Faculty Rights & Responsibilities

Faculty members have the right to:

Request verification of a student’s eligibility for any requested accommodations.

• Such verification will be in the form of an academic accommodation letter written by Disability Services and delivered by the student.

• Disability Services is the only office designated to review disability documentation and determine eligibility for appropriate academic accommodations.

• Faculty should not view this documentation

Expect the student to initiate requests.

• It is the responsibility of the student to arrange for testing accommodations in advance as outlined in the student's accommodation letter. If a student is scheduled to take an exam at the Office of Disability Services, the exam will be administered in a secure and monitored environment.

PLEASE NOTE: Faculty do not have the right to ask students if they have a disability. For those students with documented disabilities, faculty do not have the right to ask the nature of the disability. However, if students choose to disclose their disability, this information should be treated confidentially.

Faculty members have the responsibility to:

Accommodate

• Identify and establish essential functions, abilities, skills, and knowledge of your courses and evaluate students on this basis, and address this on your syllabus. Students with disabilities should meet the same course expectations as their peers.

• Provide accommodations only to students who are registered with the Disability Services. It is not your responsibility to provide accommodations to students who are not registered.

• Use a syllabus statement and class announcements to invite students to disclose their needs.

• Act immediately upon getting a student’s request for accommodations, and contact Disability Services if there are questions regarding accommodations.

• Work to ensure that all audiovisual materials used in class are accessible (e.g. captioning or transcripts)

• Consider incorporating principles of Universal Design for Learning in your teaching.

Maintain Confidentiality

• Treat and protect all disability-related information as confidential medical information. For example, keep printed items, such as accommodation letters or emails regarding student disability-related information in a protected location.

Communicate

• Clearly communicate your testing procedures with the student and with Disability Services when completing a Submit Test For Proctoring Form. 

• Consult with students with disabilities and Disability Services in providing appropriate accommodations.