Fall’25 Townhall: Faculty Accessibility Measure

The Fall 2025 Townhall offered an early preview of the Faculty Accessibility Measure (FAM), the Center’s newest effort to understand accessibility in higher education. Building on the College Accessibility Measure, which captured student experiences, barriers, and supports, FAM shifts the focus to faculty.

It asks how confident faculty feel in providing accessible teaching. It also examines the level of support their institutions provide. Because faculty decisions shape classroom environments, their perspectives are essential to the full picture of accessibility.

This preliminary look at FAM findings, paired with a panel discussion led by Executive Director Stephanie W. Cawthon, PhD, marked the first step in connecting faculty perspectives with student experiences.

Demographics

The Faculty Accessibility Measure reached faculty across institution types, teaching experience levels, and disability status.

Exploratory Factor Analysis Results

The Faculty Accessibility Measure also identified two main factors shaping faculty experiences: individual confidence and institutional support.

Early Findings: Two-Year Colleges Lead in Confidence

Although these results are still preliminary, several patterns are emerging.

• Faculty at two-year and technical programs reported higher confidence in accessibility practices. They also had stronger perceptions of institutional support compared to four-year universities.
• Years of teaching did not significantly affect confidence or support.
• Disabled faculty reported higher confidence than non-disabled peers. Institutional support scores were higher for disabled faculty, but the difference was not statistically significant.
• Two central factors emerged: individual confidence (skills for implementing accommodations, using accessibility tools, and creating accessible environments) and institutional support (training, administrative resources, and policies).
• Faculty interviews highlighted how the COVID-19 shift to online teaching made accessibility unavoidable. As a result, expectations for accessibility remain high today.
• Lived experience also mattered. Disabled faculty described greater confidence in creating accessible teaching environments. This reinforced how personal experience shapes professional practice.

Faculty Perspectives in Practice

The panel featured Ryan A. Mata, PhD, Program Manager at the University of Minnesota Medical School and Research Associate with the Center, and Maura Borrego, PhD, Professor in the Cockrell School of Engineering and the College of Education at The University of Texas at Austin, Director of the Center for Engineering Education, and Faculty Cadre Member with the Center. 

Connecting Faculty and Student Experiences

Ryan Mata began by reflecting on how the Faculty Accessibility Measure complements the Campus Accessibility Measure. Just as students described the impact of accessibility barriers on their learning, faculty data revealed how accessibility also shapes teaching.

“We also now know that proactive accessibility strategies or on the flip side, barriers to accessibility can impact the faculty experience and not just the student experience,” Mata said.

This shift underscores why FAM matters. Faculty are not only designing environments where students learn. They also encounter accessibility challenges themselves.

Faculty Are Navigating Accessibility Too

The conversation revealed that accessibility is not just a matter of what faculty provide to students. Faculty themselves face barriers in their own work. They also benefit from accessibility in ways that mirror their students’ experiences.

“Faculty are now implicated in this discussion about making a more accessible learning environment, not only as the people who make that environment for students to thrive in, but we’re now seeing that they have their own barriers that they face and also unique benefits from accessibility considerations for faculty members,” Mata explained.

By naming faculty as participants in accessibility, not just providers of it, the FAM data highlights how institutions must consider the entire teaching and learning environment.

When Experience Becomes Expertise

For Maura Borrego, the early results revealed something powerful: lived experience makes a difference.

“A kind of a new result that’s starting to emerge is this idea that you are a better instructor if you have experience living with a disability and maybe even as a student having to have asked for help or navigate difficult systems,” Borrego explained.

This finding reframes confidence as more than self-reporting. It reflects how faculty members’ own histories with accessibility shape how they teach and support students.

Beyond Resources: The Role of Institutions

The conversation then turned to the gap between individual confidence and institutional support. Faculty may feel skilled in applying accessibility strategies. However, the availability of training and resources often lags behind.

“Even having resources for faculty on campus doesn’t necessarily mean that they will be able to take advantage… You have limited time to do this and so we can make it easier for people, but maybe not necessarily so easy that they will actually take advantage of the opportunity,” Borrego observed.

Her point highlighted how time and workload pressures keep faculty from fully benefiting from institutional supports. Accessibility is shaped by structures as much as by individuals.

Mentorship is the Missing Link

The panel closed with a discussion about supporting new faculty. Both speakers emphasized the importance of embedding accessibility into orientation and mentoring practices.

“Really just starting from the beginning, I think orientation is a great idea. Preach accessibility as a value and have more senior faculty members be able to mentor the junior ones,” Mata said.

By pairing mentorship with practical resources, institutions can make accessibility part of everyday teaching rather than an added task.

Building Toward Understanding

The Faculty Accessibility Measure is still new. These first findings confirm that confidence, support, and lived experience all shape accessibility outcomes. The panel discussion reinforced that progress depends on collaboration and mentoring that connect faculty, staff, and students.

The Center will continue to analyze survey and interview data, with the goal of delivering the first full report on the Faculty Accessibility Measure in January 2026.