Connecticut College is committed to the goal of achieving equal opportunity for all and, accordingly, does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, expression and characteristics, age, religion, national or ethnic origin, visible or invisible disability, or status as a disabled veteran of the Vietnam era. The College complies with federal and state legislation and regulations regarding nondiscrimination, including Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Title IX Education Amendments of 1972, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990.

Consistent with this policy, Connecticut College is committed to ensuring that the widest audience of people, regardless of technology or ability, can use, navigate and contribute to our website. Our goal is to create and sustain a community that allows people of all abilities to do their best work. As part of our commitment to web accessibility, we train all content contributors to adhere to level Double-A World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.0AA) set forth by the Americans with Disabilities Act and regulated by the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Civil Rights, and follow best practices of the Web Accessibility Initiative Accessible Rich Internet Applications Suite (WAI-ARIA) 1.0 for web content.

The College is also dedicated to assisting any individual who has difficulty accessing content on the College’s website. The College will provide every reasonable effort to accommodate students, faculty and staff to meet individual needs. To the extent the College believes that a request will cause fundamental alteration or undue burden, an assessment will be made by the appropriate offices supporting students, faculty and staff listed below.

Individuals who have difficulty accessing information on the College’s website should contact the following resources:

  • Individuals who are unable to access specific content on the College website should contact the Office of Communications at info@conncoll.edu.
  • Enrolled students who wish to report an issue with the accessibility of the website or request an accommodation should contact Student Accessibility Services at sas@conncoll.edu.
  • Faculty and staff who wish to report an issue with the accessibility of the website or request a workplace accommodation should contact Human Resources at humanresources@conncoll.edu.
  • Individuals may also contact the Office of the Dean of Equity and Inclusion, which oversees ADA and all other Civil Rights compliance matters for the College.

The Connecticut College Website Procedures

General Procedures

In addition to ensuring that all web pages open to the public on the www.conncoll.edu website that are newly published or hosted by the College are accessible, procedures are in place to provide quality assurance of website content. These include:

  • conducting regular tests and audits to ensure that the College’s site conforms to accessibility guidelines and follows best practices for ensuring assistive technology users can access the site;
  • training workshops (10-12 sessions annually) for all users of our content management system;
  • reviewing content to ensure updates and/or new content submitted on the College’s content management system meets accessibility guidelines;
  • performing regular reviews/updates by a Communications staff member;
  • providing a web ticketing system on our intranet that is directed to the Office of Communications for response and triage.

Accessibility Committee

The College has also formed an Accessibility Committee comprised of students, faculty and staff, which is responsible for developing a campus-wide policy and implementation plan to ensure conformance to guidelines and benchmarks mentioned above, as well as any set by ADA/504 legislation, and to consider all areas of accessibility on campus. The committee will review the policy on Online Content and Functionality on at least an annual basis.

Periodic Website Analysis

The College regularly uses various software applications to identify problematic pages on its website and to alert web publishers (the individual responsible for the specific web content updates for a department or office) of the need to edit their content so that material is brought into compliance with ADA policy. In addition, the College recently contracted with a web development company specializing in ADA and web accessibility to provide:

  • automated and manual testing of the College’s website;
  • reports that identify problems and possible remedies to bring website content into compliance; and
  • basic and advanced web accessibility training for web developers and content managers.

Accessibility Training

In order to receive and maintain web credentials, all users of our content management system and other web contributors must complete training in accordance with our policies and guidelines. All content producers are required to complete web accessibility training as part of the content management training. Individual sessions with the Front End Web Developer also are available. Supplemental training materials, which are updated regularly, are available to users on the Office of Communications website. The College reserves the right to withhold access permission to the content management system for those who have not undergone training on the latest accessibility guidelines. A content manager whose permissions have been revoked will have permission restored only after additional training on the latest accessibility standards has been completed.