Disability Policy for the 2021 Virtual Annual Meeting
As organizers of the AIA/SCS Joint Annual Meeting we acknowledge our ethical responsibility to provide reasonable accommodation, and to cultivate an atmosphere of inclusivity for our members with disabilities at the Annual Meeting.
Our virtual event platform OpenWater includes many accessibility features such as keyboard-only navigation, compatibility with screen readers, and integration with automated captioning.
Unfortunately, the cost of providing live closed captioning by trained captioning professionals for all sessions is prohibitive for AIA and SCS. In light of this, we feel the next best step is to ask those requesting live closed captioning, or other services such as ASL translation, to be specific in listing the sessions they would need this service for so that we can make the necessary arrangements. We kindly ask that you indicate this when completing registration, and to do so no later than December 18, 2020. Both the AIA and SCS have preliminary programs posted on their respective websites to help assist you in making selections.
AIA: https://www.archaeological.org/programs/professionals/annual-meeting/pr…
SCS: https://classicalstudies.org/annual-meeting/152/2021-draft-session-listing-virtual-meeting,
Secondly, we ask all members to help us achieve our goal by exhibiting respect and understanding towards disabled persons. We urge members to educate themselves about key issues/laws regarding disability, as well as to inform themselves about the diverse types of disabilities which exist. As a reminder, kindly note that not all forms of disability are apparent. Disability in its complexity can be unnoticeable or take the form of health conditions which are episodic or in remission, but when active would substantially limit major life activities.
AIA and SCS will distribute guidelines for session organizers and speakers on making their presentations accessible.