Proceedings from Recent Capacity Building Institutes

DO-IT hosts several capacity building institutes (CBI) each year, events that bring together individuals from a variety of stakeholder groups to explore problems and solutions regarding the success of individuals with disabilities in college and careers. Participants may come from across disciplines, departments, and/or institutions. A CBI builds the capacity of each member of the group and their respective organizations to solve identified problem(s) and to explore ways that other individual or organizational stakeholders can contribute to solution(s).

DO-IT has proceedings from two of our latest CBIs online now! The AccessERC CBI, Increasing the Participation of People with Disabilities in Engineering Research Centers, provided a forum for sharing interventions and strategies that promote the full inclusion of people with disabilities in ERCs. Questions covered include the following:

• What strategies used to recruit other underrepresented groups at your ERC could be repurposed for use in recruiting people with disabilities?
• How do the viewpoints of the student panelists and individuals in the documentary Fixed affect how you would communicate with, recruit, welcome, and/or work with people with disabilities in your ERC?
• Where can we link to appropriate resources from our ERC website? What are other ways we can share information within our ERC, including partner institutions?   
• How can we continue to work together to promote the participation of people with disabilities in ERCs? What activities could be conducted by Student Leadership Councils?

The CBI on Washington State Accessible IT with a focus on Policy #188 provided a forum for prioritizing work to help every institution meet the requirements presented in the Policy. Attendees included disability service and computing professionals and Policy #188 coordinators from postsecondary institutions across Washington State. This CBI aims to improve the accessibility of IT developed, procured, and used by Washington State postsecondary institutions. Lessons from this CBI help people both within the state as well as provides lessons for those in other states.

Learn more about other CBIs and lessons you can learn on our CBI proceedings page.