>>WILLEMIN: Hi, I'm Susan Willemin, the director of Disability Support Services and I would like to provide this overview for faculty for working with your students in your classes who have disabilities. We're located in the Administration Building and there's our contact information. And the role of Disability Support Services is pretty basic. It's to determine the student�s eligibility for disability services and approve accommodations. To ensure that Towson's policies procedures and practices don't discriminate on the basis of disability and allow for accessibility, to collaborate with faculty, staff, and students, to implement accommodations and foster a welcoming inclusive environment, and to provide or refer students to support services to promote academic success. 

Some of the support services that we provide are time management, organization study skills, priority registration, and help with course load and selection. Services that we would referring out for would be things like tutoring, counseling, and diagnostic assessments. So what is a disability? Under federal law, a person with a disability is defined as someone with a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities. And there's a fairly comprehensive list. These are examples of some of them. Walking, seeing, hearing, breathing, learning, reading, concentrating, thinking, communicating, working, and taking care of oneself. And you can see many of those really have direct application to the academic setting. So what do our students look like here at Towson? We have, as of last year, over 1,300 students registered with Disability Support Services. And you can see that most of them have learning disabilities followed by attention deficit disorder and then psychological disabilities. Other disabilities include medical mobility and physical disabilities, autism spectrum disorders, students who are deaf or hard of hearing, blind or have low vision, students with brain injuries, speech language disabilities, who are deaf-blind. And we also serve students with temporary disabilities and those would be students, for example, that have broken their hand and they can't write, so we would providing scribing and note-taking services. 

So I think the important thing to remember with this is that most of these disabilities are going to be invisible, so you're not really going to be able to see a student with a disability in your classroom. And the students really only have to disclose a disability if they're requesting an accommodation. So most students, honestly, I think, with disabilities on campus, aren't registered with our office and most of those who are you wouldn't necessarily know that they are registered unless they tell you. What is an accommodation? 

So an accommodation is defined as an academic modification or adjustment to a course or program that eliminates or minimizes disability related barriers and enables a qualified student with a disability to participate on an equal basis. And the most common accommodation that we typically provide is time and extra, time-and-a-half testing time. An accommodation shouldn't fundamentally alter the nature of a course or program or result in an undue burden. And they are designed to level the playing field rather to ensure student success. And for those of you who are familiar with laws of governing K-12 under IDEA, that's more success oriented. 

By the time students transfer to college, it's an access oriented protection under ADA. These are examples of some accommodations we provide. Note-takers and tape recorders, interpreters, text books in alternate formats. So for example, we have students who have books that are on tape, that are enlarged or in brailled. Sometimes we provide exceptions to attendance policies depending on the nature of the disability and the course requirements. Classrooms and internships accessible locations, extended time, and then also a reduced distraction testing space. 

So what are the students' responsibilities in the accommodations process? Well, students are responsible for meeting the university's qualifications including the essential academic and code of conduct standards. They need to disclose their disability in a timely manner. Provide documentation in support of accommodation requests to DSS. Provide faculty with their DSS memo and discuss how the accommodations are going to be implemented in each course. The student needs to follow specific procedures for obtaining accommodations and we tell them what they are, and they're also on our website. They need to inform us of barriers or problems in a timely way. And they have to request accommodations each semester. 

We issue a new memo each semester and accommodations are not granted retroactively. So I think that's important to know. For faculty, for their part, the faculty has an overall responsibility to make sure that other courses, when viewed in their entirety, are accessible. They should support and implement the accommodations as specified in the DSS memo in a timely manner. And they should consult with us if accommodation requests are unclear or if they conflict with course objectives or requirements. Faculty shouldn't unilaterally decide not to provide an accommodation, they should contact our office to resolve the issue. Faculty should also maintain student confidentiality as provided under FERPA. And we ask that they submit book lists early to the bookstore, because many of our students have vision or learning disabilities and they need to have their textbooks converted into an alternate format and would like to have that done the first week of class if we can, so we need some lead time on that as you might imagine. Brailling a textbook takes time, for example, enlarging textbooks takes time, as does putting them on tape. 

We also ask that you include a syllabus statement directing students to Disability Support Services if they need an accommodation. So overall, the accommodations process is meant to be interactive and so everybody has their responsibility to make sure that it works. The student, the faculty member, and Disability Support Services. And it can't be dictated by any one party. So students can't unilaterally say this is what I want, DSS can't dictate nor can faculty. The law requires that it be interactive and collaborative. And finally, DSS is a resource for faculty. And so we can consult with you on a wide range of disability related matters. We can talk about a student with a disability, including academic and behavioral concerns. We can talk about a student you think might have a disability and a possible referral. We can talk about issues or problems with accommodations. We can talk specifically about what our procedures and what the Testing Services Center's procedures are. We can give you information about specific disabilities in a general sense. And we can also talk about universal design for accessibility, which would be how to make your classroom more universally accessible for everyone. So this is our staff. And I hope that you'll feel free to drop by the office and take some time to meet with us, and I look forward to working with you in the year ahead. Thank you.