The Blackwell Inn, where the Multiple Perspectives Conference will take place from April 13-14. Credit: Sarah Szilagy | Former Patricia B. Miller Special Projects Reporter
Organizers of the annual accessibility and disability conference put into practice the focus of the conference to ensure attendees of all abilities can participate.
The Multiple Perspectives Conference will take place from April 13-14 at the Blackwell Inn, hosted by Ohio State’s ADA Coordinator Office. The conference will focus on what structures in society allow all people to be able to participate, according to its website.
Scott Lissner, Ohio State’s ADA coordinator and 504 compliance officer, created the conference in 2001 soon after joining Ohio State.
“The ‘multiple’ piece of the title is intentional,” Lissner said. “It really is an effort to bring together lots of different aspects of the community around access and disability.?
Lissner said the conference has panels from disability studies scholars, accessibility-focused organizations like Ohio AgrAbility and specialized presentations on digital accessibility.?
Laura Conover, administrative associate for Ohio State’s ADA office said the conference accommodates requests from attendees for additional adjustments. She said captioning used to be included upon request, but popularity led the organizers to adapt it to each panel.
“We do have captioning for every session. We used to just have captioning for those requested,” Conover said. “Just the amount of captioning requests we received — It just made a little more sense just to have it for the whole conference.”
The Blackwell Inn makes adjustments to their venue as well, Conover said.?
“[The Blackwell Inn] every year will remove a metal bar in between two doors. It makes it easier if someone has a mobility device,” she said. “They put out water bowls for service dogs. We always have a couple.”?
To ensure people have access into the conference, Conover said she makes sure attendees have the information long before it takes place.
“I think part of it is just giving a lot of information out in advance,” she said. “If someone who does have mobility issues or they use a device, in the email that we send out we say ‘Here’s the accessible routes to get to the registration. Here’s where the elevators are. Here’s where the accessible parking is.’”
If requested ahead of time, Conover said ADA office staff members can serve as sighted guides for blind attendees. She said people should reach out for accommodations even if they aren’t common.?
“I think every year we get a request we haven’t seen before,” she said. “I’m like, ‘huh, I don’t think I’ve ever got that, but we’ll figure out how to make that happen.’”
Lissner said she encouraged students to attend if they see one or two panels they’re interested in on the agenda.?
“[The Multiple Perspectives Conference] is structured in a way where people can come to two to three sessions or, you know, two full days,” Lissner said.
Conover agreed and added that there is a student panel that has been consistently popular.
“We’ve been doing a student panel for the last couple of years,” Conover said. “I think that’s something that everyone is interested in every year. Like, that’s something that people,- at least, a lot of staff, come to sit at, which I think is important.”
The conference initially started as training for employees in different departments across the university so that they could report accessibility issues present across campus, Lissner said. He invited staff from the U.S. Access Board and the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights to do the training and turned it into an “accessibility awareness day.”?
“I called up the person from the Office for Civil Rights,” Lissner said. “The person I was speaking to said ‘the new director for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, EEOC, is sitting across the desk from me right now. I bet he would like to come, too.’”
After extending an invite to the director of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, or EEOC, Lissner contacted the State Civil Rights Commission and turned the awareness day into a conference, Lissner said.?
He published a call for papers and sent it out within Ohio State and got proposals from students in the Disability Studies Program, which had been established a few years prior, Lissner said.
“When I started it, I kind of swore I would never do it again, right? It was a lot of work,” Lissner said. “It turned out so well that I didn’t really have much choice about doing it again.”
