Returning to AERA with Purpose
Each year, AERA offers a moment to step back and ask a simple question: what are we learning, and how is it shaping what comes next?
Last year, our work focused on bringing national data into conversation with real campus experiences. We shared early insights from our research and engaged with a community that is deeply committed to improving outcomes for disabled students.
What stayed with me most was not just the response to the research, but the questions that followed.
- How do we move from awareness to action?
- What does it look like to support faculty in consistent ways?
- Where do institutions begin when the work feels complex?
Those questions have continued to guide our work over the past year.
Since then, we have expanded our research, deepened our understanding of both student and faculty experiences, and continued to examine how accessibility operates across systems, not just individual classrooms.
That is what makes returning to AERA this year especially meaningful.
This year, we are not starting the conversation. We are building on it.
We are bringing forward new insights, including national findings that highlight the relationship between faculty confidence and institutional support. We are also continuing to center the lived experiences of students, ensuring that research reflects what is actually happening on campuses.
What I am most looking forward to is the dialogue.
AERA creates space for researchers, practitioners, and leaders to come together and think collectively. Not just about what the data says, but about what it requires of us moving forward.
Because accessibility is not a static goal. It evolves as our understanding deepens.
And right now, we are at a point where the opportunity is clear.
We have the data. We have the interest. Now we need alignment.
If you will be at AERA this year, I hope you will join us for that conversation.
And if your organization is thinking about how to translate research into meaningful change, I would be glad to support that work.
