Penn State Learning Design Community Hub

Bill Welsh from the Office of Disability Services (ODS) walked through how an accommodation request works. It wasn't quite what I expected.

1. Students requesting official accommodation must register with the Office of Disability Services....but not all students choose to do so (because they want to be more independent).

2. When ODS sends an accommodation letter to faculty, the accommodation is identified (e.g. a captioned video), but not the "condition" behind it - this is to maintain student privacy.

3. Students can request accommodation with only 3 days notice (e.g. a December request for an extended time in the finals), but they can't retroactively request an accommodation.

4. If you suspect a student has a disability (e.g. a learning disability) and want to reach out, Bill recommended that you send a student a list of a variety of resources (e.g. iStudy, ULC, ODS, grief counseling, ...) instead of "diagnosing" the student