UD@UA Fall Workshops – 'Universal Design Studio'

By Cole Eskridge, Disability Resources – Universal Design and Outreach
Nov. 7, 2018
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Subject: UD@UA Fall Workshops – 'Universal Design Studio'
Date: Nov 07, 2018

Are you designing something for work, but feel stuck or frozen in place? Are you committed to creating equitable solutions that work for as many community members as possible? Are you interested in exploring inclusive design practices, but don't know where to start? If you said yes to any of these questions, then you may be interested in participating in the Universal Design @ the University of Arizona's (UD@UA) first series of Universal Design Studios.

In these pilot workshops, you will be asked to bring a project that you have been working on. These could be more abstract projects such as policy creation or editing, a curriculum or course. It could also include more tangible projects like (re)designing a space or event planning. Regardless, you and a group of fellow designers will explore the seven principles of universal design and work to apply them to your specific project, share with colleagues, and get their feedback as well. Through this process we hope to foster and build a community of "universal design thinkers," and that participants leave internalizing that we are "good enough" to start making these equitable, accessible, and proactive solutions and products now.

Register by filling out the following these links:

NOTE: These are two separate workshops, so please feel free to sign up for one. In the spirit of flexibility and creating time for all to engage, we wanted to present the campus with different options to engage different schedules.

Universal Design Studio – General Description

Student populations are consistently diversifying on college campuses, and as such, practitioners need to design programs, processes, experiences, and spaces for our ever-expanding student demographics. Universal Design (UD), a disability-centered framework encouraging proactive support for human differences, thus emerges as a provocative tool to guide these necessary design processes. In this unconference-style workshop, participants will apply UD principles to challenges they encounter on their respective campus to create actionable ideas to pilot upon returning. This workshop will assist student affairs professionals and instructors in connecting the work they do (no matter what specialty/area of their campus) with the larger goal of creating a more universally designed college experience. Professionals who engage with the studio will produce actionable changes that can be applied to their practices and policies that will create more equal experiences for anyone in the campus community.

Questions or concerns? Please feel free to reach out to Cole Eskridge, peskridge@email.arizona.edu.

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