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About R2D2

The ACCESS-ed project is based on the R2D2 Center at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee. While the ACCESS -Ed partners are distributed across numerous university campuses, the R2D2 Center hosts the activity and this central website.

The R2D2 Center is a group of researchers and educators who focus on the areas of technology, universal design, and disability.

The R2D2 Center performs interdisciplinary basic research investigations, applied research and development, and innovative instruction related to technology and disability.

The Center was established in the College of Health Sciences as the Center for Rehabilitation Sciences and Technology (CRST). The Center's name was changed to the Rehabilitation Research Design & Disability (R2D2) Center in November 2003 to more accurately describe the Center's overall activities.

The R2D2 Center affiliates with multiple college/school units in the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Currently, key linkages exist with the Departments of Occupational Therapy and Health Sciences in the College of Health Sciences, the Department of Exceptional Education in the School of Education, the School of Architecture and Urban Planning, and components of the campus Office of Information Technology.

The R2D2 Center is pleased to host the ACCESSS-ed Project and its activities. We enthusiastically invite you to peruse this website as a key information source for universal design in higher education.

It took me several years of struggling with the heavy door to my building, sometimes having to wait until a person stronger came along, to realize that the door was an accessibility problem, not only for me, but for others as well. And I did not notice, until one of my students pointed it out, that the lack of signs that could be read from a distance at my university forced people with mobility impairments to expend a lot of energy unnecessarily, searching for rooms and offices. Although I have encountered this difficulty myself on days when walking was exhausting to me, I interpreted it, automatically, as a problem arising from my illness (as I did with the door), rather than as a problem arising from the built environment having been created for too narrow a range of people and situations.

Susan Wendell, author of
The Rejected Body: Feminist Philosophical Reflections on Disability