how a map can spotlight safety, inclusion, equality, and accessibility

Creating inclusive campuses is critical for the success of all involved in academics, and touches all aspects of the educational experience: from the time a student is deciding on schools, including their first day on campus, the classroom environments they participate in, to the time they graduate, an inclusive experience can determine the success of the student. Providing an environment that provides equal opportunity, makes access to a schools resources possible, a sense of belonging, trust, fairness and creating social environments that promote diversity are key to the successes of Inclusion. While these concepts touch all aspects of an academic institution, a campus map can play a critical role in promoting these values. The Century Foundation wrote an article called "Promoting Inclusion and Identity Safety to Support College Success" that touches on the challenges faced by students who may be the first generation to attend college, from low income families, be part of a racial and ethnic minority, have a disability, or a member of the LGBTQ community. A properly designed campus map can help members of these communities become familiar with the educational environment before they arrive on campus, and learn about valuable resources when they are there.

“students who might otherwise feel bewildered by a university’s complex organizational structure become intimately familiar with how to navigate the campus and locate valuable resources.”

• MARY MURPHY AND MESMIN DESTIN (Promoting Inclusion and Identity Safety to Support College Success)

Our schools have been very forward in using the Concept3D platform to help with four areas of an inclusive campus: they have created maps that are welcoming, accessible, promote gender equality, and safety.

Welcoming

Creating a welcoming environment begins before a student is enrolled on campus. For prospective students who come from environments that lack the college experience, finding a school that they find accepting is a challenge. Using immersive virtual tour can help a student understand the campus without having to visit it, help reduce intimidation by helping them familiarize their surroundings, and give them a sense of belonging well before they step foot on Campus. Another key area where a map can promote a welcoming environment is during back to school orientation. A map can reduce the stresses on both parents and students by highlighting temporary parking, unloading zones, information centers driving directions, and routes to dormitories. A very popular feature of our maps is to include a "Move In" Category where this information is organized, and can be turned on as a default category during the start of a semester. Allowing students to access and locate the diverse set of events that exist on a campus allow them to connect with their peers and reduce isolation by helping shy or intimidated students to participate more on campus and reap the benefits of all of the resources that can be found on campus.

Accessible

Academic institutions work hard to provide a campus that is accessible to everyone. Concept3D is also committed to this principle by providing ARIA tags in our application, a text only version of the map, the ability to add alt tags, and keyboard navigation. We are also releasing a feature that allows for route finding for wheelchair routes. In addition to these features, campuses can assist people with accessibility needs my providing an accessibility category that would include accessibility entrances, wheelchair lifts, ADA parking locations, elevators that are not in service, providing accessible routes, highlighting crosswalks, and highlighting plowed routes after a snow fall.

Equality

As campuses become more diverse, providing equal access and a sense of belonging is critical to the success of these initiatives. People of diverse racial, income, gender, religious and age all share a common need to equal access and information to provide a sense of security, and an environment of identity safety, where, in order to reach their highest potential, everyone is valued and included. While not reducing some of the prejudices that currently exist within the design of campuses, highlighting certain types of location information important to these groups can reduce the perception of identity threatening cues. Using a campus map can help with these initiatives by highlighting all gender bathrooms, lactation rooms and reflection spaces.

Safety

Crucial to the success on any inclusive environment is the principle that the campus is a safe environment for everyone. Knowing the location of campus safety departments, health departments, counseling services, AED's, shuttle routes, and emergency phones are simple and obvious ways to make students aware of these resources. However, safety goes beyond these, and a map is useful in highlighting other aspects that create a safe environment for its users: showing plowed routes for campuses that deal with snow, using "night maps", which go beyond showing where light posts are located, by adding an overlay that clearly highlights the routes on campus that are lit up at night, in addition to a routing tool that gives preference to these routes, give students valuable information needed to navigate the campus during adverse conditions to get to where they are going safely.

Mapping an Inclusive Campus

By no means would I suggest that a map can solve the difficult problems of inclusion and diversity on any campus, however, I do believe that it is a valuable tool in helping administrators promote the proper environment by making this information readily available, using our content management system to quickly update information as it changes, so that anyone needing to navigate a campus or become familiar with one would find the map useful in that endeavor. Michelle Obama, speaking at her "Reach Higher Initiative" stated "There are support systems on all of these college campuses," she said. "Every college you're going to wants you to succeed." A readily available, up to date campus map can be instrumental in helping students understand this.

References

From Prejudiced People to Prejudiced Places: A Social-Contextual Approach to Prejudice

Inclusive Maps: Empowering the LGBT Community through crowd driven information

Promoting Inclusion and Identity Safety to Support College Success

 Inclusive Excellence at DU

Rider launches Inclusive Excellence Plan

A Gen Z Guide to Inclusivity 

Building an inclusive workspace