SUNY Niagara Mission

SUNY Niagara provides flexible teaching and learning environments dedicated to educational excellence and committed to our core values of student centeredness, accessibility, comprehensiveness, collegiality, community partnership, and lifelong learning. Through the liberal arts and sciences as a key component of all academic programs, our College nurtures and empowers students to recognize and to value our common humanity as well as the richness of our diversity. The College offers quality academic programs while providing supportive student and academic services. To produce engaged citizens, SUNY Niagara provides cultural, social, recreational, athletic, and global experiences. SUNY Niagara is a major contributor to economic development through transfer, career and technical education, workforce development, and continuing education. To demonstrate integrity and accountability, SUNY Niagara operates through a collegial model of shared governance, which provides for a comprehensive assessment of all aspects of institutional effectiveness.

SUNY Niagara Vision

SUNY Niagara will be a leader in providing a dynamic, high-quality educational environment responsive to current and emerging needs of our students and community.

Strategic Plan

In Fall 2019, SUNY Niagara completed a strategic plan to prepare for its 60th anniversary. The Accessibility plan includes meeting the diverse needs of students by remaining accessible in programs, policies, procedures, admissions, locations, facilities, and tuition.

Accessibility as a Component of Campus Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

SUNY Niagara’s Campus Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Plan includes guiding principles that speak to a commitment to practices that promote inclusion of people with disabilities. These are:

• Prevention of discriminatory or harassing behaviors that create hostile or exclusionary environments for others based on gender, sexual orientation, age, race, religion, socioeconomic status, ability, or ethnicity.
• Commitment to consistently improving opportunities for all people, by supporting social justice and civility, in developing curricula, programs and services.
• Transparency in processes, and a leadership accountable for the experiences of all members of the college community.
• Ongoing evaluation of recruitment and outreach practices to sustain diversity in employee and student populations and in external constituent relationships.

Executive Sponsorship, Administrative Responsibility, and Tactical Execution of EIT Plan

The college’s executive leadership sponsors the EIT Compliance Plan, as follows:

Lloyd Holmes, Ph.D. — President
Maher Ghalayini, Ph.D. — VP, Academic Affairs
Salvatore Durante — VP, Administration
John Delate, Ph.D. — VP, Student Services

The college convened an EIT Compliance Advisory Committee that includes members from across campus. The current committee membership is, as follows:

Nathan Grassi, Ph.D. — Co-EIT Compliance Officer; Dean, Business & STEM
Carrie Dudek — Co-EIT Compliance Officer; Program Coordinator, Accessibility Services
Lynn Lytle — Coordinator, FRCAE
Donna Simiele — Coordinator, Online Learning Technology Support
Fabio Escobar, Ph.D. — AVP, Academic Affairs
Josh Blumberg — Dean of Hospitality, Baking, and Culinary Arts
Jean Linn — Librarian, Lewis Library
Jesse Goldberg — Chief Information Officer, Office of Information Technology
Robert McKeown — AVP, Student Services & Athletics
Matthew Gagliardi — Web Marketing Specialist, Public Relations
Salvatore Durante — VP, Administration
Megan Schutte, Ph.D. — Dean of Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences
John Eichner — Director, Business & Financial Services
Jonathan Bellomo — Director, Human Resources, Equity, & Organizational Development
Martha Kershaw — Dean of Nursing, Physical Health & Allied Health

Core Elements

Authority and Responsibility

Embedding roles, authority, responsibility and accountability in each area of the plan is critical to ensuring the campus EIT plan moves forward according to an established timeline but also with flexibility in responding to changes and obstacles encountered in executing the plan and developing relevant policies. As outlined in the remainder of the plan, personnel have been identified who will lead in the Administrative Oversight (responsible party) and Tactical Execution (hands-on, practitioner) roles. Additionally, there is a plan to recruit campus ambassadors who will act as points of contact for colleagues to implement training at the level of practice.

Awareness Raising

Raising awareness is an ongoing effort that will include multiple means of conveying information about campus practices while integrating access to available training. The college will engage in a rigorous campaign to communicate EIT across campus, effectively positioning ambassadors for members of the campus community seeking training, guidance, and support. This plan will provide the foundation to shift culture toward inclusivity of accessibility practices, rather than making it an add-on to established practices. A focus on updating training, supporting dissemination of information on new or innovative practices, and informing members of the campus community about relevant new and/or revised policies will be implemented. A structured campus communication plan will follow.

Design

Implementing accessibility-focused interventions critical to conducting campus business includes focus on Universal Design (UD) and attention to the principles of Equitable Use, Flexibility in Use, Simple and Intuitive Use, Perceptible Information, Tolerance for Error, Low Physical Effort, and Size and Space for Approach and Use. Likewise, integrating faculty education on Universal Design for Learning (UDL) in support of pedagogy inclusive of engagement, representation, and action and expression is critical to academic experiences that are intentional in meeting the broad needs of a diverse student population.

Procurement

Including accessibility criteria in Information & Communication Technology (“ICT”) purchases should provide more equitable access to equipment such as computer systems for students with disabilities. SUNY Niagara uses a variety of procurement approaches to comply with federal and state regulations. SUNY Niagara’s goal is to implement procurement procedures that include accessibility as a requirement within purchasing processes. While certain purchasing occurs through the Business Office and are evaluated only at specific cost thresholds, other purchasing is evaluated through the Office of Information Technology if the office is expected to provide administrative/technical support, and others are accessed through academic units as part of course or textbook materials). EIT procurement process monitoring will be subject to policies in the Procurement section, through awareness spreading and training. All members of the campus community will be aware that accessibility of digital and web media is as critical a standard as primary function of the media (example of primary function: a quiz platform attached to a digital textbook, provided by and managed by the publisher).

Monitoring Compliance

Monitoring compliance of any practices and processes listed in this document will occur by subcommittee for each of the five areas according to applicable standards. Procedures will include systematic subcommittee evaluation according to an established timeline each semester, and by convening the campus-wide EIT committee once per semester to report-out, and document action and outcomes related to progress within the scope of this plan. Compliance measures will include SUNY-established metrics and cultivating open communication and information sharing critical to monitoring compliance and empowering agency in compliance. An additional component necessary to monitoring compliance will incorporate flexibility as necessary to meeting the needs of the campus community as they arise, but also in addressing emergent EIT standards.

Training

Training will include a prescribed, rigorous schedule to bring the knowledge base of all personnel who develop, select, purchase and maintain electronic and information technologies to scale in executing this plan. Training will occur according to a prescribed schedule of at least one training module per semester per area, with more training added when the compliance monitoring process reveals an area that needs attention and improvement. Training programs will utilize expertise available on campus and seek out alternate cost-effective resources: consistent education on best practices, sharing knowledge with other members of committee, and identifying other members of the campus community who need training to execute the goals of the campus EIT plan is expected to be an outcome associated with monitoring compliance and staying abreast of changes in EIT. This collective effort will be addressed through the compliance monitoring process.

Area of EIT / Training Ambassadors

Web — Matthew Gagliardi
Digital Content — Donna Simiele / Lynn Lytle
Procurement — Jesse Goldberg / Salvatore Durante
Classroom — Salvatore Durante / Carrie Dudek
Library — Jean Linn