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Celebrating Disability Advocacy Week

Posted March 18, 2024 in JMU Libraries News

Join us in celebrating Disability Advocacy Week (March 25-29, 2024), organized every year by JMU’s Office of Disability Services! Check out the resources below for opportunities to learn, celebrate, and advocate for disability, accessibility, and inclusion in higher education.

three films related to disability advocacy from Kanopy: My Beautiful Stutter, Anita, and Let Me Be Me

Disability Advocacy in Film

Check out My Beautiful Stutter, Anita, Let Me Be Me, and other films on Kanopy, an award-winning video streaming service providing access to more than 30,000 independent and documentary films, available to you for free as a member of the JMU community.

A New Book Display

Minds of All Kinds is our newest book display, now online and in Rose Library. Selected by the Office of Disability Services in honor of Disability Advocacy Week 2024, this display provides books, podcasts, and videos that explore neurodivergence, including a few selections from this year’s keynote speaker, Dr. Temple Grandin.

Research Guide

The Disability Studies Research Guide supports JMU students and faculty interested in disability studies research, including in the Disability Studies minor program.

Accessibility Resources from JMU Libraries

You can convert documents into alternate formats, such as digital Braille, MOBI, EPUB, and audio with SensusAccess. You can also use it to translate documents to another language. Members of the JMU community who are blind or qualify for print disability services through JMU’s Office of Disability Services can get an accessible copy of any book in the HathiTrust collection. Learn more on our Accessibility page.

Our Self-Paced Course on Universal Design for Learning

Staff and faculty can learn about universal design for learning (UDL) in our award-winning self-paced Canvas course. It takes about 2-4 hours to complete in Canvas. After the course, you’ll be equipped to create a syllabus that works for screen readers, an image-rich course in Canvas that is still meaningful to people with diverse needs, instructional videos with captions, and more! Sign up now or learn more: Learning Access through Universal Design (LAUD).

JMU Events

The Office of Disability Services has organized an impressive lineup of events for Disability Advocacy Week this year, including a keynote speech by Dr. Temple Grandin (and a movie about her in Grafton-Stovall!), a job search workshop for students, a faculty training on creating accessible materials with MS Office, a Paint and Pour event, and much more!

Contact

If you have ideas for making JMU Libraries more accessible, please contact us at libraries@jmu.edu.