Information for Faculty
The goal of this office is to assist in creating an accessible university community where students with disabilities have an equal opportunity to participate as fully as practicable in all aspects of the educational environment. This office works with students, faculty, and staff to promote students' independence and to foster recognition of the students' abilities, not disabilities. Students who seek assistance from this office need to provide current and appropriate documentation that shows they have a condition that meets the legal definition of a disability and describes the current impact of the condition on them. On the basis of this information, the SSD office may make recommendations of services and/or reasonable accommodations that the University should provide and, upon the request of the student, communicates these by letter to the appropriate persons within the institution.
To ensure that students go through the proper channels to establish their eligibility, it is strongly recommended that all faculty members include the following paragraph on their syllabi:
Disability Accommodations: If you need academic accommodations for a disability, you must first contact Ms. Rebecca Marin, Director, Services for Students with Disabilities (214-768-4557) to verify the disability and to establish eligibility for accommodations.
Before making any accommodations, faculty should require that each student who is seeking accommodations present them a letter from the Director establishing his or her eligibility and recommending specific reasonable accommodations. If a student does not provide the instructor with such a letter but requests accommodations on the basis of a disability, the instructor should refer the student to the office of SSD for guidance on how to establish eligibility; accommodations should not be granted until the faculty member receives a letter from the Director establishing that the student is eligible to receive accommodations, suggesting what those accommodations ought to be.
The accommodations recommended by the Director are intended to mitigate the impact of the disability on that particular student and to provide a fairer opportunity for the student to compete with the average student who does not have a disability. "Disability" may be conceived of as a social concept about people with physical traits not favored by society, a society which (perhaps unwittingly) built its infrastructure to be essentially closed to those traits. Accommodations are meant to facilitate inclusion of students with disabilities. They "level the playing field," enabling instructors to assess the student's ability and mastery of course material, rather than assess the student's disability. There are several principles followed by SSD in determining what reasonable accommodations to recommend. The accommodations:
- Should not necessitate that faculty compromise on what's essential to the course or lower standards. Faculty should maintain high expectations for students with disabilities. It is correct to think of it as an ethical or best practices sort of issue: we do no one --including students with disabilities--any favors if we lower expectations.
- Should not give the student an unfair advantage over peers, but just a fair opportunity to compete with others who do not have a disability.
- Should not require instructors to redesign class or entail an undue burden on the instructors.
- Should not incur an undue financial burden to the University (in the context of its entire budget).
- Are not retroactive. They are only effective forward in time from the point at which the student has established his/her eligibility with SSD.
Professors are expected to implement recommended accommodations so long as they are reasonable for their class. It is permissible to deny accommodations, but this requires sound justification from the institution. No individual professor can make such an important decision independently. If the recommended accommodations do not seem reasonable for your class or if you have questions about how to implement them, faculty are invited to contact the Director.
Students are instructed to take the Director's accommodation letter to faculty in private, e.g., during office hours, to come to a meeting of the minds about how the accommodations will be handled. Many students are very uncomfortable disclosing that they have a disability or feel ashamed, so faculty are urged to create an open and receptive climate. When students hand you their accommodation letters, please do not say you do not need to meet about the letter. Rather, please always invite students to discuss things with you if they would like, or ask if you can help in any way. Some professors just take the letter and say "Okay, I'll read it later" or "Okay, just let me know before the test" rather than start a conversation. Students may need more encouragement, so professors should not just shut down the conversation. However, professors must treat the students' disclosure of their disability as a confidential matter, taking the utmost care to protect their privacy. Students should not fear that their disability will be "announced" or inadvertently disclosed to others. Rather, they should expect to have disability-related information treated with respect, confident that it will not be indiscriminately dispersed.
If you suspect that a student may have a disability and you would like to refer a student to SSD, it is suggested that you approach the student with your observations, for example: "You always do well during class discussion and then do poorly on your tests" or "You do well on your tests, the parts you finish, but your score is always lowered since you never finish." Then, you could make a suggestion that "you may want to discuss this with one of the counselors at SMU's Counseling and Psychiatric Services (CAPS) office who may be able to help you find out if this has to do with your study habits or if it is something else. It is recommended that you not use the word "disability" for various reasons, including that it may put some students off who have never been told this and have no understanding of what a disability is.
Most of the students served by the office of SSD have hidden disabilities, e.g., ADHD, depression or learning disabilities. The most commonly requested accommodation is the gift of extra time on tests to compensate for difficulty with such things as maintaining concentration, focus, or processing speed. The national norm for extended time is 1.5 to double the time allotted to peers; the accommodation letter will indicate which amount is likely to be adequate in the case of the particular student involved. Students are instructed to give faculty ample notification of their need for accommodations, such as extended time on testing, so that faculty will have adequate time to make appropriate arrangements. When possible, I encourage faculty to try to accommodate the students in a location near them so that the students may have someone with expertise, for example, to clarify an ambiguous test question if needed. The location should be quiet, and students should not be relocated to another setting during the test which could be disruptive to their concentration. When the department/faculty cannot provide a suitable location for testing a student eligible for accommodations, SSD may be able to arrange for a testing setting and proctor at the Health Center if given enough notice. Here are some steps to follow to set this up:
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Determine the time you expect the student to take a test, and have the student--not the faculty member--call SSD to reserve a room, ideally giving SSD a week's notice to make such arrangements. The Health Center is open from 8:30-5 weekdays, so tests administered by this office must be taken within that timeframe. If students do not give you sufficient notification time to implement their recommended accommodations, you are within your rights to tell them that, regrettably, you cannot provide accommodations on such short notice. Then indicate that you will be glad to do so on future tests if they provide you sufficient notice, e.g., two days, a week.
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The faculty member must make arrangements for the hard-copy test to be at the Health Center in time for the student to take the test at the agreed-upon time; SSD regrettably does not have the staff to transport tests to and fro. Tests may be dropped off at the receptionist's desk on the second floor of the Health Center. Please respect the students' rights to privacy and confidentiality by not mentioning student names. Instead, let the receptionist know that you are dropping off a test for Rebecca Marin's office to administer. The receptionist will file the test in a safe place till testing begins. For alternative methods of getting the test to the Health Center, feel free to consult with the Director.
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Please include with the test any special instructions you'd like SSD to follow in administering it, and we will try to observe them, e.g., open/closed book, use of calculators, etc.
- After the test has been administered, it will be left again at the receptionist's desk on the second floor of the Health Center for faculty to pick up. For alternative ways of getting the test returned to the faculty member, please consult with the Director.
The University has a legal obligation to provide auxiliary aids and services and reasonable accommodations to qualified students with a disability under the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. The purpose of such accommodations is to foster inclusion of these students so that they have as much of an equal opportunity to succeed as students without disabilities. Besides there being a legal basis for doing so, it is the right thing to do. The provision of accommodations is a collaborative, on-going process that requires deliberation between student, faculty, and the office of Services for Students with Disabilities. We welcome your questions and suggestions on how we can collaborate more effectively.
Last revision - July 2008