Executive summary

  • 5 years of partnership, with Genio Notes supporting Trinity students with note taking accommodations since 2021
  • 600+ students, close to 23% of Trinity's student body, registered with Student Accommodation Services
  • Over 75% of licenses in active use year on year
  • No students asking to go back to a peer notetaker in the last two to three semesters
  • Campus-wide ambition: SAS is building the case for an institutional license for every Trinity student and faculty member

Trinity University is a private four-year university in San Antonio, Texas, with over 2500 students across liberal arts, business, engineering and STEM programs.

Its Student Accommodation Services (SAS) office, led by Director Laura Marquez Ramsey with Associate Director Erin Bennett, Assistant Director Kate Foster, Accommodated Testing Center Manager, Cathryn Yarbrough, and Accommodation Specialist Lauren Peyton, works with more than 600 registered students, close to 23% of the student body. Last year, 213 of them were eligible for note taking accommodations.

Laura joined Trinity in 2021 and became director in 2022, after more than 25 years in disability services at small private colleges across Texas. SAS runs a high-touch model. Staff hold regular check-ins, connect students with support across campus, and revisit whether each student's accommodations still fit as their needs change. This year, SAS started assigning every new student a dedicated SAS advocate who stays with them for all four years.

 

 

That goal shapes how SAS approaches note taking too. Access is the starting point, not the finish line. SAS wants students to leave Trinity as confident, independent learners, and that means active notetakers rather than passive recipients of someone else's notes.

"I tell them, I'm going to advocate with you, not for you. We're going to do it together. And you'll be your best self-advocate by the time you graduate from Trinity."

Laura Marquez Ramsey, Director of Student Accommodation Services, Trinity University

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The challenge for Trinity University

Before 2021, Trinity met note taking accommodations with peer notetakers, and every request set off a chain of admin. SAS recruited notetakers through classes with help from professors, then onboarded and trained them, checked their eligibility to work and set them up on payroll. It took a week or two before a notetaker was in the room and getting paid.

Even then, it rarely went to plan. Notetakers weren't consistent, and some dropped classes without telling SAS. Many students didn't open their notes portal until mid-semester, or the week before finals, which is when they discovered notes were missing. SAS was left scrambling, asking professors to recommend strong students who could step in and paying for replacement notes. Money already paid for notes that never arrived couldn't be recovered. In Laura's words, the team would "race the clock at the last minute too many times."

The bigger problem was what peer notes did, or didn't do, for students.

 

"Our students who were receiving peer notes did not actively engage in the note taking process and did not have incentive to develop their note taking skills. Hence, they left Trinity without viable tools or skills to take to the workforce and beyond."

 Laura Marquez Ramsey, Director of Student Accommodation Services, Trinity University

 

The pandemic forced the issue. With classes moving online, SAS could no longer rely on traditional methods for almost anything, and it needed a digital option that worked for students wherever they were learning.

Building the business case for Genio Notes

SAS tried two digital options side by side: Genio Notes and a business-oriented recording tool. The difference was clear. Genio Notes was built as a learning tool, and when SAS passed on student feedback, Genio acted on it, often with an update by the following semester.

 

"The other company is more business-oriented, and that's not what they're built for. They're not interested in developing the learner. They're just interested in the recording product."

Laura Marquez Ramsey, Director of Student Accommodation Services, Trinity University

 

That mattered because a recording on its own doesn't build independence. With Genio Notes, the work sits with the student. They review the lecture, pull out what's important, build their own outlines and fill their own gaps. Those are skills they can take into the workforce.

 

 

Bringing stakeholders on board wasn't hard. The pandemic had opened the campus up to technology in the classroom, and SAS could show what it stood to gain. The first purchase was funded by a gift to the department from a donor who supports accessible education, and SAS saw no better way to honor its purpose.

 

"The cost was a little bit more, but what we gained was a whole lot greater. We gained our student support, we gained our students' independence, we gained staff freedom in a lot of different ways."

Laura Marquez Ramsey, Director of Student Accommodation Services, Trinity University

 

Renewals are just as well planned. Trinity needs 60 days to approve software, so Laura starts each renewal months ahead to make sure students never lose access.

Securing buy-in for Genio Notes

Faculty were the harder audience. Openness to digital tools during COVID helped at first, but once classes fully returned in person, recording became a focal point. A couple of years ago, the faculty senate asked why SAS was using recordings instead of peer notetakers.

Laura answered with transparency. She walked the senate through the student experience, reminded them that recording had long been part of note taking accommodations (students once used handheld tape recorders), and offered a trial license to any faculty member who wanted to try Genio Notes for themselves. Several did, and were surprised by how much it could do and how helpful it was.

She then asked the senate to help set up an SAS Faculty Advisory Committee. It's now her direct line to faculty, telling SAS what colleagues are hearing, where the gaps in support are and which messages will land.

 

"All the times that we have discussed some concerns that faculty have, it comes down to there's a gap in information. Helping to fill that gap with solid, verifiable information is really making the difference."

Laura Marquez Ramsey, Director of Student Accommodation Services, Trinity University

 

This semester, the focus has shifted to AI. SAS asked every department chair for time in their next department meeting, and Laura has now presented at around a dozen. She uses faculty FAQs and AI resources from Genio's customer success team to explain the safeguards built into Genio Notes, that its AI study tools work only from the student's own class content, and that SAS trains every student who uses it. SAS also shares Genio's AI resource hub and faculty FAQ video through Canvas, so instructors can find answers without waiting for a meeting.

Students needed winning over too. When classes returned in person, SAS told students with note taking accommodations that Genio Notes was the new approach, while keeping the door open: anyone who still wanted a peer notetaker could come in and talk it through. Those conversations became demos.

 

"Nine times out of 10, the student was like, 'Wow, that's great. I want to try that.'"

Laura Marquez Ramsey, Director of Student Accommodation Services, Trinity University

 

It took two semesters of consistent messaging. After that first year, the transition was complete, though SAS still meets individually with any student whose needs call for something different. Families have become advocates as well. Laura demos Genio Notes at intake meetings, where parents are often in the room.

 

"The parents are flabbergasted and they're thinking, 'Why didn't we have this when we were in college?'"

Laura Marquez Ramsey, Director of Student Accommodation Services, Trinity University

Implementing Genio Notes at Trinity University

Trinity has run Genio Notes as a department deployment since February 2021, holding 100 licenses for students with accommodations. Students are trained at intake, can join an optional workshop at the start of each semester, and can book one-to-one sessions with SAS. Increasingly, they don't need to. Genio's three-minute training videos answer most questions, so fewer students book individual training at all.

STEM students have adapted well. Many use iPads alongside Genio Notes to draw diagrams and write out equations, and recent updates have improved how equations are captured in transcripts. In the last two to three semesters, no student has come to SAS asking for a peer notetaker because Genio Notes wasn't working for them.

The admin side has moved on too. The insights dashboard lets SAS see who is using Genio Notes, assign features to specific groups, and follow up with students who have gone quiet before they fall behind. The team can even set its own definition of an "active" student.

 

"I really like the ability to adjust what active means. I think that will be helpful when we're trying to determine who's using it at a glance."

Kate Foster, Assistant Director for Student Accommodation Services, Trinity University

What impact has Genio Notes had at Trinity University?

The numbers show steady, sustained use. Trinity students have recorded 3,206 hours of lectures in Genio Notes, and 81% of licenses were in use in 2024-25, with 75% in 2025-26. SAS's own satisfaction surveys back this up, with no negative feedback from students using Genio Notes.

The biggest change Laura sees is independence. Students are in control of their own note taking, and their confidence has grown with it. They love the quiz features, which make self-testing part of their routine, so they're using proven study strategies almost without noticing.

 

"They're doing it and they're not really realizing. They're practicing all the tried-and-true methods to developing the cognitive skills, placing information in their long-term memory."

Laura Marquez Ramsey, Director of Student Accommodation Services, Trinity University

 

Students describe it in their own way. They talk about lower stress, better focus in the room, and a different relationship with learning itself. For a student who struggles with auditory processing, the ability to replay a lecture is the difference between keeping up and falling behind.

What students say

  • I feel less pressure to ‘memorize’ because I know that I can just enjoy what I hear in the moment. I can actually enjoy learning!

    Trinity University student

  • I get less stressed during lectures and can pay more attention since I know I am recording everything to look back on later.

    Trinity University student

  • Auditory processing is a struggle so being able to go back and listen has saved me many times.

    Trinity University student

For the SAS team, the change has handed back the hours once lost to managing peer notetakers: recruiting, payroll, work eligibility checks and chasing missing notes. That time now goes to students.

 

"The difference is incredible. The amount of time that would normally be spent recruiting, hiring, and training notetakers, chasing down missing notes, and recruiting replacement notetakers has been invaluable. We are better able to focus on broader initiatives."

Laura Marquez Ramsey, Director of Student Accommodation Services, Trinity University

The future for Genio Notes and Trinity University

Laura's next goal is to take what's worked in SAS campus-wide. In her ideal world, Trinity would hold an institutional license, giving every student and faculty member access to Genio Notes. SAS would keep tailoring features for students with accommodations, while every other learner at Trinity would get a tool that engages them in the learning process.

 

"Other technologies are out there, and they're being used by other students that aren't registered with us. But this is the one that has the safeguards."

Laura Marquez Ramsey, Director of Student Accommodation Services, Trinity University

 

In the meantime, SAS is weighing an expansion to as many as 200 licenses to meet growing demand, with STEM support and new study tools like the Cornell note template high on its list.

For peers thinking about a move away from peer notetakers, Laura's advice is to lead with the study tools. Many incoming students arrive from high schools where they were simply handed their teacher's notes, so SAS shows them everything they can now do for themselves.

 

"That's the key piece that we use to sell. How do you use your teacher's notes versus what can you use Genio for? How can it help you? And I think they think it's a lot more fun, too."

Laura Marquez Ramsey, Director of Student Accommodation Services, Trinity University

 

See how Genio Notes helps accessibility teams turn accommodations into active learning, and gives you the data to prove it.

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