Meet Kyra Loughlin, James Madison. As part of her capstone project, Kyra spent 14 weeks with Tri Delta Housing, where her mission was to make Tri Delta’s residential spaces more inclusive and accessible for all members—regardless of ability. Her work, rooted in the principles of Universal Design, has already earned her national recognition with the Rutgers OTD Capstone Award for Leadership, Advocacy, and Collaboration. In this episode, we explore how Kyra’s Tri Delta experience helped shape her approach—and how she’s redesigning belonging through inclusive design.
How do you create true belonging? It might not start where you think. In this episode, we sit down with Kyra Loughlin, James Madison, to explore how Universal Design principles can reshape not only our chapter houses but also the ways that our members feel seen, valued and supported.
Kyra walks us through her award-winning capstone project and introduces the Accessibility Screening Tool she developed in partnership with Tri Delta Housing. This innovative resource goes beyond ADA compliance to help meet the diverse physical, sensory and intellectual needs of our members—in both residential and social spaces.
Along the way, Kyra shares what she’s learned, including the importance of asking meaningful questions and listening deeply. She reflects on how her Tri Delta experience and the sisterhood she built at James Madison University continue to guide and inspire her, and she offers heartfelt advice for anyone looking to lead with Purpose.
This conversation is about more than ramps and elevators. It’s about redesigning belonging and reimagining what it means to create spaces where everyone feels at home.
[Fostering Belonging Through Universal Design]
This transcript was created using automated technologies and may contain errors.
Welcome back to the Let's Talk Tri Delta’s podcast. I'm Mindy Tucker, Tri Delta’s CEO and
your podcast host. As we all know, at the top of Tri Delta’s values is inclusion and
belonging. They're values that come from our founders when they created us as a
society it would be kind of like to all. And that's why we were so excited
recently to partner with Rutgers University's Occupational Therapy Doctorate Program.
There, we tried to develop a new accessibility screening tool and resource to help
create inclusion and across our chapter homes. So, this was a tried out to housing
specific project that we were thrilled to step into. And with that,
we're gonna start talking about that with a woman named Kira Loughlin from our Gamma
Tau chapter at James Madison University. Kira, say hello. - Hi everybody, I'm so
happy to be here. Thank you for having me. - Well, we are excited you're here.
Kyra's in the final stretch of her doctoral program. She's spent the last semester
working with Tri Delta Housing for her 14-week experiential capstone project.
And her focus there was making sure that our chapter homes are more inclusive and
supportive of members with diverse abilities. She's developed an accessibility screening
tool and some resources that are gonna help shape how Tri Delta and other
organizations, I think, really look at accessibility in their residential and social
spaces. So, you'll get to hear all about it on the podcast here as we dig in and
talk about all of that work and universal design, which is something I'm excited to
learn more about and see what she's up to. So, Kyra, we're gonna...
cing
to go. But I visited James Madison with my mom, and I fell in love with the
campus. I really loved their health science program there. And that's kind of just
how I that's kind of what made me fall in love with Jameel. I love it.
I love it. We actually ironically have a member of our housing board right now is
on the student affairs staff at James Madison. He's a great We always have a person
from the the higher Ed world on our Tri Delta housing board and he represents James
Madison well and loves the Tri Deltas there. So, we're happy to to hear their story
about how you how you joined us Let's talk a little bit about that. You went to
James Madison and then you chose Tri Delta for your collegiate experience Let's let's
hear about that Yeah, so I knew I wanted to join a Panel at a group to grow both
personally and professionally. And I really fell in love with Tri Delta because a lot
of their values aligned with my personal values, particularly friendship and belonging
and I really loved Tri Delta, sorry.
I loved that they work with St. Jude's Hospital. So that's kind of what really made
me fall in love with Tri Delta, which it's been great. - Yeah, so many people have
to find that connection, whether or not you know someone at St. Jude or you've just
heard about the work. It's one of those things that really, I think helps us stand
out in the crowd of Greek organizations, the work that we do there. So, then you
finished at James Madison and you went on to continue your education at Rutgers.
Tell us about how you chose Rutgers and what led you down the path of occupational
therapy? Yeah, so Rutgers Occupational Therapy Doctorate Program is really different
from the others that I researched because it has a strong emphasis on community
-based practices, which is essentially an emerging growing field in occupational
therapy. I kind of fell in love with everything about occupational therapy.
I really did. I love the rehab side of things. I love helping someone gain their
independence back, improving quality of life, things like that. So I knew I wanted
to go into a program that really emphasizes the different niche aspects of
occupational therapy, which kind of led me to this project as well. Is there a
connection between what you're doing now and your love of the rehab side in terms
of our project or what my next-- - The project in general.
- Yeah, so the thing that I love the most about the rehab side of things is its
holistic approach to health care, right? So, my favorite thing about our project is
we take that same holistic approach. We
want to treat everyone with holism and we want to go about that in treating both
not just ADA requirements, right? We want to go beyond ADA requirements. We want to
embody universal design principles, which is holistic within itself. Okay,
I want to jump into this, because we also made up a word, as we were working
through this with you, the word is visitability. And I type it, people are like,
that's a typo. That doesn't look great. But I think it goes to what you're talking
about, because it's more than just what the ADA requirements are. But what does it
feel like to visit a Tri Delta chapter if you have a challenge of some sort? And
differently -abled people are going to see that in different ways. And the ADA list
doesn't always sort of get you there. And so, I'm anxious to sort of dig in on
this with you as you were working through the project and you were bringing the
idea, like how did the project come about? How did you end up with Tri Delta? And
then how did you sort of take that theory or that philosophy through the work that
you did? Yeah, so if I go way back, the reason I kind of fell in love with this
type of work is I volunteered at a spinal cord injury camp through Rutgers
University called TrueGrid.
And there, you know, adolescents with spinal cord injuries will stay at the dorms
and do a week -long summer camp. And it's basically in preparation of the college
experience, living in the dorms, going to classes, you know, navigating the dining
halls, things like that. So, in that experience, I really got to see like all the
gaps within EDA. These dorms were the most accessible on campus and Rookers,
as some may know, has a bunch of different campuses. So, like that means a lot that
these were the ones that were chosen. Within these dorms, there were so many
different barriers. And it was very frustrating because I was like, okay, you know,
this is supposed to be somewhere where you feel comfortable, where you're living,
right? This is supposed to be a home way from home, where also that a lot of
people that live in the Tri Delta House say as well. So, when we were doing the
spinal cord injury camp, I recognized a lot of those gaps not only just in the
dorms, but in the social facilities too, in the dining halls, in those social spaces
where you're supposed to be having, you know, good conversations, building friendship,
all the other things that, you know, go along with the college experience. - Yeah.
- So that's kind of where it all started. And then I realized that ADA isn't enough
and like where can we fill in those gaps? And that's kind of where I landed on
universal design. Universal design is an emerging practice,
especially within occupational therapy and within residential facilities.
A lot of people here of universal design are the ones that have a background in
education, in elementary education maybe, and higher education, but not a lot of
people within the residential facilities knew what it was. Okay. So universal design
is based on seven key principles. That's going to be equitable in use, flexible in
use, simple and intuitive, perceptible information, tolerance for error,
low physical effort, and size and space for approach and use. I know that sounds
like a lot, but with those seven principles, we were able to come up with a great
screening tool that embodies universal design and the visitability. We go beyond,
and that's kind of where this visitability comes in is because it's not just a
space where you're living. We want people to be able to visit the Tri Delta Spaces
and feel comfortable. What does that look like? That looks like a space that is
accessible for all and comes back to that universal design approach. Yeah.
I think we had an instance-- I think it was at Stephen F. Austin, if not someone
can correct me. But a woman in a wheelchair was coming through recruitment and
Tri Delta figured out a way to put a ramp on the front of the house so she could
be welcomed in. Other chapters on the campus welcomed her through a back door or a
different door and it felt it felt off for her, and I think sometimes we forget
like how meaningful those that visitability that just ability to enter a space is
and how much it means. And in her case, she pledged Tri Delta. It was one of the
defining factors for her was how welcomed she felt there. And we talk about a sense
of belonging a lot in Tri Delta. This is part of that, like just feeling like you
have a place where you can be yourself and you can come and be welcome. This is a
huge part of that for somebody that has needs like this, right? Definitely.
And I think Also, it's the recognition of those needs. Like we recognize that you
might need a ramp in the front. And a ramp in the ADA will say, you know, you
just need one ramp. And a lot of those ramps are in the back entrance or whatever
is most accessible. It could be whatever is nearest to the parking lot, whatever it
may be. But Universal Design would say, the front door should have a ramp, but the
back door can also have a ramp 'cause everybody can access through that door, right?
Even abled body people can walk in through a ramp entrance. So, I think that's
what's really most important is your universal design is the approach that everybody
can benefit from, you know, no matter age, limitations, abilities, everybody can be
able to same entrance and feel that belonging. - Yeah. So, let's talk about the tool,
this accessibility screening tool, how do you, can you tell us a little bit about
it and what the goal of it is? And then how do you think Tri Delta will use it?
- Definitely.
So, this project is,
this project came about through three different modules. So, the first module is a
learning module. This is just gonna tell you about universal design, what it may
look like in the homes, because a lot of the time, no one really knows of
universal design or visitability. Universal design is something that I just say more
often 'cause I know people know it, but visitability is the word that we've also
used and a lot of people aren't familiar with the word, have no idea what it
means. So, I think that was an important starting point of like what does this look
like. What is it?
And it's not just because what I did find throughout the projects is a lot of
people were like, Oh, well, we're ADA accessible. Like, we, you know, right, we
covered that. Yeah, that we checked that box. So, I think that was a big thing for
me to be like, wait, but we need to go beyond ADA. You may be ADA accessible,
but this goes beyond that. And why is that important? So, we So we start with that
learning module, and then once that's completed, we go to the accessibility screening
tool. This tool breaks it up into different categories, and each category is scored.
So, this allows Tri Delta to see where they land on universal design approach and ADA
requirements. It's a little mix of both. This It's a quantitative score to show what
is currently working and what is currently lacking. So, my idea for this was a
quantitative score that you'll be able to see grow over the next couple of years.
And then the final resource is a capital planning resource. So that's supposed to be
so, you can look at it and be like, how this is our score, but where do we go
from here? Oh, well, this is the capital planning resources. This is what we can
do. And within that resource, I wanted to do temporary permanent solutions. My
thoughts behind this were a lot of the time, everyone hears accessibility and they
think elevator, right? And they're like, oh, you know, elevator takes a lot of
money, it takes a lot of time, it's never going to happen. So, this final resource,
I want to say, like we can fix this, fix accessibility with both temporary and
permanent. Yeah, eventually an elevator could be useful. But right now, what can we
do to accommodate the needs of not only physical, but sensory,
intellectual, things like that? - Right. - So that's kind of what I incorporated in
the last resource. - Yeah, I love it. I noticed you've talked about this a couple
of times. The difference between residential and social spaces and including both of
those and what we're looking at around universal design or visitability. Can you talk
about why it's so important to look at both of those spaces? Of course. So
residential spaces, I saw this a lot when I first began in the spinal cord injury
camp, is a lot of dorms or a lot of houses will have an accessible right?
Yeah. But what else, what are parts of a college experience that you also want to
have, you know, you want to have that social aspect. So those social spaces are
super important. I mean, you don't want members to just feel like they need to be
in their room the whole time. They want to be able to access the social space. Or
let's go back to that visitability word. We want everyone to access social spaces.
We want everyone to feel comfortable and feel like they belong in those spaces. So
I think it's really important to go just outside of residential and you know really
embody social spaces within that as well. I also think I think it's important to
not just have that one accessible room on the first floor but instead have all
social spaces accessible on all floors and everybody be able to access them.
- Right.
Looking big picture back at your time, the project and your time at Tri Delta, what
do you think you've learned about the subject matter in front of you, about
advocating for people, about yourself? What are some of your takeaways? - So a big
takeaway is just have confidence in emerging practices.
I think there are times where you're unsure, there might not be a super linear
pathway of what you're supposed to be doing, but with that confidence, you know
there's definitely a need, and to really have that as your leading factor going into
any type of project you do. I knew I wanted to
So, I wanted to incorporate universal design within collegiate housing, what that
looked like. I wasn't sure, but I knew there was a need for it. And that's were
I really have to thank Melissa Mueller, who's also on the housing team who really
helped guide me and show me like different things that we can do with this project.
- Yeah.
As you think back to your - Time in Tri Delta, and I like to ask this question of
everybody, and I love the answers like it, because it's such a thread. What do you
think in Tri Delta helped prepare you for the path that you're on now?
- Ooh, that's a really good question. I think a lot of different aspects of Tri Delta
has helped me in this path, specifically. I think, you know,
Originally, I would probably say, you know, making those friendships, making, you
know, connections and things like that, both, both personally and professionally has
really helped, you know, grow me into the person I am today and help me ask
questions. That's a big thing I've learned in my schooling in higher education is,
you know, ask a lot of questions, see where you can grow, make a lot of
connections with people and see where, you know, what's needed out there. And I
think that's kind of my main takeaway. I also think I still keep in touch with my
Tri Delta sisters from JMU. And, you know, that's probably another big one for me.
Yeah, I love that. I was going to ask you, what does Tri Delta look like in your
life today? And you obviously have some chapter sisters.
- It's all on friends, yes. - Yes, which is fun. I think we all do. We carry this
with us longer than we think we will. I think in college, I always think, oh, it's
four years, but it's definitely a lifetime journey. - Definitely. - And you're still
at the very beginning of it. So can you, I guess,
at the end of the day, I think it's really cool that you sort of found a way to
blend the occupation that you love, like the subject matter that you love with an
organization that you love. And at the end of the day, I think, what do you think
the impact is gonna be on sisterhood from what you're doing? - Yeah, so a big part
of the project is just enhancing that sense of belongingness,
right? Like we have no idea amount of people that want to join Tri Delta that are
out there that might feel that they aren't able to because, you know, they don't
know what accessibility looks like within the home, you know, within the social
setting. So, I think once, you know, we see, you know,
once the screening tools are published and we see everybody go through these
screening tools, we will see an enhancement of sense of belonging.
And yeah, I just, I really, I think that eventually we'll have, you know,
a lot of people that want to, you know, live in the homes of, you know, try it
out to homes and feel like they can attend, you know, alumni events or whatever
that may look like. Yeah, yeah, I love that. Visiting, their visitability will be
greater. Yeah, looks like that word, I love
big project is over, what's next for Kyra? Yeah, so I am currently studying to take
my board exam. So, after that, I will be, I will be an inpatient rehab facility at
Kessler and West Orange. I'm not sure the unit yet, but hopefully the brain injury
unit, that's, you know, another passion of mine.
- So yeah, yeah, you're excited about that. What advice would you give to a current
collegiate woman or new graduate in Tri Delta who wants to kind of align their
passion and purpose together? - Yeah, I think the most important thing with building,
bridging knowledge to practice, knowledge to action is sure,
you know, you're back to the confidence. I think make sure you're confident in what
you're doing. And if you feel that there is a need for what you're advocating for,
you can make anything happen. As long as you believe it, I think you can get other
people to believe it. I think you can make a bigger difference as long as you
believe in yourself and you believe in the passion and the work you're doing. Yeah,
perfect confidence. I love it.
You have also said you're open to talking to collegians with disabilities to help
them sort of further understand what the work you do, but also to hear from them
and understand inclusivity and accessibility better. How can they get in touch with
you and sort of follow the work that you're doing? Definitely. You could get in
touch with me through email. My email is going to be Kyra, K -Y -R -A,
Loughlin, L -O -U -G -H -L -I -N, at Gmail .com. I would love to hear from collegiate
members with disabilities on how they think I can improve this project. If there's
anything I'm missing, I would love to represent it better. I tried, you know, my
hardest during the project to view with collegiate members who have disabilities and
try to incorporate anything, any advice
that they had for me into each one of the modules. But I always want to grow it.
I always want to like be representative of all. So, if there's anything else, please
email me. Or just if you want to tell me what you think of the project, I would
love to hear it. I love it. Well, thank you. This has been a great conversation.
I think it's something we probably don't talk about enough. Don't put enough
emphasis.
I just love the passion that you brought to it and we wish you the best of luck
as you keep moving down the road on your own journey. So, thanks for being such a
great representative for Tri Delta. Yeah, thank you for having me. This was great. As
everybody knows, it's really important for us to be inclusive and supportive,
especially as we grow. We're trying to grow and expand Tri Delta as much as possible.
For those of you that don't know, we are joining the campus of university of
Connecticut in the fall of 2025. We're excited to open that new chapter and we'll
be returning to the University of Arizona in fall of 2026. So, lots of growth
happening. If you're out there and you're listening and you're passionate about
helping shape a new chapter and make an experience more accessible, we'd love to
have your help. So, head to MyTriDelta on Tridelta .org and raise your hand to get
involved. We'd love to have your support. We hope you'll like, subscribe, and rate
our podcast. There's three stars in our crescent, but we love those five stars
ratings, so we'll take them. Thanks for joining us, and until next time, Delta Love.