Promotion, Dissemination, and Practical Application of Results and Findings in the Field of Physical Activity for Persons with Disabilities
@_nafapa
March 2025 Issue #17
NAFAPA News
Meghann Lloyd | Ontario Tech University
Cora Firkin | University of Delaware
Congratulations to Our Award Recipients:
Dr. Emily Bremer, Dr. Samuel Hodge,
Nathan Lamain, Dr. Lindsey Nowland
Thank you to SUNY Cortland, SUNY Brockport, and the 2024 NAFAPA Conference Planning Team
Putting Faces to Names: Meghann Lloyd, Andrew Pitchford, Justin Haegele, Franziska Loetzner, Kyle Pushkarenko, Laurie Malone, Cora Firkin, Edward Ramirez, Jenna Smith, and Paul Warner
Start Getting Excited for NAFAPA 2026, ISAPA 2025, and our new social media platforms
President's Message
I am struggling to find the words to express how humbled I am to be
writing the President’s Message for the NAFAPA newsletter; it doesn’t quite
seem real that I have stepped into the role held by so many of my respected
colleagues.
I would like to thank our outgoing board members, JK Yun, Nancy Spencer,
Myeongjin Bae, Ueli Albert, Nancy Huynh, and Kate Rozendaal whose term
was complete as of the NAFAPA meeting last fall. Our community is grateful
for your time and efforts. I would also like to express my sincere thanks to John
Foley and his team for hosting a very successful NAFAPA conference in Ithaca last fall. It was a great conference, and we are grateful.
The vision, and direction of our new NAFAPA board is now taking shape, and we are excited to share with you some of our initiatives in this newsletter. The best way I can describe my vision for our work over the term of the Board is: to bring the NAFAPA communications strategy into 2025. We have begun the process of emphasizing our brand identity across all platforms and streamlining our processes for communicating with the broader NAFAPA membership.
You will note you are receiving this newsletter from a newly minted NAFAPA Board email address (NAFAPA.boardofdirectors@gmail.com), this email will be monitored by the NAFAPA secretary and future communication to the broader membership will be centralized here. We have also significantly updated our website, please check it out, I think it looks amazing: www.nafapa.org.
In terms of social media, we have new handles that we hope you will all follow for regular posts on what the Board and the greater NAFAPA membership are up to.
Instagram: @_nafapa
LinkedIn: North American Federation of Adapted Physical Activity
None of this communications work would be possible without the genius, effort, and dedication of our team. Please know that the brilliance behind this work is not me, but the very talented Cora Firkin, Jenna Smith, Paul Warner, Edward Ramirez, and Franzi Loetzner.
With that, I will let the rest of our team share some of our initiatives and I hope you will follow our communications efforts over the coming months.
Cheers,
Meghann
Our Commitment to Ongoing Accessibility Enhancements of the NAFAPA Website
NAFAPA has long benefited from the dedication of our past boards and webmasters, who have developed and maintained our digital presence. Their efforts have provided a valuable platform for showcasing our history, disseminating our newsletters and announcements, fostering connections at our conferences, recognizing our new investigators and leaders in the adapted physical activity field, and supporting our network. Building upon this foundation, we are excited to announce our commitment to making the NAFAPA website more widely accessible for persons with diverse characteristics and capabilities.
In our latest website launch, we have:
-
Chosen fonts with wider inter-letter spacing [1]. Previously, our website fonts included Fjalla One, Open Sans, and DIN Next Light. To reduce excessive crowding, we have switched to Montserrat Bold, Open Sans, and Avenir Light.
-
Chosen colors with high contrast. The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) Level AAA requires a contrast ratio of at least 7:1 for the main text and 4.5:1 for large text [2]. Our color palette for text (#B20A13, #002E5D, #222222) has exceeded these ratios.
-
Resized all text to at least 18 points and are exploring options for customization [3, 4].
-
Identified all headers, sub-headers, and text, and leveraged the Wix Accessibility Tool to check compatibility with assistive technologies.
-
Begun inputting captions and text alternatives for all non-text content (we are fortunate to have many photos showcasing our network’s impactful work in adapted physical activity)
-
Reviewed all updates to confirm they render appropriately on mobile devices.
Enhancing accessibility is an ongoing process. By continuously refining our website, we aim to foster more equitable opportunities for individuals to engage meaningfully with our awesome content and community. We welcome your feedback to help guide these enhancements and intentional steps toward digital inclusivity.
All the best,
Cora
Congratulations to the 2024 NAFAPA Award Recipients!
Dale A. Ulrich Leadership Award Recipient:
Dr. Samuel R. Hodge
Allen W. Burton New Investigator Award Recipient:
Dr. Emily Bremer
Patricia Austin Graduate Student Award Recipient:
Lindsey Nowland
Greg Reid Research Award Recipient:
Nathan Lamain
Meet the 2024-2026 NAFAPA Board Members
President (2024-2026)
Ontario Tech University
President Elect (2026-2028)
Oregon State University
Past President (2022-2024)
Old Dominion University
Secretary
Oregon State University
Treasurer
University of Alabama at Birmingham
Treasurer
Memorial University of Newfoundland
Member-at-Large
University of Delaware
Member-at-Large
University of Toronto
Member-at-Large
University of Georgia
Member-at-Large
University of Illinois
We are incredibly grateful for our past board members. Thank you for passing the baton and for your dedication, leadership, and contributions to the adapted physica activity community. Your efforts have paved the way for continued growth and impact. We look forward to building on your legacy!
Annoucements
Upcoming Conferences
Registration is now open for the 2025 International Symposium of Adapted Physical Activity & International Symposium on Physical Activity and Visual Impairment or Deafblindness.
Theme: Work Rest Play
Location: Munster Technological University, Kerry North Campus, Tralee, Co. Kerry, Ireland, V92 HD4V
Dates: June 16-20, 2025
.png)
Follow Us on Social Media
@_nafapa
North American Federation of Adapted Physical Activity
Meet Our Editors
Edward Ramirez is a PhD student at the University of Georgia. His research focuses on on people with physical impairments who use wheelchairs and their motivation, lived experiences, and benefits of participating in wheelchair sports.
Paul Warner is a PhD student at the University of Illinois. His research focuses on the lived-experiences of youth with disabilities in different physical education and physical activity settings and the use of evidence-based practices in such spaces.
References [1] Galliussi J, Perondi L, Chia G, Gerbino W, Bernardis P. Inter-letter spacing, inter-word spacing, and font with dyslexia-friendly features: testing text readability in people with and without dyslexia. Annals of Dyslexia. 2020/04/01 2020;70(1):141-152. doi:10.1007/s11881-020-00194-x [2] Creswell JW, Klassen AC, Clark VLP, Smith KC. Best Practices for Mixed Methods Research in Health Sciences: (566732013-001). 2011. [3] Bernard ML, Chaparro BS, Mills MM, Halcomb CG. Comparing the effects of text size and format on the readibility of computer-displayed Times New Roman and Arial text. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies. 2003/12/01/ 2003;59(6):823-835. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/S1071-5819(03)00121-6 [4] Rello L, Pielot M, Marcos M-C. Make It Big! The Effect of Font Size and Line Spacing on Online Readability. presented at: Proceedings of the 2016 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems; 2016; San Jose, California, USA. https://doi.org/10.1145/2858036.2858204
