Las Vegas City Wire

A University of Nevada, Las Vegas, entertainment engineering and design alum knows how to keep UNLV’s website accessibility friendly.

Jerra Strong was drawn into the world of information technology (IT) while working as an assistant for Penn Jillette of Penn & Teller, according to UNLV News Center. Now he is in charge of the university’s web and digital strategy and is the go-to guy concerning how to make information universally accessible online.

"My mom read in the newspaper about the entertainment engineering and design program at UNLV," Strong told UNLV News Center. "It’s a unique program that’s not offered anywhere else in the world. I came for that program. Before UNLV, I worked closely with Penn Jillette from Penn & Teller as a production assistant. While I was in college, I worked with Mac King on his show. I had imagined myself moving into an engineering role in live entertainment and magic. It turns out, I don’t have the heart for show business. It’s tough. Being in show business is tough. But as I was taking these engineering classes, I learned to code. Software development and, later, the idea of web development was almost addictive."

Strong explained that accessibility provides people with disabilities the same information that is provided to people without disabilities.

“Accessibility is a way to ensure that a person who may use their computer differently from the way you or I use it is able to easily access that information at the same time as anyone else,” he told UNLV News Center. "If Person A can find out some information at 2 a.m. on a Sunday on the website, but Person B has a disability, and if the site isn’t accessible, they have to call the university on Monday morning and wait on hold for somebody to answer their question — that is not equity."

Strong became involved with IT in 2014 as a student worker and took accessibility training at UNLV while being part of the WebCampus training team.

“Accessibility always seemed like a black box. It’s nice in theory, but how does a person learn that? I didn’t know where to get started, and somebody came into my office and said, ‘Do you want to take this new training we have?’ And I jumped at the chance," Strong said, according to UNLV News Center.