there we go everybody got the little got it thing okay all right excellent Heidi it’s all yours all right thanks Katie I appreciate that introduction um so my name is Heidi Hartley I use she her pronouns um I am a white woman I have shorter length brownish blonde hair and blue eyes um I’m wearing a teal corduroy dress today um and I am the assigned access specialist for um the College of Education and human ecology um and just full transparency so everyone is aware I am also a student in ehe um I’m currently in nahisa EDD program um so our director here Cheryl Lyons just graduated from the program in the spring um so we have a lot of fondness for all of our our ehe uh colleagues and faculty so I’m going to share my screen here I do have a presentation to share with you and I definitely want to make sure that everyone has um time to ask questions if anything comes up and I’ll have some resources to share with you as well um so just so you’re aware um what we do here um in Disability Services make sure I can move this forward there we go so to share our mission um Student Life disability services collaborates with the university community to create accessible educational experiences for students with disabilities so that is our overall mission and we work with lots of different partners across the entire University we’re one of those offices kind of rare offices that we really touch like every other aspect within the University um so just to give you an idea of what we do uh one of the main things obviously is we provide accommodations for students that have a documented disability another thing that we do frequently is we consult with faculty or staff to help to educate them and to collaborate with them on creating that access for our students um another thing that we do is Education and Training such as this we operate under a college model so all of our access Specialists are assigned different colleges within the university that we work with directly and we can help to provide some education and training with our colleges and with other areas on campus that we collaborate with and then we also have career support as well so we have an embedded person from the state of Ohio uh from Ohio opportunities for Ohioans with disabilities and her name is Cindy mignon and she works directly with students um from you know first year students all the way through graduate students helping them with career support moving them forward if they have disabilities and helping them navigate what that looks like they also can provide us sometimes with technology since it’s a state-run organization they seem to have uh the money that we need sometimes to provide different things for students so we work with them pretty closely so just to give you an idea of the types of disabilities that we see frequently um this graph here is pretty interesting it shows us the apparent versus non-apparent disabilities we can see that most students with disabilities they’re not visible to anyone that would be looking at them they wouldn’t necessarily know that they have a disability um and so all of these different things that are listed here mental health conditions there’s one that has certainly been increasing ADHD as well we have about 32 percent of the students that are registered with us are registered um with ADHD as a primary or secondary condition [Music] we also have a lot of students have chronic medical conditions sometimes people don’t think of that as disability but we have students that have um you know diabetes or Crohn’s disease or something along those lines and we can assist them as well um we have a really wonderful team in interpreting and transcribing that does a lot of work with students that are blind or low vision or deaf or hard of hearing um we also have a lot of students we’re seeing more students that are at our University that are on the autism spectrum or have different learning disabilities whether it’s dyslexia or dysgraphia those types of things we have some students also have physical disabilities those are those usually more visible disabilities that you can see if they they might use a wheelchair or a cane or something along those lines um we also have students that have temporary injuries and sometimes people don’t realize they can register with us for temporary injuries we tend to get a lot of those uh in spring semester people that break their legs or their ankles or their arms falling on Ice that happens quite a bit so students can register with us for those as well and we can provide them with some temporary accommodations um until they recover from that so just some interesting numbers here um over half of the students that we have registered with us as of spring semester um were registered with us for a mental health related diagnosis I’m sure that’s probably not surprising to anyone those numbers and they do continue to go up so we work really closely with our partners at counseling and consultation to make sure that we are providing the students with as much support as we possibly can um and just to give you some numbers are the number that we have registered with us is around 6200 and again that varies it you know goes up and down as students register or graduate or transfer um but if we take a national statistics we would estimate that a little over 10 000 students would technically qualify for services if they did register and some students choose not to register with us for different reasons it could be that they don’t have a diagnosis or they don’t know that what they’re experiencing is disability related it could be because of externalized or internalized stigma but we do see that there’s probably a larger there’s definitely a larger number than what is registered with us um that could potentially be registered so just to share with you some of the types of accommodations I’m not going to read all of this down here for you but we do quite a bit exam accommodations is one of our most common ones our attendance and deadline modifications uh we can work with students that have clinical needs or students I’ve worked with a few different students for um you know student teaching combinations uh work those things out we’ve worked with different advisors and you know um different external bodies that do those accrediting pieces to try to make sure that we’re taking care of students um and then their needs for those uh types of for the student teaching um we also seen a lot of increase for emotional support animals that’s definitely gone up that would technically be in housing most of the time but we’ve had quite a few recently that have been requesting emotional support animals in a classroom and so there’s a little bit more of a um you know a process for that to get it approved for a classroom so I wanted to talk specifically a little bit more about the intermittent flex plan because this is one that is uh fairly new it’s not something that has been around for a long time it’s been here since before I got here but it’s only a few years old there’s a lot of confusion around it um sometimes students aren’t really sure what it is faculty are really sure what it is there is a little bit of vagueness that comes with it so I wanted to provide a little bit more information and some context with the flex plans so when students are approved for a flex plan generally it’s for a condition that has flare-ups that can be unpredictable and can you know last for different amounts of time sometimes it’s a flare-up that lasts a day sometimes flare-ups for students depending on their condition can last several days or a week or more we really strongly encourage that when you get those Flex plans in your email that you fill out the form to create the flex plan for your class um that allows you to be really clear about what your expectations are and it allows us to have something to refer to and we get questions from students so we can look and say well you know here’s what the flex plan says have you been following the guidelines in this Flex Plan um and you should be sending a copy of that flex plan to each student who has that accommodation make sure you’re sending those separately so you’re not you know revealing any identities to any other students that have accommodations you can also post a flexplan and Carmen and just as like an announcement or in a module or wherever and say you know if you’re a student that has this as an accommodation here’s what my Flex Plan is that way students can find have a place that they know where it’s located and they can refer back to it if they need to so often we’ll hear faculty that are really working hard to support their students and they say well I don’t know what the student needs so I’m not sure how to make a flex plan for them um but you should make a flex plan that fits your class and not worry as much about the specific students because your flex plan is going to be for your specific class and you could have multiple students that have a flex plan that are for different things so you know you know your class the best you know the design and the you know your learning objectives and so it’s best for you to create that one plan for your class and then you know if students have additional problems or additional challenges you know they can work with us in our office um and you are permitted if you know students exceed what you’ve put on the flex plan to default back to your course syllabus and expect students to follow what you’ve listed in your in your course syllabus if students are having you know additional challenges outside of the you know what would be in the flex plan then they can you know they should definitely contact their access Specialists because what we’re able to do is we’re allowed to ask a lot more in-depth personal questions than probably what you’re allowed to ask um and so we can really get a good idea of what’s what challenges are experiencing what’s going on we can obtain additional medical documentation if that’s necessary and then you know we can advocate for them uh with the faculty to let them know you know here’s what we would recommend in this case because the student is experiencing you know an atypical flare-up of their symptoms or they’re having some additional uh symptoms outside of what the normal the normal range is so you know we’re always happy to work with faculty on those Flex plans if they’re unsure um of what to put in a flex plan we’re happy to uh you know work with you and see help guide you along with that process but we really do strongly recommend that you complete the form it’s really a safeguard for the student and for you as well even though a lot of Faculty want to provide as much flexibility as they can we really appreciate that sometimes it’s good to have a plan in writing and and that way you can refer back to it when needed so just a little bit about what we do not do um we don’t provide accommodations the students are just sick if they have a cold or flu or bronchitis or whatever um we’re not we don’t provide accommodations for that that would you know fall back onto whatever’s listed in your course syllabus for any student that it has a regular illness um we don’t talk to them about which classes they should take or what the program requirements are that is for their academic advisor to do and we don’t waive any requirements anything like that and we really want to make sure that faculty know that we’re not asking them to make any kind of fundamental alterations to their course providing access can definitely mean sometimes modifying your course um but we don’t want to make any alterations or ask you to make any kind of alterations that would um you know not require the students to still meet the learning objectives that you have for your course we also don’t provide accommodations that are due to other things that are not related to disability such as Transportation or work or family um you know missing class because of work is not an accommodation those are things that you know you need to work out with your instructor or someone else and we also don’t try to provide any information about financial aid we always refer students over to Buckeye link for that so referring students to our office there’s some different things here students do have to fill out an application so they can do that on our website which is slds.osu.edu and then every student completes a welcome meeting we meet with students individually to discuss you know their concerns with them we really listen to what they’re experiencing so we can make sure that we’re addressing all of the barriers that you’re that they’re facing we really work hard to get down kind of drill down into those conversations and talk to them about what are the barriers and how can we help to minimize or remove some of those barriers for them that exist within the University so most time students aren’t going to use the term disability so there’s other things that you can listen for um about if they talk about medical conditions or they’re struggling with mental health um not going to class if they have a hospitalization um they’re having an upcoming surgery or lots of medical appointments those are kinds of things that you can listen for when you’re having your conversations with them um that can help you to know that you can refer them over to our office to find some additional supports foreign so this is kind of a good stopping point to ask for questions and I have is about halfway through here um so I want to see if anybody has any questions before I move forward I actually have one um I’m I’m thinking about this because I am also a student and a and an employee um what if you’re if you’re getting um accommodations through work can do you still go through the slds program to get accommodations for the um classes that you’re taking so you do both okay yeah so we are specifically for students we are specifically for academic accommodations so we work with students if if you’re both then you would have to work with both so in Your Capacity as a student you know slds would provide accommodations in Your Capacity as an employee that will go through your HR rep for accommodations there okay great thank you I also had a question yeah sure um I I recently did what I think is an intermittent intermittent Flex Plan online um am I right that that is then his um the new version of the attendance and deadline modification agreement yes yeah it’s the former formerly called the ADM or attendance dot yeah so yeah we have a qualtrics forum when a student sends you their accommodation letter there’s a link in there for the projects form to fill out and you would just have to do that once for each course that you’re teaching or each section yeah you don’t have to fill it out for each student but you would want to make sure that each student has a copy of it so that I did that this semester based on some old documents from the ADM that I had and noticed obviously there were some changes you how do I go about but you know that was nine weeks ago and it feels like an eternity how do I go about getting a copy of what I wrote down nine weeks ago because I actually I could probably tell you what they are but I don’t remember how I worded them okay yeah so generally you should get an email back that has a list of the what you’ve got there but we also keep them on file so if you aren’t able to locate that email you can reach out to me and I can you know I can find it in our files and send it back to you that rings a bell so thank you for reminding me that I probably have an email somewhere um yeah we can get buried in emails sometimes so we we actually have a person in our office that visit her job is just working with the intermittent Flex plans so she’s created a really great organization system for us to use I have one more related question but I don’t want to take time if someone else has a question no I think you’re fine go ahead one of the uh on one of the earlier slides it I noticed course substitution slash slash course reduction and I wanted to ask what that was especially since you you underscored that you know your office isn’t mandating any kind of program changes but I wanted to know how that works or what the scope of a course substitution or reduction is yeah so um a course substitution would be uh let’s see here I want a reduced course load okay yeah so a core substitution would be um sometimes students that have a different learning disorders or learning disabilities can struggle with being able to pass a certain class so for an example if it’s like a foreign language and a student has an auditory processing disorder or um they have a you know a dyslexia or dysgraphia and they are struggling with being able to pass a language class a foreign language class that’s one of the requirements so we would make an assessment with them and there’s a process through the university we don’t actually technically approve those we would write a letter of support for students to say yes we think based upon their disability that it would be advisable for them to be able to substitute in a different course for this foreign language requirement so sometimes that can be you know like a a different kind of a language course or not necessarily a language course but like a culture course or something along those lines that they could substitute into their program instead of taking that kind of a course so um we provide support for those but the approval technically goes through the university we don’t say yes or no 100 percent we just provide our support and then the reduced course load is a process by which students if they’re struggling to be full-time and stay at that 12 credit hour um you know those 12 credit hours for disability related reasons we can approve a reduced course load which means that they could take less than the 12 credit hours it has to be more than six but less than 12 and still be considered a full-time student by the University so they still have to fulfill all their program requirements it’s just going to probably take them longer um because they’re taking the less than full-time credit hours but for the University purposes that means that they’re still considered a full-time student and they still have access to all of the same resources that full-time students have um it doesn’t we can’t control like federal financial aid or any of those types of things but if a student has like University scholarships things like that they would still be considered full-time okay thank you all right was there any other questions before we move on all right I wanted to talk a little bit more about um you know some disability Theory um Universal Design which you know I’m sure you all are very familiar with that made probably more so than I am um you’ve probably all seen this picture here this is the one that has gone around quite a bit um just demonstrating the differences between reality um a quality equity and Liberation so right now we’re working really hard to get to that Equity piece that’s something that we’re all still struggling with I think in certain ways um Liberation is the goal at some point um but right now Equity is really where we’re we’re attempting to get to so that everyone has equal access to the university so just to share with you some of the different the models of disability that we work with there’s the medical model and the social model and um we try really hard to follow the social model as much as we possibly can although there are elements of the medical model that still are very pervasive such as you know requiring um documentation things like that but really our Viewpoint here is and that disability is not something that’s deficiency or a problem with the student it’s a difference and it’s really just another aspect of diversity that we have on our campus um and it’s something that is not uh within the individual it’s not a person that has any kind of a deficiency it’s really um interacting with the individual and the way that Society the way that our university has been created and that long history of how we are and how we got to the where we are now um that is where that disability as a social construct is is seen there in those interactions and a lot of the barriers that students face are not necessarily within themselves but within areas of the University that is still working to get caught up with that Equity piece so this is like my favorite little cartoon because I think it does a good job of just like talking about the uh the inclusive inclusivity there um with the man traveling and you know who says can you shovel the ramp and he says I gotta shovel the stairs first um so that everybody can get up the stairs and this kid says but if you shovel the ramp then we can all get in so I like sharing that because um it really demonstrates the ways that you know a lot of inclusive design can work really well for everyone not just for people with disabilities um it allows for anyone even students that maybe have um struggles or concerns that wouldn’t be considered a disability but are still very real and valid um those inclusive design aspects can make sure that we’re including all of those students so just thinking about ways that we can create access one of the main ways that we do that is accommodations and those are still really necessary because you know the law of the land is Ada Section 504 of The Rehabilitation Act uh those that is the law of the land we are required to follow those laws um this again kind of goes back to a little bit more of the medical model because we are required to provide accommodations to provide access for students and it is the intention of it is to level that playing field I know sometimes we’ll get questions well how is this fair to the other students in the class that they don’t get these um extra things and you know we really work to help faculty to understand that students are they’re starting from a different place they’re having different struggles or different concerns than maybe what a student without a disability would have so the accommodations that we provide are really allowing them to uh you know have that Level Playing Field and you know the piece of it that can be challenging is that we do students are required to disclose to us you know we read medical documents uh that they send us and we get into really in-depth conversations we ask a lot of personal questions to make sure we’re getting to the heart of the matter um but that disclosure piece is not always comfortable for everyone and it’s not necessarily the best way to go about things are right now because we do have that you know Ada law that is required so another way to create access is through inclusive design and this is where we’re working really hard to move towards um and this is a great way again going back to that you know cartoon that I showed you um it’s allowing for as many students as possible to benefit from those design options so that you’re catching as many students as possible even ones that don’t want to disclose or don’t know that they have a disability or maybe you’re just having a you know concerns for a few months especially when it comes to mental health concerns sometimes those are temporary um but these are also Guided by by Universal Design principles and I do want to acknowledge that there is definitely a tension there um when we’re talking about ADA and what’s required by the law and then Universal Design and providing access there’s certainly attention that exists within that space um because of you know when you do have faculty that are working really hard to be inclusive and to use this Universal Design principles um but then there’s the Ada on top of it and students are like well I need to have this as well in addition to the flexibility that you already have so that’s something that we’re still working to navigate and we don’t have any like one-size-fits-all answers for that um but I do want to acknowledge um so you’re aware that we know that that is certainly um something that we are navigating with students and are happy to navigate that with you as well um you know maybe someday we won’t need the Ada anymore but for now we have both so um we’re working to make that work for our students so you know some ideas here for inclusive design it’s design that’s usable by all people it doesn’t need any type of adaptation or accommodation to it um and physical you know physical environments we see them all the time we see curb cuts and door openers and elevators and people use those all the time you know we all use elevators when we’re in a building even though we could use the stairs we have all used curb cuts when we’re you know pulling luggage or anything else so those aren’t just for people with disabilities they certainly are necessary for someone that uses a wheelchair maybe or a cane but those are all those like built-in uh physical kind of exclusive design elements and then in when we were talking more about course design there’s options here such as recording lectures allowing students to design their own assignments for ways that are going to be more the most accessible to them providing those different means of Engagement in your course and assessment as well can be a challenge of course but allowing students to demonstrate the knowledge that they have in the way that makes the most sense to them is really going to allow them um to to be to benefit from from that element foreign so my hope for you all of you and um faculty and staff and ehe is to be able to work with you and have that open relationship so that we can build um some trust here and collaborate on things we send out our course accessibility letters that we have in our system called you know we use aim I’m sure you’ve all seen that um but we know that you know your course design and you have your own developed pedagogical approach and you know that the best and so you know we want to be able want you to know that we can communicate about accommodations it doesn’t have to be a set in stone this is how it is uh kind of a thing and I know sometimes we have faculty that see an email from slds and they’re getting they’re like oh no I’m in trouble or oh this is something I have to do I’m required to do this um that’s not always the case you know we can really work together if you have a way to provide access that’s different from what we’re saying that you should do I really want to work with you on that and make sure that you know you have the um you know the ability to teach your course in the way that you want to and provide accessibility in the way that fits your course the best so um you know where we have the ability to get creative and you do have um as the faculty as the instructor of your course you have a lot of leeway in deciding what goes into that and in you know making changes and providing access so my goal and my hope is to maybe take a little bit of the the fear out of the accommodations and all of that and really develop that relationship so that we can get to the point of you know where our goal here is to provide access for students so we have our certain ways that we do that in our system and the buttons that we can click that says here’s just a combination in this accommodation but if there’s other ways that you have that you think is better um I’m happy and excited to be able to work with you on creating that and enacting that for your course and just some ideas here uh for you as you continue to have you know professional development topics on your teams or in your faculty meetings things that you can talk about um inclusive language is a really important one social media you know diversifying your social media feed you can follow a bunch of different um hashtags on there there’s a lot of different ones like disability Pride um the bow is a good one oh I went too far uh and you know there’s uh hashtag ableism is a good one as well um another one is Theory um or critical disability Theory those are really great theories to get into to try to understand a little bit better about the history and the future of disability in the United States um ableism Universal Design Disability Rights Movement is also really interesting history and it’s sometimes it’s good to know that history especially as Disability Rights Movement is now moving more towards disability Justice movement um having that understanding is uh can be really helpful so just some resources and I will send these links to Katie so that she can provide them for you um the Beyond compliance toolkit and information about Universal Design we have on our website mslds um and they there’s so many resources there I really encourage you to check out the Beyond compliance toolkit because that really goes again this is the title of it beyond that ADA what’s required and into different ways to provide accessibility in your courses um and there’s information there about digital accessibility and a lot of different resources in there that you can access it’s on our website but I’ll send these links so you can have the quick links to get there and again more information about Universal Design um and then for students there’s links here about how they can register with their office the different accommodations that we can provide for them as well and then here is my contact information our phone number our website my email address as well and um so you know like I said I am the assigned access specialist for all of ehe and so I am going to be your point person you can on our website you can schedule a meeting with me if you want to schedule a faculty consult I have a bookings link on there or you can call or email me and we can do it that way as well so all right any questions after all of that all right um I have a question I was not going to ask you know if somebody else had a question okay um you you addressed this a little bit um but I I thought I would kind of dig into it a little more deeply because this is a question that’s come up to me several times over the couple over the last few years um so if you are using Universal Design you’re a faculty member and you have accommodated based on you know your experience with with students with disabilities that that needed more time to say finish a quiz or finish a test um and you’ve already accommodated that in your Universal Design um is there a is there some way to communicate that uh to slds so that you’re not tweaking that design for individuals like just across the board so uh yeah that gets a little bit challenging just because um it can be hard to know which students are in your course each semester it’s going to be different students but if that is the case I would be happy to to reach out to me and let me know that that’s what you’ve done um and then that way we can look and see which students are in the course that semester and you know like I kind of said before there definitely is a tension with the Ada and Universal Design um so uh sometimes students don’t necessarily they don’t understand that they’ve already been accommodated without using their additional accommodations on top of that and so that’s kind of the piece where I can come in and sort of help students understand well while you do have these idea accommodations you know the course is designed in a way that you know it’s allowing for you to get what you need without having those additional things on top of it right so that that is the goal I mean we wish every course was that way right so that right the accommodations would you know become obsolete at some point um but it can be challenging I know faculty can get frustrated because they’re really working hard to put in those elements and that’s amazing and that’s what we want but then on top of it students say well I you have to follow my idea accommodations and that’s the law of the land and so you know we can work to kind of bridge that Gap with students to help them understand well in this course you know maybe in your other three glasses you don’t you still need to use your you know your accommodations but in this course you know let’s demonstrate the ways in which you are actually getting what you need yeah yeah because the goal is the access exactly yeah exactly so yeah I just wanted to kind of get get that more clear um because that is that is something I’ve come up against repeatedly in a couple of different colleges uh where faculty have accommodated just yeah as a matter of course and then have had to go back in and put those accommodations in and they get very salty about that sometimes yeah I mean and I definitely understand because they’re doing what we want them to do which is their inclusive design um but you know the students again are not necessarily understanding the ways that that works right so yeah if any faculty want to reach out to me and I can you know it’s not something I can there’s not like a setting where we can click and say well this this class is exactly from accommodations but it might be something that they have to just send me an email every semester so I can be like reach out to those students and that I can see in your course and say hey it’s like so I can have the ability to educate those students a little bit and they can do that as well you know they’re allowed to tell students hey here’s the ways in which I’ve already built in your accommodations yeah so yeah yeah it’s definitely a challenge but we love that I love seeing the courses like that because yeah yeah that’s hopefully where we’re moving towards slowly but slowly but surely hopefully hopefully hopefully yeah does anybody else have any questions for Heidi that was a really thorough uh covering of everything and I really appreciate you coming Heidi thank you so much for spending an hour with us uh trying to get us up to speed on uh what we need to know about accommodations and about what you do um just uh go ahead Greg I don’t have any questions but I appreciate the uh the slide you had on models I need to constantly remind myself about that and I also um liked your um two cartoons yeah actually the updated one to keep to keep that frame of reference yeah I like this little visual visual cues there I didn’t I didn’t have any questions particularly either but I did want to make a comment about learning objectives and the importance of those um you know being very clear since that’s often the basis for which you know we are looking to make accommodations to make sure those learning objectives are still met so just kind of another reminder to all of us that learning objectives matter quite a bit so yeah that just something to think about for me yeah yeah and we you know that’s sometimes when we send emails out that say hey we think that you should give this student this accommodation sometimes faculty you know they think oh well I have to do this but it’s really a conversation you know where you can say well I don’t think that this is going to work because this would this is not going to allow the student to meet this learning objective can we try this and so we can kind of go back and forth because often you know I have more information about what the student’s disability is than you do um but you know your course and so having those conversations between the two of us are really going to be where we’re finding that like sweet spot of of you know accommodating a student and still getting them through your course in a way that you feel good about when students leave your course so we’re not scary I’m not scared I promise I’m happy to work with anybody and um yeah figuring out ways you know we know that it can be challenging sometimes we always kind of our our one of our little mottos around here is where our job is to provide access but access doesn’t always mean success so you know we really want our students to be successful but we also have to remind ourselves that but it may not be the case all the time but as long as we’re providing access for them that’s that’s the goal yeah absolutely well thank you I appreciate all of you coming and um Katie’s gonna put up this recording and I will send you those links as well so you can send the links to anybody that wants them absolutely great thank you thank you all right um we do have a webinar coming up in two weeks two weeks on the 15th for hypothesis so if you’re interested in that please uh check out the um The ehe Insider and you can link to that and thank you once again Heidi uh for your time and hopefully maybe next time we can do something where we dive a little more deeply into something like Universal Design or something like that that would be really that would be really terrific I would love that absolutely awesome thank you so much everybody have a great afternoon bye
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