Welcome, Retrievers! If you've never had the opportunity to come to Retriever Integrated Health to see our facility, now is the time! Stop by and meet the mental health, medical, and administrative staff, as well as the Office of Health Promotion staff.

The Center for Well-Being (2nd Floor)
Today, Tuesday, Feb 3 | 3–5 PM

Welcome, Retrievers! If you've never had the opportunity to come to Retriever Integrated Health to see our facility, now is the time! Stop by and meet the mental health, medical, and administrative staff, as well as the Office of Health Promotion staff.

The Center for Well-Being (2nd Floor)
Today, Tuesday, Feb 3 | 3–5 PM

It's that time again - Involvement Fest is here! 

We're so excited to welcome everyone back for a new semester with Curl PWR.

Come find us in the RAC on Wednesday, February 4th from 12:00-2:00 PM to learn more about Curl PWR and our events and activities for the semester and connect with the other student orgs on campus. This is your chance to get involved, reconnect, and build community this semester!

We can't wait to see you there!

Welcome back, Curl PWR family! <3

We're so excited to start another semester with you all and can't wait to see what this spring brings! Come say hi to us at Involvement Fest on 2/4 from 12-2 PM in the RAC! 

Accessible by Design, Joy by Default: Leisure as a First-Order Accessibility Problem

Eminent Scholar Talk with Dr. Gillian Hayes, UC Irvine

12-1pm Fri., Feb. 6, ITE 459, UMBC

Refreshments provided for those that RSVP

Accessibility research has made substantial progress in education, work, and health, yet leisure—play, sport, gaming, creative expression, and shared enjoyment—often remains underemphasized or treated instrumentally. The World Leisure Organization's Charter for Leisure states, "Everyone…has the right to adequate time for rest and for the pursuit of leisure activity."  This talk explores research that understands leisure as a first-order accessibility concern rather than a secondary benefit. Taking this principle seriously invites a broader view of access as supporting dignity, self-determination, and flourishing. Drawing on a body of human-centered computing research, I examine accessibility challenges and opportunities in leisure-focused contexts: tangible technologies for blind outrigger paddlers navigating dynamic aquatic environments; digital tools that support families in managing ADHD-related self-regulation while preserving connection; and work on autism and gaming that foregrounds play on one's own terms. Across these cases, leisure settings highlight important design considerations like sensory negotiation, social coordination, challenge, and joy. By treating leisure as essential for everyone, we can think holistically about what accessibility means in everyday life.

Gillian Hayes is a Chancellor's Professor and the Kleist Professor of Informatics at the University of California, Irvine. Her research sits at the intersection of human-centered computing, accessibility, and mobile and ubiquitous computing with a particular focus on how interactive technologies can support agency, dignity, and flourishing in everyday life. Across her work, she has focused on community-engaged approaches that bring in a variety of voices to the design process who may not typically have access. Through these participatory and interdisciplinary methods, her research examines how technologies can better accommodate sensory diversity, social connection, and self-determination. When she is not doing her day job of vice provost of academic personnel or working with her students and post-docs in research, she can be found baking cakes, reading science fiction and YA dystopia, volunteering, playing with her kids, or walking her 100-pound lapdog.