Shared Disability Services Responsibilities

Students with disabilities have the first responsibility to report their needs in a timely manner as faculty/staff are not required to anticipate the special needs of students. Faculty/staff members should keep students in mind when making special class arrangements such as field trips. Faculty/staff should state on the syllabus that students inform them of their special needs as soon as possible to ensure that those needs are met in a timely manner. If a student waits until the day of an exam to ask for extended time or a separate testing area, the student has failed to make the request in a timely manner. If the student fails to ask for extended time until late in the semester, the instructor is only required to provide accommodations from that time and does not need to offer make up exams.

When a student discloses a disability, faculty/staff members should ask what they could do to facilitate learning. Often it is as simple as allowing the student to sit in the front of the class.

Faculty/staff members may not discourage students from specific fields of study if the student meets admission requirements and maintains the appropriate grades and is otherwise qualified. Faculty/staff members are responsible to provide an education and the student is responsible to maintain the academic requirements.