Fall and Winter Retreats

Open to all! Early in each semester, the Teaching Academy invites the campus community to gather for a morning of conversations on a relevant theme in higher education teaching and learning. These topics help to prepare instructors and faculty for another successful year with undergraduate students and allow campus educators to discuss new updates in undergraduate education. If you are interested in helping to plan or facilitate the next Fall or Winter Retreat, please contact Dan Pell (retreats-uwta@g-groups.wisc.edu).

• The Fall Retreat celebrates Fall in Madison by gathering for a morning of conversations on a relevant theme in higher education teaching and learning.
• The Winter Retreat is a half day event in the dark of winter to share ideas on teaching and learning topics  creating a buzz on campus.

Contact Dan Pell (retreats-uwta@g-groups.wisc.edu) with questions, or to get involved!

Winter Retreat: Building a Culture of Wellbeing through Accessibility & Accommodations

• Date: Friday, 6 February 2026 (Free & Open to All)
• Time: 9-11:30 am
• Location: H.F. DeLuca Forum, Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery and Zoom

Light breakfast will be served from 8:30am. Zoom opens at 8:45am.

Description: As higher education evolves, building and sustaining a broad culture of accessibility is more important than ever. The Winter Retreat will be an opportunity for instructors, TAs, and those who support instruction to gather and share how they bring accessibility into their teaching and daily work. Participants will discover and discuss emerging technologies and practical strategies to remove barriers, enhance student engagement, and promote long-term accessibility practices. Whether you’re just beginning your accessibility journey or looking to deepen your practice, this retreat will help you move beyond a compliance mindset toward innovative approaches that contribute to a culture of better learning and wellbeing for all.

Format: The 2026 Winter Retreat will include a series of short presentations from invited and volunteer speakers about how they’re approaching this topic and breakout activities to build community and consider how to bring what you’ve heard back to your campus context.

Speakers:

• Ruben Mota: Opening Remarks
• Abby Letak: Ecologies of Wellbeing at UW-Madison
• Carol Spoehr: What Wellness, Accessibility and Accommodation Means When Applying Spoon Theory
• Dr. McLean Gunderson: Designing for Access in a High-Intensity First-Year Course
• Erica Hagen & Luis Loya: Engineering For Accessibility
• Linda Oforka: Opportunities for providing accessibility and accommodations in my teaching and daily work
• Tom Tobin: Accessible Design for Now and the Future
• Rachael Lewandowski Sarette: From Field to Faculty: Using Extension Strategies to Foster Accessibility and Wellbeing
• Mitch Keller: Moving from LaTeX to PreTeXt for Digital Accessibility in STEM Courses
• Shawn Robinson, PhD: From Accommodation to Infrastructure: Merriam-Webster–Based Dictionary Decoding for All Learners
• Hazel Zhu: Making Video Learning Accessible for Individuals with ADHD
• Dan Pell: Fun with Captioning! (in the Era of Gen AI)

Questions about the Retreats? Contact Dan Pell (Chair): dan.pell@wisc.edu