Student Accessibility Services

I thought I would start by posting over the next month or so about accommodations since that is something that many faculty members encounter frequently (though by no means am I implying that in working with students with disabilities, accommodations are the be all and end all).  I will do my best to break the topic into manageable chunks.  Feel free to comment and/or ask questions.

This week I’m addressing why we issue accommodations to college students.  The simple answer is anti-discrimination disability laws provide for it, when appropriate.  If you think we issue them because we want to help students do well, we don’t.  Come back next week for the explanation of that one!

Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 is a Civil Rights statute that forbids “denying access” to any program or activity provided by a college or university solely based on disability-status.  From this, we get the idea of providing students with disabilities “equal access” – the same access that students without disabilities have.  For our purposes, when we talk about most academic accommodations, we are talking about program access.  Architectural access is more straight forward (and covered by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)) – if you’re in wheelchair, you can’t get into a building without curb cutouts and ramps; we’re talking about literal, physical access.

But, what do we mean by “access” in the classroom?  In this context, we mean equal access to opportunity.  The opportunity to participate fully in higher education and reap the same benefits as do others by participating in that activity.  Often, the way we allow for this opportunity is through an accommodation.

Accommodations are not issued simply by virtue of having a disability.  There must be an “access issue.”  There must be an opportunity the student with a disability does not have, and an accommodation will allow for that opportunity.  I keep talking about “opportunities,” so what does that mean?  Some examples will explain this best.  Oftentimes, an accommodation is meant to provide a student with the opportunity to demonstrate what they know, as in a test.  Non-disabled students have the opportunity to demonstrate what they know, whereas without an accommodation of extended time, a student with a disability would be demonstrating the impact of their disability rather than what they know.  Apply that same principle to the accommodation of a reduced distraction environment for testing.  In a note taking situation, typical students have the opportunity to take notes, whereas students with certain functional limitations due to a disability don’t have that same opportunity, so they are given an accommodation of the ability to record the class.

Next week, I’ll discuss when and why an accommodation is not appropriate.