Chelsea Porter has been named head of the Digital Accessibility Office (DAO), effective today, February 20.
Porter first joined the DAO as a digital accessibility consultant in early 2020 and has served as Interim Head of the Digital Accessibility Office since August 2022. Porter was chosen for the permanent position following a competitive search.
The Digital Accessibility Office, formed in 2019, is housed within ITS but acts as a resource for all of campus, offering services, tools and training to help improve the accessibility of digital content. The DAO also maintains UNC-Chapel Hill’s Digital Accessibility Policy and two related standards. The DAO also plays an integral role in supporting the University’s Carolina Next strategic plan, particularly the initiative focused on promoting diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) within the Carolina community.
Uniquely suited
Porter has spent her entire career in higher education. Before coming to Carolina, she held roles as a digital media instructor at Piedmont Community College and the webmaster for Vance-Granville Community College.
Her experience as an instructor has made her “instrumental” to creating a robust training program at the DAO, said Kim Vassiliadis. Vassiliadis is the director of Digital Experience & Communications at ITS, the group that houses the DAO. In her consultant role, Porter spearheaded the creation of self-paced versions of the DAO’s most popular trainings, making it easier for the Carolina community to learn about accessibility.
“Chelsea’s teaching, higher education and digital accessibility background make her uniquely suited for the position,” said Vassiliadis. Porter “champions digital accessibility by approaching it from policy, business, user experience and DEI perspectives,” she added.
Porter is proud of how far the DAO has come in a few short years. She is looking forward to bringing in new team members, extending the DAO’s services and continuing to make accessibility part of Carolina’s culture.
Get to know Chelsea Porter
What drew you to the DAO?
I’ve always enjoyed jobs where I can help and support people. I feel like our work in the DAO not only supports UNC’s local community, but also a greater goal of increased digital accessibility for everyone. I’ve loved that outreach as a consultant, and I think the head position will allow me to increase that even further!
Can you share some of your goals for the DAO?
Short term… rebuild the team! I look forward to bringing in new team members with new ideas and experiences. Long term I’m working on some goals to expand DAO’s services. What that looks like exactly is still yet to be determined. I’ve learned a lot over the past few years about what other universities are doing and I want DAO to be able to grow and support UNC in as many ways as our small team can.
Are there achievements as interim head or as a consultant you’re proud of?
As a consultant, I took the DAO training program from a fledgling three courses to nine full courses with two of them offered completely online/asynchronously. I look forward to adding more online versions of our popular trainings in the future. I’m a bit sad but also excited that the main training role will be assumed by one of the new consultants we will be bringing on board soon. I look forward to their new ideas for updates and improvements, but I will be sad to let the reins go.
How have you seen the DAO evolve since you joined?
I’m proud of the DAO’s growth. We started out in a rush to build basic policy and figure out how to resolve the OCR (Office for Civil Rights) complaint against UNC’s websites. As a team we knocked out both within a year, started a still-successful Digital Accessibility Liaison program and spread digital accessibility knowledge all across campus with our training program and outreach.
Three years later it feels good to hear people bringing up digital accessibility in random meetings when they don’t even know that I’m there. We have managed to make it part of the culture at UNC and I’m looking forward to growing that even more in the coming years.
Anything else you’d like us to know about you?
I was an instructor of Digital Effects and Animation for 11 years at Piedmont Community College. But that’s just resume fodder. Let’s talk about FUN things! I love D&D, Warhammer 40k, video games and board games!