Student Roles and Responsibilities

1. In order for students with disabilities to receive academic accommodations, students must self-identify with Disabilities Support Services (DSS) and provide medical or other appropriate professionally-determined documentation of functional limitations of their disabling condition. Information acquired during this process is confidential and will be shared only upon consent of the student. To obtain accommodations, students must:
2. Self-identify as a student with a disability and in need of access or accommodation by making an appointment with a professional staff member of the DSS staff.
3. Provide appropriate verification of the disability (-ies) and request specific academic accommodations based on the documented functional limitations associated with the individual’s disability.
4. Discuss disability and accommodation requests with a DSS staff person to formalize accommodation request letters prior to the beginning of each semester. Arranging some services, such as textbooks in an alternate format, requires significant advance notice, so it is imperative that students begin the accommodation process as early as possible for each subsequent semester.
5. Make accommodation requests as early as possible before the start of each semester. Accommodations are not retroactive, so requests apply only from the time they are made forward.
6. Actively engage in the process of determining reasonable and appropriate accommodations with DSS staff and faculty.
7. Contact faculty members directly to present accommodation request forms to them and to discuss needs for each specific class. This must be done at the beginning of each semester.

If there is a disagreement about the accommodations being requested, the student should first discuss the matter with the faculty member involved, then with the DSS staff member, the DSS director, and finally the campus ADA compliance officer.