The phrase “access to education” has several meanings. The ones most relevant to my work are:
Affordable education.
- Open Education Resources. I am a member of the team that received the institutional grant from the University System of Maryland to Towson University to popularize and facilitate OER use. During 2020-2023, the team administered OER mini-grant programs (small stipends to faculty to explore and/or adopt OER in the courses they teach). We organized the Community of Practice dedicated to OER. Rick Davis, the librarian on our team produced a useful library guide that has more information about the project. The university adopted special designations for the courses that use 0 cost or low cost (generally, under $50) textbooks.
The page OER in mathematics lists some of the resources I have used, including OpenStax textbooks and WeBWorK homework system.
- Scholarships and research opportunities. I am a co-PI on the S-STEM grant from the National Science Foundation. The grant provides scholarships to mathematics majors and expands support for critical transition courses for the major and undergraduate research opportunities.
Mathematics in Braille.
I am one of the founding members of the Raised Mathematics Project. The project develops software tools to help render mathematics in a tactile form. I am not an accessibility specialist; I say a bit more about how I started on the Raised Mathematics page.