalf of the American people Thank you for all you're doing for our country, and now I'm going to turn to Connie Horner who is going to officiate The award winners will come forward one by one from the Department of Agriculture Terry B. Kinney Jr From the Department of Commerce Richard Holgren from the Office of the Secretary of Defense Clyde O. Leicester Charles a Hawkins Jr. Traffton J. Loveland J. David Martin From the Department of the Air Force Frederick T. Rawl, Jr John K. Scott from the Department of the Army Victor Lindner Dr. Lewis R. Schaefer from the Department of the Navy E. Thomas Comstock Dr. Jerome Carl James H. Mills Jr Charles P. Nemfakos Wallace T. Sansone from the Environmental Protection Agency Howard M. Messner Dr. John A. Moore from the Department of Health and Human Services Frederick K. Goodwin and Martha A. McSteen From the Department of Housing and Urban Development Shirley A. Evans from the Department of the Interior Joseph W. Gorel and Edward L. Hasty from the Department of Justice Donald J. Gavin Mark M. Richard and John J. Toomey from the Department of Labor Robert T. Jones From the National Aeronautics and Space Administration Dr. Raymond S. Coladay Dr. Noel W. Henner's Eugene F. Kranz From the Nuclear Regulatory Commission Thomas E. Murley From the Securities and Exchange Commission Catherine B. McGrath and Michael K. Walensky From the Department of State David A. Coulson and Roger B. Feldman From the Department of Transportation Raymond A. Carroll from the Department of Treasury Charles H. Brennan Francis X. Kavanaugh Robert J. Lover Eugene H. Mock John R. Simpson Percy P. Witter Jr. From the Office of the United States Trade Representative Dr. Harvey E. Bale Jr. And from the Veterans Administration Joseph L. Moore and our last winner Michael Rudd. Mr. President, thank you very very much All of you are now invited to join us for a reception in honor of our award winners in the Indian Treaty Room