Broadening Horizons: Creating an inclusive environment for virtual learners

With the start of the Fall 2021 semester, the campus as a whole finally began to feel like they had the opportunity to reengage students on campus and encourage them to socialize together in person, which wasn’t possible at the height of the pandemic. However, SUNY Canton’s student population appeared to be split, with roughly 50% on campus and 50% online. A large focal point of the fall semester was the “Best Year Ever” initiative, which focused on engaging students in person with exciting activities nearly every day in August and September. With the virtual students feeling left out, the goal of the Learning Commons, in terms of programming, became making all of our events accessible to all students. Using our Halloween Scavenger Hunt as an example, we will discuss the quick progress we made towards reaching our accessibility goal in a short period of time and what developed after our successful event.