Dr. Spears mentioned in the faculty meeting last week that, in early February, we had been informed that the Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights (OCR) had agreed that we had complied with the Resolution Agreement Dr. Williams had signed on June 26, 2024 and closed its monitoring of the University’s implementation of the Agreement.
We had received a letter from OCR in March 2024 informing us that they had received a complaint regarding the accessibility of the university website, www.harding.edu. They sent us an agreement which, after a small negotiation, Dr. Williams signed on June 26, 2024. From then until early February 2026, Harding worked together with an OCR attorney to correct the issues she had discovered in the website.
Thankfully, we had just deployed the new version of the website, so it was mostly templates, and significant effort had been made for it to be accessible to those with various needs.
However, we learned many things. We also found that some of the third party products we use needed work as well.
There was a fair amount at stake but we were very thankful that the attorney that was assigned to our case was very helpful. We had several calls with her where she described the methods she used and tools that would be helpful to us.
It has also helped to be able to tell her that the Center for Learning with Technology was working with the Office of Disability Services and Educational Access to help faculty with their course content.
All in all, the cooperation across campus has been great. Changes in training, documents, and the way we think about accessibility sets Harding up to be a more accessible university moving forward. Thanks especially to Shawn Spearman, Bridget Smith and the ODSEA and University Communications and Marketing for their roles in completing this important task.
- Mike Chalenburg