Teaching and Advising Resources

Accessibility at Bard 

As many of you may know, faculty, staff, and students have been hard at work this addressing concerns presented by the Bard Disabled Student Union. Accessibility at Bard is a large working group that will continue its efforts over the course of this academic year, welcoming participation and input from all members of the community.

One major step forward has been the formulation of a model syllabus statement for faculty reference: please consider including this language (or some version adapted to the specific contours of your class) in course materials shared with students this fall.

Model Syllabus Statement
Bard College is committed to inclusion and providing equal access to all students; we uphold and maintain all aspects of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA), the ADA Amendments Act of 2008, and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. If a student with a disability wishes to request accommodations, they must register with Disability and Access Services (DAS). Any information regarding a student’s disability will remain confidential. Requests for accommodations should be made as early as possible to ensure adequate time for coordination and planning. Please note that accommodations are not retroactive and require advance notice to implement. 

If you are already registered and have an existing accommodation plan with DAS, request that the office forwards your accommodation letter to the appropriate faculty. 
If you experience any unforeseen access barriers in this course, or have disability-related or accessibility questions, please contact DAS for a confidential discussion: disabilityservices@bard.edu. 

Accessibility at Bard is committed to supporting inclusive pedagogy with tools such as the attached universal design checklist for digital materials.  
 
Administrative Assistants and Program Managers for academic programs received essential training to support faculty in creating more accessible course materials: I want to thank these dedicated professionals for their energetic efforts in support of Bard's institutional commitment to creating inclusive learning environments.  The College will provide ongoing training to help program support personnel master these new practices.

You may wish to familiarize yourself now with Bard SensusAccess, an on-demand file conversion service that helps Bard students, staff, and faculty convert digital materials into alternate formats, such as audio books, e-books, digital large-print and Braille. This service improves the accessibility and readability of your digital documents.  You can find SensusAccess here: moodle.bard.edu or via this link: sensusaccess.com/web3/bard

The College invited a consultant to meet with faculty, administrators, staff, and students to identify next steps and to formulate a comprehensive action plan for Accessibility at Bard. Recommendations were received - please stay tuned for updates on action items as we move forward. 

Please join me in thanking Erika van der Velden, former Director of Disability, Leslie Melvin, Academic Technology Services, Nancy Smith, Campus Accessibility Project Manager, and Juliet Meyers, Web Service Manager, for their tireless efforts to make Bard College more accessible to all members of our community.  The leadership of Vice President for Administration Coleen Murphy Alexander '00 and Vice President of Student Affairs Erin Cannan has been vital to all efforts and advances made to date.

We very much appreciate your ideas, suggestions, and cooperation in implementing these important changes.

Finally, Disability and Access Services has undergone some exciting changes! The office has moved to Olin 106. Erin Braselmann joins us as the new Director, and she can be reached at ebraselmann@bard.edu. Rachel Flynn is the new Program Associate (rflynn@bard.edu) and Megan Brien is the office's new Administrative Assistant (mbrien@bard.edu).

Course and Faculty Evaluation

Program External Review

Information Technology

Contact the Bard Helpdesk at helpdesk@bard.edu or call 758-7500

• Bard IT Services
• Academic Technology Website
• Faculty Computing Lab
• Bard Brightspace (LMS)