Greetings from the DRC!

By: Nikki Johnston

As we move into the heart of the semester, we at the Disability Resource Center (DRC) want to remind you that we are a resource for you as well as for students! We wanted to reach out and introduce ourselves, and cover some other frequently asked questions!

Who is the DRC? -The DRC is a neutral party to support both the student, the faculty, and EMU in general, in carrying out the ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) to ensure equal access to students with disabilities. 

Letters of Accommodation (LOAs) – You may have seen some emails come through from the Disability Resource Center (DRC) notifying you that there are Letters of Accommodation, or LOAs for short, for you to review for a student in your course. The e-mail also includes directions on how to log in to your faculty portal of our Accommodate system to view the student’s LOA. Click the “Generate PDF” button if you want to save a nice, clean copy to your computer, but also know you can access all your LOAs at once in one location just by signing into your faculty Accommodate portal. 

Signing the LOA - The Letter of Accommodation is official as soon as it is sent to you and does not require your signature to make it official. Once you have reviewed the letter, your digital signature just acknowledges that you have reviewed it. If you have questions or concerns about the accommodations, please email us!

Are accommodations optional? - It is important to remember that implementing approved ADA accommodations is required by law, not optional based on a professor’s own views and likes or dislikes. However, if an approved accommodation would constitute a fundamental alteration to your course, the appropriate course of action would be to email us regarding your concerns and schedule a time to meet with us to go through the interactive process required for the DRC to determine if a particular accommodation would be a fundamental alteration. A fundamental alteration would be a change that would significantly alter the essential nature of the course, such as lowering the academic standard or waiving a degree requirement.

Implementing accommodations – Once the LOA has been completed, we encourage students to make private appointments to meet with their instructors to discuss their accommodations and how they will be implemented for the specific course. If a student does not reach out, it is okay to reach out to them to request a meeting to discuss. For testing accommodations, it is the responsibility of the student to schedule testing appointments with the CATE (Center for Adaptive Technology in Education) lab ten or more days in advance. For any questions specifically related to sign language interpreters, captioning, or testing accommodations, please email the CATE lab coordinator, Jenny Clark. Alt Media accommodation questions can be sent to sa_alternativemedia@emich.edu. (Alt Media is the conversion of textbooks, class materials, and handouts into a format in which they can be read aloud by the computer). Other accommodation-related questions can be directed to us at DRC@emich.edu.

What do I do if I suspect a student has a disability? – If a student is struggling, please continue to refer them to appropriate campus resources. It cannot be assumed that a student is struggling simply because they have a disability, and our office does require someone to have official diagnosis documentation of a disability before providing disability accommodations. If a student mentions having a disability, having accommodations at a different college or university, or having an IEP or 504 Plan in high school, please refer the student to our website or have them email us to get more information on how to register with us for accommodations.

Updates to website – We are working to update the Faculty Support tab on our website. There is a video on navigating your faculty Accommodate portal to view your LOAs. Additionally, there is information regarding accommodated testing. Please check back for more to come!

Let’s connect! – One of our goals since our two case managers (myself and Liz Shawl) started working for the DRC less than two years ago has been for our department to become more visible and accessible to both students and faculty. The best and quickest way to reach us is by emailing our group inbox – DRC@emich.edu - which we all check. This allows those working remotely to see your communications right away, and if someone is out of the office, the appropriate person will be able to respond in a timely manner instead of it collecting dust in that person’s private inbox. We check this address all day long. 

Too much to write in an email? No worries! Email us what, and/or who, your concern is about in general, and your availability for a brief Zoom chat, and we will get that scheduled as soon as possible! I enjoy meeting with faculty – it’s one of my favorite parts of my job. Hearing about your passion for your course content and, of course, your students, puts a smile on my face! If you think it would be beneficial to meet with us, we would be happy to set up individual or departmental meetings via Zoom or in person!

You make it possible! – We cannot express enough appreciation for everyone who has reached out with their questions or to problem-solve nuanced situations. Again, we enjoy meeting with you! It’s so helpful when we can proactively address potential issues instead of something becoming a problem later on. We know and appreciate that you work very hard to give students in your courses excellent learning opportunities! Thank you for making EMU great!