ASU AccessZone honored for advancing accessibility

This month, Arizona State University’s AccessZone program was recognized for its growing impact on accessibility and equal opportunity at the city of Tempe’s Mayor’s All-Abilities Awards. 

The annual awards ceremony celebrates individuals, organizations and initiatives that exemplify excellence in advocacy and accessibility for people with disabilities. This year’s ceremony took place on April 14 at the Tempe Center for the Arts, where community members gathered to honor those advancing meaningful access for people of all abilities.

AccessZone, a program within ASU’s Student Accessibility and Inclusive Learning Services, was created to address a growing gap in awareness around disability. This is an issue that became more pronounced after the 2008 amendments to the Americans with Disabilities Act broadened the definition of disability and reshaped how students, particularly those with non-visible conditions, access support in higher education. 

The program received the Pride of the City Award, which highlights its role in expanding opportunity and fostering a more welcoming environment across campus and throughout the broader community.

“When I started around 2017, we were starting to get more and more students who were connecting with our office, especially those with more invisible disabilities,” said Elsbeth Pollack, assistant director for access and student support.

At the time, many faculty and staff had a conceptualization for supporting students with more visible disabilities, but were less prepared to understand conditions like ADHD, anxiety or chronic illness. Recognizing this gap, Pollack and her colleagues, Teddy Moya and Shanna Delaney, set out to build a program that would foster deeper understanding and shift campus culture.

What emerged was not a traditional training, but an interactive experience rooted in conversation and reflection. Drawing from the team's backgrounds in experiential education, special education, counseling, vocational rehabilitation, pedagogy and research, AccessZone was designed to engage participants directly, encouraging them to think critically about their own perspectives and assumptions.

Rather than relying on lectures, the program uses activities and real-world scenarios to illustrate how individuals living with a disability process information and navigate the world, and how barriers to access can often be embedded in everyday systems. Participants are introduced to key frameworks in disability studies, helping them understand how environments can shape a student’s experience.

“If we understand those frameworks, we can understand why a student may associate or not associate themselves as having a disability,” Pollack said.

That understanding is increasingly important as the number of students seeking accessibility support continues to rise. In 2019, about 5,600 students were connected with ASU’s accessibility services. By 2026, that number has grown to more than 9,100, with many reporting disabilities that are not immediately visible.

This shift underscores a central message of AccessZone: Disability does not always look the way people expect. By helping faculty and staff move beyond assumptions, the program encourages more approaches that benefit all students.

Since its launch, AccessZone has reached more than 700 ASU faculty, staff and students across a wide range of departments. Its influence has also extended beyond ASU, with several universities reaching out to learn from the program’s model and adapt similar training on their own campuses.

In addition to expanding awareness, AccessZone has contributed to a broader cultural shift at ASU. Accessibility is increasingly being considered from the start — whether in course design, digital platforms or student support services — rather than as an afterthought, a shift reflected in efforts across the university, including initiatives like FRAME (Faculty Resources for Accessible Media Essentials), which provides faculty with tools and guidance for creating accessible course materials.

For Pollack, the impact of this work is ultimately reflected in the success of students themselves. Creating accessible environments not only supports students during their time at ASU, but also shapes their futures.

“The fact that we can support students in becoming engineers, nurses, teachers and CEOs, and having had a good experience at ASU that was accessible and inclusive and supportive, makes such a difference. So it's fun to be able to be a part,” she said.

As AccessZone continues to grow and evolve, the Pride of the City Award serves as a meaningful acknowledgment of the work being done, both behind the scenes and across the university community.

“To be awarded something that demonstrates the work that our team overall is doing is just really wonderful,” Pollack said.

Through education, conversation and a commitment to student success, AccessZone is helping to build a more accessible future.