Accessibility

Accessibility at Caltech means ensuring equitable experiences for all community members with disabilities. We aim to ensure that programs, practices, and processes are intentionally designed so that community members with disabilities can fully participate, engage, and benefit.

Learn about areas we are focusing on to create equitable experiences and outcomes and with a few of the initiatives that support them listed below.

Design spaces and experiences intentionally so that they are accessible to the largest amount of people possible

Using a collaborative approach involving faculty, staff, and students, Caltech continues its work to promote accessibility across all aspects of the campus environment. Caltech Accessibility Services for Students (CASS) consults regularly with individual faculty to assess accessibility within laboratory and other research environments, identify potential barriers for students with disabilities, and to mitigate these barriers by altering research spaces, procedures, and practices. CASS, Campus Facilities, Human Resources, the academic divisions, and other offices collaborate to optimize accessibility in work, learning, and living environments and implement best practices for accommodating those who may need them. Caltech continually assesses accessibility within digital spaces using a range of technological tools. For example, Caltech Libraries has formed a facilities and website working group to continually assess and improve library spaces and services so that all people with physical, sensory, mental disabilities can access them. In addition, maps of Caltech library facilities detailing information about physical spaces, restrooms, lighting levels, and quiet spaces are available publicly on their website.

View accommodations as a tool to advance equity and support success, rather than just a legal obligation

At Caltech, we aim to change campus culture to ensure that consideration of and approaches that promote accessibility are embedded across the Institute, not viewed as the responsibility of a single office. Through collaboration and consultation with CASS, multiple offices are engaged in work to promote accessibility as a means to advance equity and inclusion while also supporting academic success. For example, Caltech's Center for Teaching, Learning, and Outreach (CTLO) and Academic Media Technologies (AMT), and CASS have collaborated to ensure that technological tools for audio notetaking and document conversion are automatically enabled within Canvas, Caltech's learning management software. The CTLO and CASS are also working with faculty to design a more inclusive curriculum and to encourage the implementation of Universal Design for Learning (UDL) in their courses. These proactive measures prioritize accessibility as an everyday practice that engages faculty and staff across the Institute.

Simplify procedures to obtain accommodations for students, postdocs, faculty, and staff

Caltech has worked to streamline systems and procedures for community members to obtain accommodations. CASS has implemented the Accommodate system to simplify the registration process and reducing barriers to access for students with disabilities and medical conditions. Features of the system include automatic renewal of accommodation requests for those with non-temporary conditions, and the ability to examine data trends in the prevalence and nature of accommodation requests at the aggregate level. CASS's case load is divided between the office's general accessibility and neurodiversity services specialists to better serve students and ensure specialization for more efficient management of accommodation requests. Given the increasing proportion of students registered with CASS and the growth in our neurodiverse student population, this staffing approach helps to ensure that all students receive appropriate support from professionals who are well-versed in understanding the unique challenges that they face and the accommodations best suited to address such challenges.

Educate the community and de-stigmatize disability

Shifting the institutional culture to make accessibility a shared responsibility requires that the entire Caltech community better understand disability and the ways in which taken-for-granted practices can contribute to the barriers that community members with disabilities face and how such barriers detract from opportunity, experiences, and outcomes. To achieve this aim, CASS, CCID, Caltech Libraries, CTLO, and student organizations regularly conduct education campaigns, host speakers, and provide training to members of the campus community to ensure accessibility and disability are increasingly present in the institutional discourse and that the stigma often associated with these realities is removed. For example, CASS and CCID have partnered to recognize Disability Awareness Month. CASS also provides education and training for new and current faculty each academic year so that faculty better understand the range of needs within our student population and best practices for providing accommodations. CASS also meets regularly with Division Operations Officers, and ASCIT and IHC student leadership to review current practices, identify areas for improvement, and make recommendations to further promote accessibility.