Greetings and News from the Disability Services Office brought to you by Cheryl Branker, Ed.D. Associate Vice Provost for Equal Opportunity & Equity and Director of Disability Compliance Programs CRB.jpg Information to Share The role of the DSO 2. The role YOU play in employee accommodations 3. Results of the Access & Barriers Survey (2009) 1. The Role of the DSO Currently resides in OEO Is committed to positive action to secure equal opportunity Ensures the University is in compliance with the ADA Adheres to the Professional Standards and Performance Indicators of the AHEAD AHEAD Standards & Performance Indicators Consultation/Collaboration Serve as an advocate for issues to ensure equal access Information Dissemination Disseminate information through institutional electronic and printed publications regarding disability services and how to access them. Disseminate information to students with disabilities regarding available campus/community resources AHEAD Standards & Performance Indicators Faculty/Staff Awareness Inform faculty regarding academic accommodations, compliance with legal responsibilities, as well as instructional, programmatic, and curriculum modifications Provide consultation with administrators Provide disability awareness training Provide information to faculty about available services Academic Adjustments Maintain records that document the student’s plan for the provision of selected accommodations Determine with students appropriate academic accommodations and services Collaborate with faculty to ensure that reasonable academic accommodations do not fundamentally alter the program of study 2.Employees with Disabilities Title I of the ADA of 1990 states that employment practices cannot discriminate against a qualified individual with a disability. This applies to all aspects of employment, including job advertisements, job applications, job interviews, and post-offer medical examinations. 6 ADA – Title I One of the key non-discrimination requirements of Title I is the obligation to provide reasonable accommodation for employees with disabilities. 7 Registration Process Step 1: Completes Request for Eligibility Review Form Step 2: Submits Documentation of Disability Form Step 3: Schedule an appointment to meet with the ADA Coordinator Step 4: Meet to discuss functional limitations and restrictions, essential job functions, and to outline accommodations For more information, go to: http://www.ncsu.edu/dso/employees/employee_registration_checklist.html Access and Barriers for Persons with Disabilities Survey Results Spring 2009 #3. Cheryl R. Branker, Ed.D Associate Vice Provost Title Bar & Logo Access and Barriers for Persons with Disabilities Survey Results Purpose to ascertain the University’s commitment to persons with disabilities under Section 504 and the ADA by looking at the policies, services, procedures/practices, and programs within each college/department/unit Title Bar & Logo Access and Barriers for Persons with Disabilities Survey Results Respondents Fifty-two percent (52% ) of the ninety-eight (98)executive officers, deans, academic department heads and vice provosts responded Title Bar & Logo Access and Barriers for Persons with Disabilities Survey Results Survey questions Nine (9) questions classified into five (5) domains: Efforts that provide/improve access Efforts that were actual/potential barriers Marketing materials Mission statement Resources needed Title Bar & Logo Access and Barriers for Persons with Disabilities Survey Results Key findings Access was related to general attitude, specific responses to issues of inaccessibility, deliberate actions to be more inclusive Barriers were related to limited /no consideration of functional limitations, designing/purchasing processes Universal symbol of accessibility displayed 25.5% of the time; accommodation statement 45.1%; pictures of persons with disabilities 23.5% of the time Title Bar & Logo Access and Barriers for Persons with Disabilities Survey Results Key findings continued Mission statements contained specific words/phrases 19.6% of the time Resources to help prioritize and specify barriers: identification, technical assistance, financial assistance Title Bar & Logo Access and Barriers for Persons with Disabilities Survey Results Conclusions Disability – (medical model) - a “problem” that exists within the person and the goal is to “fix” the person Disability – (socio-political model) – the systemic mismatch between physical & mental attributes of individuals and the present ability of social institutions to accommodate these attributes. Title Bar & Logo Access and Barriers for Persons with Disabilities Survey Results Implementation of recommendations Formally adopt the guiding principles of Universal Design Provide resources and training Develop policies, services, practices and procedures that reflect the paradigm shift Develop staff /faculty orientation materials which promote UD Seek input from persons with disabilities to examine programmatic accessibility Title Bar & Logo If you have questions please contact me: cheryl_branker@ncsu.edu 513-3768 Thank You! Title Bar & Logo Thank you for clicking on the link in your email. I’m Cheryl Branker, Associate Vice Provost for Equal Opportunity and Equity and Director of Disability Compliance Programs here at NC State. I hope the academic year was a good one for you and your department. If you have a few minutes, I’d like to share information with you regarding: the role of the Disability Services Office the role you play in making sure faculty and staff are appropriately accommodated as employees with disabilities and the results of the Access and Barriers Survey completed in the spring of 2009. The DSO at NC State is currently a unit of the Office for Equal Opportunity and is committed to positive action to secure equal opportunity for all faculty, staff, and students. At a glance, the DSO has the responsibility of ensuring that the University is in compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act which is a civil rights law that prohibits discrimination based on disability. The ADA essentially levels the playing field for all qualified people, disabled or not. The ADA Amendments Act, which was signed into law in 2008, both clarifies and significantly expands what is considered a “disability” under the ADA. The result of the Amendments Act is that millions more people will now be protected under the ADA. NC State is obligated to adhere to Title II of the ADA which prohibits discrimination against qualified individuals with disabilities in all of its programs, activities, and services. For DSO, the operation for students is informed by the Professional Standards and Performance Indicators of The Association on Higher Education And Disability, of which NC State is an institutional member. These standards are intended to enhance service provision for college students with disabilities by directing program evaluation and development efforts. Today, I’d like to share four AHEAD standards and performance indicators with you. These four outline the role of the DSO as it relates to the workings of academic departments. To facilitate equal access to postsecondary education for students with disabilities, the DSO should serve as an advocate for issues regarding students with disabilities to ensure equal access. They do this through consultation and collaboration. Secondly the DSO should be involved in information dissemination. That is, the DSO should disseminate information through institutional electronic and printed publications regarding disability services and how to access them. The DSO should also disseminate information to students with disabilities regarding available campus and community resources Indicator 3 is faculty/staff awareness. The Disability Services Office should inform faculty regarding academic accommodations, compliance with legal responsibilities, as well as instructional, programmatic, and curriculum modifications. The DSO should provide consultation with administrators, provide disability awareness training and provide information to faculty about available services. In indicator number 4, the Disability Services Office is engaged in academic adjustments. They do this through maintaining records that document the student’s plan for the provision of selected accommodations. They determine with students appropriate academic accommodations and services. And they collaborate with faculty to ensure that reasonable academic accommodations do not fundamentally alter the program of study. NC State University is also obligated to be in compliance with the ADA under Title I which states that employment practices cannot discriminate against a qualified individual with a disability. So, this brings me to the second topic of today’s discussion and that is the role you play in making sure faculty and staff, which includes your teaching/graduate assistants, are appropriately accommodated as persons with disabilities. Under Title I, employment practices cannot discriminate against a qualified individual with a disability and applies to all aspects of employment, including job advertisements, job applications, job interviews, and post-offer medical examinations. One of the key non-discrimination requirements of this Title is the obligation to provide reasonable accommodation for employees with disabilities. The registration process involves four steps. In Step 1, the employee completes the Request for Eligibility Review Form. In Step 2, the employee submits a Documentation of Disability Form . If documentation substantiates that the employee is a person with a disability, he or she will be registered with the DSO and the ADA Coordinator will contact the employee. In Step 3, the employee and supervisor will schedule an appointment to meet with the ADA Coordinator to discuss accommodations. This meeting is required for accommodations to begin. In the final step, the employee will meet with the ADA Coordinator and his/her supervisor to discuss functional limitations and restrictions, essential job functions and outline accommodations for which the employee is eligible. And at that meeting, an Accommodations Agreement Form will be completed and signed by all. Hopefully, the information shared with you thus far, gives you an idea of the roles DSO and academic department heads play in keeping our university in compliance. Now the third topic, the Access and Barriers Survey. It had been more than a decade since the university last completed a self-evaluation of its programs, services and activities, as outlined under the provisions of Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act and the ADA. While technological advances in electronics have vastly improved and increased the opportunities for people with disabilities to fully participate in postsecondary educational activities, the University, as a recipient of federal funding, is nonetheless, obligated to periodically evaluate its policies and practices with regard to programmatic accessibility under the statutory provisions of both laws. The Office for Equal Opportunity conducted the Access and Barriers for Persons with Disabilities Survey in the spring of 2009. While most researchers deploying such surveys are trying to identify existing physical barriers and create a list of possible solutions to remove them, this survey was deployed to ascertain the University’s commitment to persons with disabilities under Section 504 and the ADA by looking at the policies, services, procedures/practices, and programs within each college/department or unit that may pose barriers and those that provide or improve access. The respondents to this survey included 98 university executive officers, deans, academic department heads and vice provosts. The survey yielded a 52% response rate. Detailed information came from 9 questions that were classified into 5 domains: List any policies, services, procedures/ practices, programs that provide or improve access. List any policies, services, procedures/ practices, programs that were actual or potential barriers. Do the marketing materials of your college/ dept/unit. Display the universal symbol of accessibility, Include a statement about accommodations, Include pictures of persons with disabilities? Are there specific words/phrases in your mission statement that indicate your willingness to include persons with disabilities What resources would be most helpful to your college/dept/unit in specifying and prioritizing barriers that should be removed or modified within your current human and financial resources Key findings: Efforts that provided or improved access were related to general attitude or philosophy, specific responses to issues of inaccessibility or deliberate actions to be more inclusive Efforts that were actual or potential barriers were related to limited or no consideration of person’s functional limitations or limited or no consideration in the designing/purchasing processes. With regard to marketing materials, the universal symbol of accessibility was displayed 25% of the time; an accommodation statement was included 45% of the time; and pictures of persons with disabilities were included 23% of the time. College/dept/unit mission statements contained specific words/phrases that indicated a willingness to include persons with disabilities about 20% of the time. And the resources needed by the college/dept/unit to help prioritize and specify barriers were related to assistance with knowing what the potential barriers are or might be, technical assistance (especially for the web sites), and financial assistance. These findings suggest that at NC State, the accommodation model has been the primary mode of viewing and relating to persons with disabilities. With this view, the disability is a “problem” that exists within the person and the goal is to fix the person. This is referred to as the medical model. For the past 20 years, there’s been an effort to create a paradigm shift to a socio-political model of disability. That effort was begun on this campus in 1989 under the leadership of Ron Mace in the Center for Universal Design. With this view, it is acknowledged that a person may have different physical and/or mental attributes than the majority of persons, however, the problem of inaccessibility is not the person’s with the different attributes, it’s society’s problem, the institution’s problem for not designing the physical space, the programs, the information, in such a way that accommodates for differences. This lack of society’s awareness and intention, then impacts our attitudes about persons with different physical or mental attributes which then limits their ability to participate fully in what it is we have to offer. To gain full participation, the person with the difference, has to request an accommodation. And while we have done a great job in providing those requested, we have only provided the minimal equal access as required by law on a case-by-case basis. This service construct is built on the tenets of the medical model. It’s been effective in most cases but it reinforces a “separate but equal” system, can take a great deal of time, and in many situations is not inclusive, it can be costly and it is typically not sustainable, and it limits the individual from participating in our community independently. In contrast, the socio-political model of disability promotes, universal design, disability pride, self-determination, and independence of the individual. When we acknowledge that persons with disabilities do, and will, work and learn on our campus, then we will all need to participate in creating a welcoming campus environment. The act of designing physical, programmatic, informational, and attitudinal environments should center on making intentional and reflective choices about what it is we want faculty, staff, and students to experience and gain while here. To achieve naturally inclusive and barrier free learning, working, and social environments, it is recommended that the campus undertake the following: Formally adopt the guiding principles of Universal Design as a part of the overall campus strategic planning and compact planning processes and promote such on key web pages. Provide resources and training – especially training related to course design & web design. Develop policies, services, practices and procedures that reflect the paradigm shift. Develop staff /faculty orientation materials which promote Universal Design as part of our campus culture and identify best practices. Seek input from persons with disabilities always to examine programmatic accessibility. If the mission of NC State is to “use knowledge, collaboration and creativity to impact the economic, human, environmental, and social concerns of our society,” then we must acknowledge that persons with disabilities are amongst us and we must guarantee their participation in the future of this institution, the state, the nation and the world. If you have questions, please send them to me by email. I will gather them and provide the answers in a document that will then be emailed out to everyone. Thank you for your time today and all the work you and your department do to help the Disability Services Office support the ongoing development of a balanced university environment for all.