Meet Andrew

To some people, accessibility means ‘protecting ourselves from legal ramifications.’ To others, it is about ‘helping people who have a disability to access a website, digital information, or physical campus.’

But I think when you get down to it, accessibility is about doing the right thing, simply allowing people to access information or space.

I work in Web Services and I’m a huge fan of digital information, because it is generally more accessible. If someone were to ask me how to make their website accessible, I would advise looking at it in terms of ‘How can I improve this for everybody?’ And the accessibility will follow that.

For example, if you have a lot of textual information, how can you improve that text to be easy to access for anybody who’s on the go and very busy? Or who may come to your website in a panic for some information, or have a learning disability, or a visual disability. If there’s less extraneous text, it’s easier to consume. So then you are improving it for everybody.

Andrew’s Story

I’m Andrew Riddles and I’m a web architect in Information Technology Services (ITS) at ĐÓ°ÉÔ­´´ University.

My journey started in a very different place from an IT department. I was a high school history teacher and in the mid-nineties, when the internet was discovered, I was working at a school which had no interest in having a website. I thought that was ridiculous, so I took it upon myself to learn how to build a basic website for the school. It seems unbelievable now but even among educators there was a lot of skepticism that the internet was going to take off.

From there, when the internet really took off and they were giving jobs to anyone who knew something about building sites, I jumped ship from teaching to web development for a large IT consultancy in London. When I moved to Canada I worked part-time in the field and became a freelancer when I moved to Ottawa, before answering a job listing on the ĐÓ°ÉÔ­´´ website. I feel very fortunate: I have been here now 16 years.

Something else that has changed since I have been at ĐÓ°ÉÔ­´´ is people’s understanding of what disability and accessibility are. Thinking has moved away from ‘This is for people who have physical disabilities, like people with cerebral palsy who have difficulty clicking links or going to the next page.’ Now there is a clearer grasp of the idea, ‘This is for people who are neurodivergent, or have a partial disability, or even who are simply nearsighted.’ That there is, in other words, a scale of disability.

It is also noticeable that people have come to not question the necessity for accessibility and integrating it into their websites. One thing I am very proud of the ĐÓ°ÉÔ­´´ community for is the fact I don’t have to convince anybody. If people could learn about accessibility all day long, I think that’s what they would do. There’s a huge appetite for it amongst our core clientele: administrators of websites in the academic departments. They’re not asking, ‘Why do I have to do this?’ They’re asking, ‘How do I do this? Can you put out more information about this to help guide us?’

Before the pandemic, we ran in-person workshops on the basics of web accessibility. But we found that people always wanted to know more. So, we built a series of units online, originally because of the pandemic. But we realized there’s also an accessibility component to this: People can learn at their own pace and in their own way using these self-guided and self-paced units.

We make a big point of the fact that those training units are for anyone at the university – even if a department is not using our web template, we want people to create accessible web content.

ĐÓ°ÉÔ­´´ does a lot of things on campus to help students, but we also need to attract people to come here in the first place. There are people who won’t come here if they can’t view the admissions page, or view the course offerings properly online, or find out what the services are available to support them with their disability. They may ask themselves, ‘If I can’t find the services offered on their website, are they going to be easy to access when I’m there?’

I’ve found, since starting down the accessibility route, everything becomes about the accessibility mindset. Suddenly you think: ‘This door handle is terrible. Look how they’re serving this food. How am I supposed to…’ My friends also say, ‘Until you started talking about this, I never thought about it, but now it’s obvious.’

Something that influenced me further was the experience of having aging parents, one with a disability which affected motor skills. You start to realize how even just opening a package of crackers can be extremely limited when you have a particular disability, not because of the disability but because of thoughtless design.

A piece of language that has really impacted me is World Health Organizations’ description of disability as being part of the human experience. Disability is something that can come and go. Most people become disabled at some point or other in their life, even if it’s only for a period of time. For example, I was identified as having a disability (aplastic dysplasia) at birth which was corrected in my first year of life, and then next identified as living with a disability (ADHD) when I was 55 years old. I think we miss an opportunity, of helping children to understand that disability is something that is not necessarily permanent or chronic.

I think we miss that opportunity when children are young and I think it’s something we can help with, in our community at ĐÓ°ÉÔ­´´, to help everyone appreciate disability as a feature of life.

Note: The Humans of Accessibility stories represent personal experiences and views.

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Meet Martin, Deborah, and Sean

In the ‘90s, there was no fund for accessibility initiatives at ĐÓ°ÉÔ­´´ University.

Martin Anderson recalls, “When I arrived at ĐÓ°ÉÔ­´´, I went and bought my books in first year and I realized that the bookstore was not wheelchair accessible.” He also had a roommate who was keen to join in orientation activities, but couldn’t, due to accessibility issues.

Martin met fellow student, Sean Wise. “The university was very accessible but only included the academic definition, and Martin and I were social, not just academic.”

Deborah Coghlin, working with Attendant Services, also got involved. “We would sit down, may or may not have been at Roosters with a beer or two, and discuss how we could make things more accessible.”

However, funding was an issue, so Martin asked the university, “If we arrange for that, so that you have the cash, will you make changes, will you give us a voice?” And the university said “Yes.”

The university heard their voices and partnered with the students to create a fund dedicated to advancing accessibility at ĐÓ°ÉÔ­´´.

Thirty years later, the group shares how it all got started…

Martin’s Story

My name is Martin Anderson. I graduated from ĐÓ°ÉÔ­´´ in 1994 with a commerce degree. I spent five wonderful years being assisted by the what’s now called the ĐÓ°ÉÔ­´´-Algonquin Residence Attendant Services Program. After I finished at ĐÓ°ÉÔ­´´, I went on and I got a law degree from the University of Windsor and now I’m a constitutional lawyer with the Department of Justice in Toronto.

When I was at ĐÓ°ÉÔ­´´, I was focused on the idea that everybody should have an equal opportunity for all university events and its experiences. There’s so much that you learn in the university outside of the regular classroom.

Martin encountered barriers getting around campus in his wheelchair. He also had a roommate who was keen to join in orientation activities, but couldn’t, due to accessibility issues.

That gave me the idea. If we’re making the university accessible, let’s make the events accessible too, even if it means that we have to give people ASL, captioning, and those types of supports.

Martin worked with fellow students, Sean Wise and Deborah Coghlin, launching a campaign that would lead to the Dedicated Access Fund (DAF). To this day, the DAF funds improvements for physical accessibility on campus, as well as supporting access to university events. Inspired by Ghandhi’s ‘Be the Change,’ Martin shares:

If you think something should be changed, find a way of changing it. Even if it involves working with others, work with others. So many significant things in this country happened when one or two people hooked up and said, ‘Hey, I don’t like this, I think we can change it, let’s go for it.’

Deborah’s Story

I’m Deborah Coghlin, Debb, and I’ve been working for the Attendant Services program since 1988, fighting alongside a lot of people to get things accessible.

In ‘92 I was the coordinator for the ĐÓ°ÉÔ­´´ Disability Awareness Centre (CDAC). I already knew Martin because he was one of our clients at Attendant Services, and I was introduced to Sean, because he was working with the Paul Menton Center.

We thought the two offices should maybe work together on things and we would sit down, it may or may not have been at Roosters with a beer or two, and discussed how we could make things more accessible. And so it just all kind of went from there.

In school, it’s more than just what you learn in the classroom. We always tell the story when we have parents that come saying, listen, if your child wants to enjoy Frosh events or orientation events, you know there will be attendants there. So if you want to go in the jello tank to get prizes, we will get you a life jacket. 

This year we have some res fellows in one of the houses that have disabilities and they’re able to participate, you know with everybody, just like any other res fellow.

I have students living in residence who now can open the door on their own with the proximity reader that opens the door.

One student from Japan was so excited that he could open the door for his father. That’s something he had never been able to do.

So little things like that were made possible because of the Dedicated Access Fund.

Sean’s Story

My name is Doctor Sean Wise. I’m a professor of entrepreneurship and innovation at the Ted Rogers School of Management at Toronto Metropolitan University formerly known as Ryerson.

I am a proud ĐÓ°ÉÔ­´´ graduate. I’m a proud alumni of the Paul Menton Center. When I was at ĐÓ°ÉÔ­´´, I worked very hard to expand the definitions and conceptual frameworks around what is a disability. In particular, to highlight that non-visible disabilities are still in need of accommodation. And more importantly, that the university education doesn’t only take place in the classroom.

Martin and I were social, not just academic. And we didn’t feel that everyone was getting the same rights, the same opportunities. And I don’t mean an opportunity to take Psych 100. I mean an opportunity to join a club, an opportunity to see a concert, an opportunity to go to a fraternity house, to go to a house party and whatever is part of a holistic education.

Martin and I and the members of the committee just saw that the disabled student experience ended. It ended at the classroom door. And so we initially asked for support for finances, for a broader definition. And Martin and I and others waged a campaign to illustrate the issue.

I was greatly surprised, not by the ignorance of the masses, but when we brought it to their attention, when we allowed them to experience it, to change perspectives, people didn’t take it well. People wanted students to have those opportunities. And people joined with that campaign. And then Martin and myself and Debb and other people just didn’t let it go.

And it was really that we started this long journey to ensure not just physical accessibilities, not just classroom accessibilities, but so every student could go to ĐÓ°ÉÔ­´´ and could choose from the wide variety of experiences available.

It wasn’t for us to decide which events are cool and which events are appropriate and which events we should support. It’s everything. Everything. So that everyone sees that with slight accommodations, with an investment of compassion, everyone can become their best self, not just those who can jump in the jello.

Note: The Humans of Accessibility stories represent personal experiences and views.

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