An Accessible Return to On-Campus Events

“Do you think virtual events will continue after the pandemic?” my friend asked me. “I really hope that once the pandemic ends, we will continue to have these virtual events. It has really opened up opportunities for people, like me, who are disabled to participate in society.” I’ve heard this sentiment over and over as the pandemic has gone on, from friends and family members who feel like their lives have been enriched by increased virtual access to events, both professional and cultural. At the same time, while I have enjoyed virtual conferences (a quick shout out to the fantastic HETMA virtual conferences seems warranted here,) I’m waiting anxiously until I can return to in-person conferences because I miss that social aspect.

But beyond those issues, I also want to point out that in higher ed we have a different kind of event to deal with: student events. And that’s how I want to frame this piece, because our students are, at the end of the day, our customers. Student groups, historically, are an on-campus affair because they are confined to the campus, but just like conferences, they no longer need to be solely location-based.

As I’ve said before, AV has the opportunity to play a major role in the future of access on campuses, just as we played a major role in keeping our schools going over the pandemic (and indeed before it). Usually, when I talk about that I’m talking about making classes more accessible, but as we’ve been reminded countless times on our own campuses and in the media, college is about more than just classes, there is a deeply ingrained social aspect as well. And we need to make sure those components are accessible as well, post-pandemic.

When I think about student events, or conferences on campus, what sticks with me is that they are very narrow in who is “welcome” at them. When I was an undergrad, I took courses primarily in the evening because that was what worked for my schedule (let me just digress for a second and say that time is one of the biggest issues making higher ed inaccessible to “non-traditional” students.) This meant I was not as able to participate in campus life because student events didn’t take into account what non-traditional learners needed. Graduate school was the same because unlike many of my peers I was working for the university at the same time which meant I was not only unable to participate in events, I was actively discouraged from it. When I transferred to a different program, which was online, there were no ways for students to engage in campus life both because we were remote and because there was little effort to engage us with the campus.

So, with all of that said, how do we make events more accessible? Honestly, the answer isn’t too different from how we can make classes more accessible. But beyond that is what I want to look at, because most events and conferences on campus are just that, on campus. We need to shift that viewpoint before we can truly make events and conferences accessible. I know what you’re thinking, virtual conferences (HETMA’s excluded) have been polarizing, some are happy about them while others find them to be lacking elements they sought at conferences like networking or the ability to get hands-on with vendor equipment.

There are two items we need to address, accessibility-wise, to make sure that events and conferences can return in an equitable way. First of all, we cannot accept a return to in-person only conferences and events. Even before the pandemic, the idea of a conference where trainings are occurring requiring in-person attendance seemed ridiculous. By expecting people to gather in a single location, at a cost that was often out of reach for an individual attending without institutional backing, training and conferences became inaccessible to those who are either trying to attend for their own enrichment or those whose employers or academic programs, can’t or won’t pay for them to attend, not to mention many individuals with disabilities.

We’ve had the ability to live-stream events for years, but we stubbornly refused to take advantage of it in the name of preserving the value proposition of an expensive conference.

Similarly, student group events need to be re-evaluated in terms of how they are used to build community in order to include those who can’t physically be present for a variety of reasons. As we move into a more “normal” fall, we need to consider that many of our students still won’t be on campus for various reasons and we still need to find ways to make sure they are included in our communities. While there will always be a preference for events where students gather, a virtual or hybrid event will allow more students to join in.

At the end of the day, virtual access to cultural events has been one of the best things to come out of the pandemic (to-go cocktails and the explosion of fantastic YouTube content aside.) With the permanent installation of videoconferencing equipment in classrooms across our campuses, we’ve already tackled one of the biggest obstacles to student events being accessible. Now we need to address the general inequality of student events on a cultural level, and I hope that what we’ve learned from the pandemic will also help us there. We’ve become accustomed to happy hours, movie nights, and more over Zoom, if we keep the lessons learned from those in mind, we may be able to succeed at making our return to campus more welcoming and more equitable.