Changing Accessibility Culture Through a Student Digital Accessibility Remediation Team

This chapter explores the transformative impact of the student-staffed Digital Accessibility Remediation Team (DART) at the University of Illinois Springfield on fostering an inclusive culture in higher education. The authors provide the campus context and history of the team's accessibility work. They outline the theoretical groundwork for the current iteration of DART, which is framed through the lenses of Critical Disability Theory and the Social Model of Disability. The chapter then details three key principles: digital accessibility is a civil right, digital accessibility should be proactive, and digital accessibility teams should live their values; it also outlines how the values of proactive accessibility, distributed leadership, and ethical accountability intersect to create an effective, positive model of a digital accessibility team that aligns with NACE competencies. It concludes with sample short-term and long-term objectives for campus accessibility that are aligned with implementation strategies, evaluation points, and assessment instruments.