I have a passion for creating educational opportunities for others that increase awareness about disability and accessibility. I often do this through presentations at a variety of events. Below is an overview of a few of the presentations I’ve given.

Inspiration Porn and Super Crips: A Critical Look at Disability in Popular Media

This presentation was given during the 2017 Colorado State University Diversity Symposium. This presentation focused on looking at how disability is portrayed in popular media. During the presentation, I introduced audience members to some background about disability and different perspectives for looking at it: as well as some disability stereotypes. From there I showed different clips from popular media that depicted these stereotypes and other representations of disability. After each clip, I facilitated a dialogue with the audience around what they observed in the clips. Through this dialogue, we were able to deconstruct what how disabled people were portrayed in each clip and then discussed how the representation could be changed to improve the representation of disabled people.

“What’s Wrong With You?” A Critical Look at Disability Microaggressions

I gave this presentation as part of the 2018 CSU Diversity Symposium. This presentation focused on common phrases and expressions that act as microaggressions toward people with disabilities.

During the presentation, I presented how these common phrases and expressions are often not intended to be hurtful but can come off that way. I dissected a variety of these common phrases and explained how they can be hurtful to disabled people.  I then offered alternatives to use instead of these phrases.

Example

Phrase: What’s wrong with you?’

This phrase is often asked when someone is trying to learn more about someone with a disability. While usually this phrase is asked out of well-intended curiosity it has an unintentional Impact. This phrase can imply a variety of things

• something is wrong with a person because they have a disability 
• having a disability is wrong
• a person can be (and should be) fixed or cured

There are a variety of ways this could be rephrased.

• Can I ask you about your disability?
• Do you mind if I ask you about your disability
• How is this environment affecting you?

Creating Accessible Programs

I’ve given this presentation on a few different occasions. The primary focus of this presentation is looking at aspects of program development and highlighting how accessibility can be taken into consideration during the program planning process. Throughout the presentation, I introduce different best practices for creating an inclusive and accessible program. One of the primary points I emphasize during this presentation is that accessibility needs to be thought of throughout the planning process, and not as an afterthought.

Going Beyond PowerPoint: How to Give Inclusive Presentations

I co-created this presentation for the 2020 CSU Professional Development Institute. This presentation focused on best practices and techniques for creating an inclusive and engaging presentation. During this presentation, my co-presenter and We touched on several different aspects of a presentation and how they can exclude people from the presentation. Some of the aspects we talked about included:

• physical set up of the room
• presentation method and platform
• accessibility of digital media
• marketing and advertising
• activities and handouts

Throughout the presentation, we modeled many of the best practices we touched on. We also provided audience members resources and tools for creating inclusive presentations and materials.

More Than Memes and GIFs: Creating Accessible Social Media Content

I co-created this presentation for the 2020 CSU Professional Development Institute. This presentation focused on introducing audience members on how to create social media content that is accessible to individuals with disabilities.

• Adding alternative text to images
• Captioning videos
• Providing multiple ways to access information
• Accessibility practices across different social media platforms

In addition to covering these topics, we also provided audience members with resources and tools for creating accessible social media content. We also facilitated an interactive activity that gave audience members some hands-on experience with how to think about creating an accessible social media post.