I might be able to change the entire design of the course to asynch or fully remote, but not where my school or institution is mandating a F2F synchronous format for the course. Again, that's out of my control.

Got it, thanks. I don't have a solution to this either. I guess if you just lecture w/ no real discussion then everone gets the same basic experience, although it is worse for the people sitting in the room. Not sure what I think about that. But universal design is.... not necessarily my view