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CarolynLawrence
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| Joined: | Sun Mar 5th, 2006 |
| Location: | USA |
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Posted: Mon Jul 31st, 2006 04:59 pm |
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This is an interesting case about a professor who refused to provide special accomodations for a physically disabled student. I think it is interesting because it parallels some of the discussions we've had here: what is covered by the law and what actually is encountered by the student in the classroom.
http://insidehighered.com/news/2006/07/31/houston
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mackinaw
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| Joined: | Mon Mar 6th, 2006 |
| Location: | Michigan |
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Posted: Mon Jul 31st, 2006 05:31 pm |
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This is an interesting case. I think all colleges have to comply with the Americans for Disabilities Act (ADA), and thus the expectation that the colleges' employees (faculty and staff) will make "reasonable accommodations" for students with disabilities. But whether each and every professor must make specific accommodations for each and every student is another matter. It seems to me that in the instant case, the professor didn't want to distribute his notes and slides. I know a lot of faculty who feel that way as a general principle -- i.e., for all students -- and who would justify restricting the access for several reasons. On the other hand, I know some who post all of their Powerpoints for all their enrolled students, knowing of course that once the material is out there on the web the incentive for students to attend or participate in class diminishes dramatically, and that their "work" can therefore be liberally "borrowed" by those who want to take commercial advantage of it or, for that matter, subject the material to some sort of political scrutiny and thereby challenge the professor's academic freedom.
More generally, however, that a college is obligated to make "reasonable accommodations" does not necessarily require each and every faculty member to make any specific accommodation. Of course, it could well be established at each college that faculty be required as a condition of employment to make certain accommodations. But in some cases the needed accommodations might be far more time-demanding than the ones I've mentioned (distributing the Powerpoint slides), and this would have to be negotiated on an individual basis between the college and the employee (professor). In some cases in some courses there may well be special safety or health issues involved in the particular accommodation. Therefore, there needs to be some way to negotiate or mediate for particular students. At my present university, a particular office would likely intervene and try to convince the professor to make a given accommodation. But to many faculty the issues I mentioned in the previous paragraph are real.
When I first began college teaching (in the Pleistocene era before the ADA, and before I started using Powerpoint), I was teaching at a university that had a special program for students who were visually handicapped. (That didn't keep one young man from falling down a manhole one day, left open by the maintenance staff on a route that many students normally travelled. Fortunately, he wasn't badly hurt.) I had a number of such students in my courses. For them, I allowed them to use recording devices of various kinds, I gave them take-home exams or oral exams, etc. And I would joke that they could make some real money by selling their notes if they did a good job, but that I hoped they wouldn't do that and certainly not if they didn't make my lectures look good! So we had an excellent situation. No problem.
But I was never asked to give my lecture notes directly to the students; they'd have to attend class, and to take notes (tapes) and have them transcribed. In any case, it was true then when we used overheads or slides, and it's still true of most users of Powerpoints today, that the slides are just scratchy starting points for the actual interpretation and elaboration in lectures -- they do not cover everything the professor has to say.
Then again, there are still professors who do not make much use of technology in their classrooms. Some will walk into a class with a well-thumbed book, one page of notes and questions, and so goes the class. What sort of "accommodation" should they make?
Last edited on Mon Jul 31st, 2006 05:45 pm by mackinaw
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WestrnMom
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| Joined: | Fri May 26th, 2006 |
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Posted: Mon Jul 31st, 2006 08:26 pm |
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A public university that takes federal funding must provide all accommodations for students who request them with the proper documentation. I've found some private schools that will not always accommodate, and it's clearly state on their web sites, if the accommodation will affect the teaching methods of the class. Sometimes the course structure can't be changed, in which case, the school should offer an alternative class or method of access for the student.
In practice, though, the private schools I've talked to seem to go out of their ways to help disabled students, where the public schools require an enormous amount of initiative on the parts of students to get them, and may not make as wide a body of services available.
In no case is a school or professor required to modify coursework. Modifications means changing the actual work (such as shortening assignments, or dumbing down a project) where accommodations mean making the work more accessible to students.
In the case of a physical disability that is not in question vs a hidden disability like a learning disability, there is no way a professor can claim he doesn't know the extent of the student's disabilities!
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sweetkidsmom
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Posted: Tue Aug 1st, 2006 11:11 pm |
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Last edited on Fri Mar 16th, 2007 09:20 pm by sweetkidsmom
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WestrnMom
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Posted: Sat Aug 5th, 2006 07:13 pm |
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In order to make special services work at a UC the student must be extremely proactive in requesting them. A friend's child attends UCSD, where each test requires a form to be submitted for services. The student must then remind each professor before each test that extra time, a quiet room, etc. are to be offered. If the student doesn't do all of this in the correct amount of time before each test, services may not be available. It puts an extraordinary amount of pressure on a student to get services. If the student is ADD/ADHD, it can be even more difficult, as those students may tend to lose track of timelines.
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mackinaw
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| Location: | Michigan |
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Posted: Sat Aug 5th, 2006 10:49 pm |
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That does seem like a PITA. At my university, these students would have a much easier time.
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