Scheduled at 9:45 in Penrose I on Friday, November 20.
#43166Speaker(s)
- Michele Bromley, Manager, Digital Accessibility and Content, Portland State University
- Chennettée Jelleberg, Director, Office for Student Access, Oregon Health & Science University
Session Details
- Length of Session: 1-hr
- Format: Lecture
- Expertise Level: All Levels
- Type of session: General Conference
Summary
When higher education institutions invest in digital accessibility, they often depend too much on one person to manage change and maturity growth. This session focuses on protecting digital accessibility professionals from burnout using project management strategies, personal and professional boundary-setting, and realistic capacity planning. Participants will learn practical ways to stay grounded, reset expectations, and sustain themselves while leading institutional change.
Abstract
It is a tale as old as time—or at least a tale as common as a higher education institution facing digital accessibility barriers, and its administration deciding that the solution is you. And you may already have a job or three; you may be a distance education specialist at your institution, an adaptive technology specialist, a senior instructional designer, a disability services professional, an information technology manager—but now, whether in addition to these roles or instead of them, it has somehow become your responsibility to bring about digital accessibility maturity for your institution.
Your colleagues have been purchasing, creating, and managing digital resources for most of their adult lives, and you are now the person who is meant to explain that they need to change the way in which they are conducting their day-to-day work in order to incorporate digital accessibility guidelines. The biggest barrier to digital accessibility maturity isn’t ignorance; it’s fear. People are afraid of what they don’t understand, and they’re afraid of change. In an era of unprecedented access to artificial intelligence, higher education professionals don’t want to relearn how to design an electronic document, a slide deck, or a web page with accessibility in mind; they want to press a button. And their frustration at being held accountable to do more than that will be directed at you.
So, what can you do? This presentation isn’t designed to teach you how to build digital accessibility maturity at your institution. Rather, it is designed to support you in protecting yourself against the burnout that you’re either already feeling or recognize coming your way. Participants will learn how two accessibility professionals have used key project management and boundary-setting techniques to stay grounded, prevent burnout, and recover when burnout occurs. There will likewise be opportunities for small group discussion and sharing.
Keypoints
- Establish a competence baseline for decision makers and build capacity to meet it before launching a project
- Objectively identify project impediments, obstacles, and blockers—and adjust expectations accordingly
- Allow some initiatives to fail when success depends on you exceeding your capacity or sustainable limits
Disability Areas
All Areas
Topic Areas
Accessibility and Accommodation in the Current Political/Legal Environment, Campus & System-wide initiatives, Faculty Development & Support, Other
Speaker Bio(s)
Michele Bromley
Michele Bromley, MA, CPWA, ADS, is a digital accessibility and inclusivity specialist, currently supporting the Office of Information Technology at Portland State University as the manager of the Digital Accessibility and Content team. Michele has a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in English from Oregon State University, which laid the foundation for her focus on accessible, inclusive, and usable content management. Over the years, Michele has held various roles, including Business and Professional Writing Instructor, Alternative Formats Coordinator, Adaptive Technology Specialist, and IT Accessibility Coordinator. Her primary areas of expertise are project and change management, enterprise service management, and accessible digital procurement, design, validation, remediation, and incident response. She has presented on these and similar topics for the national Association on Higher Education and Disability (AHEAD), EDUCAUSE, Gender Advocacy and Inclusion Network (GAIN) in Higher Education, the Orbis Cascade Alliance, the NorthWest Academic Computing Consortium (NWACC), and the Partnership for Academic Library Collaboration and Innovation (PALCI).
Chennettée Jelleberg
Chennettée Jelleberg, MS, CRC, is the Director of the Office for Student Access at Oregon Health and Science University (OHSU). As a Clinical Rehabilitation Counselor and a disabled individual herself, she brings both professional expertise and lived experience to advancing accessibility and disability inclusion within higher education. She is passionate about creating sustainable systems that move organizations beyond reactive accommodations toward proactive accessibility embedded in policies, practices, and culture. She also provides training on proactive accessibility and anti-ableism practices with a particular focus on education and healthcare settings. Her work focuses on expanding institutional knowledge, building cross-campus partnerships, and equipping faculty, staff, and leaders with the tools needed to address barriers and design more inclusive environments from the start.