Instructional Technology Team Honored with 2026 Blackboard Catalyst Award

UMBC's Instructional Technology team has been recognized as a winner of a 2026 Blackboard Catalyst Award for Training & Professional Development, honoring the institution's leadership in advancing innovative, impactful, and student-centered educational experiences through technology. 

The Catalyst award recognizes UMBC's Course Roadmap to Equity (CoRE), a phased digital accessibility initiative designed to build lasting faculty competency through a combination of live professional development and a structured, self-paced microcredential. Designed to model the very standards it teaches, CoRE treats accessibility not as a compliance checkbox, but as a genuine equity commitment to student success.

Congratulations to Mariann Hawken, Josh Abrams, Susan Biro, Ada Crutchfield, Ben Amudzi, and Peter Ariev.

The CoRE initiative launched in Summer 2025 with a two-day Digital Accessibility Summer Camp for faculty and staff, followed by a live workshop series in Fall 2025 that reached more than 350 participants. CoRE workshops invited faculty to generate Blackboard Ally accessibility reports for their own courses in real time, creating immediate, personal motivation to act. By mid-Spring 2026, the program expanded to include customized department-level training and a microcredential, CoRE Foundations, with more than 250 faculty enrolled.

"Digital accessibility has to be woven into how we teach and how we build our instructional materials,” says Mariann Hawken, Director of Instructional Technology. “CoRE gives faculty the tools and the time to make that shift, and the data show they're doing exactly that."

The results have been measurable and significant. UMBC's institutional Ally accessibility score rose from 66.5% to 78.7% -- a 12.2-point gain between Spring 2025 and Spring 2026. Faculty use of Ally's feedback tools grew dramatically over the same period. Courses actively making accessibility fixes increased tenfold, and the number of individual fixes made grew from 378 to nearly 7,000. Scanned PDFs decreased by 41%, and images missing descriptions dropped by 36% -- reflecting faculty applying exactly the remediation skills CoRE taught.

CoRE is built in phases, with peer mentoring and a student-facing track still ahead. Phase 4, launching Fall 2026, envisions CoRE Peer Mentors embedded in departments and colleges across campus, an approach that mirrors UMBC's earlier Catalyst Award-winning PIVOT program for pandemic-era faculty development. By Spring 2027, the program envisions extending training to students, recognizing that accessibility is a shared responsibility across the entire university community.

UMBC is among thirty institutions across eight countries recognized this year, selected from 136 submissions representing 19 countries, one of the most competitive pools in the program's history. Presented annually by Blackboard, the Catalyst Awards celebrate institutions and individuals who use Blackboard solutions to drive meaningful change in teaching, learning, accessibility, engagement, and institutional success. The Training & Professional Development Award specifically recognizes those who use the Blackboard LMS to elevate training for educators and staff, strengthening skills and supporting successful technology adoption.

"We're inspired by the institutions and educators recognized through this year's Catalyst Awards," said Bruce Dahlgren, CEO of Blackboard. "These winners represent the very best of innovation, collaboration, and commitment to learner success."

To learn more about the Catalyst Awards and see the full list of 2026 winners, visit blackboard.com/catalyst-awards.