From Access to Agency: Highlights from the Lucas Center Symposium
March 02, 2026 / Digital Learning / Tags: Lucas Center, Symposium, Digital Learning
This year at the Lucas Center Symposium, Kinti Conroy and Lacey Hiatte represented Digital Learning with two sessions focused on one shared goal:
Remove barriers. Grow belonging. Empower student agency.
1) Designing for Accessibility & Student Success (UDL)
A quick look at what faculty can check to make courses more accessible and inclusive:
- Meaningful alt text, captions, and transcripts
- Clear headings and layout
- Adequate color contrast
- Descriptive links instead of “click here”
- Use of Canvas Accessibility Checker and Ally
Why it matters:
When access is built in, not added later, students can focus on learning instead of
fighting friction.
Learn more:
2) Empowering Student Agency Through AI
How AI can support responsible, reflective learning:
- Helps students plan, brainstorm, and revise with clear guardrails
- Encourages metacognition through structured goal‑setting and reflection
- Provides personalized scaffolds (study plans, diagnostics, multimodal explanations)
- Reinforces, not replaces, instructor judgment
Why it matters:
Agency grows when students co‑pilot their learning journey and understand the anticipate → act → reflect cycle.
Learn more:
Our Message to Faculty
Digital Learning is here to collaborate. We can help you:
- Make great teaching more reachable (Accessibility + UDL)
- Make student learning more intentional and agentic (AI supported‑ strategies)
Connect with your Instructional Designer:
Transparency Statement
This blog post was developed with the assistance of generative AI (Copilot). AI was
used to help refine ideas, organize structure, and enhance clarity for a faculty audience.
All final editorial decisions, contextual framing, and instructional recommendations
were reviewed and approved by the Digital Learning team.
