Student Accessibility Services Strive to Make OU Accessible for All Students

Rachel Beardsley

There is no simple formula to make education accessible for all, but Ohio University’s Student Accessibility Services strives to adapt new solutions to meet the accommodations of everyone on campus.

The Office for University Accessibility Services helps students, faculty, staff and visitors of OU gain equal access to education and campus life. For people with a physical disability, that may include adapted classroom materials or help navigating the hills and bricks of OU’s main campus.

“It is very different from student to student,” says Christina Jenkins, associate director for student accessibility. “Even two students with the same disability might be receiving different accommodations based on how they’re individually impacted.”

Jenkins oversees the three accessibility coordinators on OU's Athens campus and three coordinators on each regional campus to ensure all services are operating the same. The coordinators help resolve conflicts that arise regarding accommodations, such as those between a professor and a student. If a conflict cannot be resolved by the coordinators, it will then be passed to Jenkins for help, though she says most complaints are resolved before they get to her.

“A lot of times it is a matter of misinformation,” Jenkins says. “Either the student was misinformed, or the instructor needed to understand why something was happening a certain way.”

For students, faculty or staff members with a physical or sensory disability, Accessibility Services offers a host of options to provide equal access across campus. For example, individuals with a mobility or sensory impairment are eligible for the Cat Cab, a free taxi service that drives people around campus. It differs from shuttle services because instead of following a stop schedule, it will take people directly to their destination.

“Students can get on a regular ride schedule,” she says. “So if they need rides consistently for all their classes, they can work with transportation to get on a consistent ride schedule, or they can call and schedule rides as needed. There are a lot of individuals who get around campus just fine when the weather is nice, but if it’s cold or there is snow or ice or rain then it might be more difficult.”

For students with visual impairments, accessibility can mean receiving class handouts and textbooks in a larger font. They may also receive materials in braille or digital materials that can be read aloud or enlarged on a computer. For a physical education class like trail running, accessibility services may help the student find ways to further individualize the course.

“For them, I would say the typical class experience probably doesn’t differ a whole lot,” Jenkins says.

For students who are deaf or hard of hearing, accessibility may mean having a note-taker on hand, using a recording device to replay the lecture at a higher volume or using an FM system to filter out background noise. They may also use an American Sign Language (ASL) interpreter or remote captioning during class.

“We have a number of students who use remote captioning, where we actually have someone [from an outside agency] who is getting an audio feed from the class,” Jenkins says. “The instructor is wearing a microphone and they get audio feed through their computer and transcribe what is being spoken as the class goes along so [the student is] following along on their screen.”

Lori Woods, an ASL instructor who is deaf, writes that Accessibility Services assists her by providing an interpreter on the first day of classes to give an introduction and explain the syllabus to students. After the first day, she does not use an interpreter in the classroom, but she can arrange for an interpreter if a student wants to schedule a meeting or has questions.

In previous semesters, a faculty member would have to put in a request for an interpreter a week in advance and wait for it to be approved, but how on-call interpreters are provided on campus.

“We, as faculty, experience a lot of frustrations waiting a week to make a meeting or appointment happen, so we really had to get onto Accessibility Services,” Woods writes in an email. “Our goal was to have an on-call interpreter around campus, and now we can do that, and it feels great.”

Some devices available for students with sensory disabilities. Photo by Ellie Habel.

Currently, Counseling and Psychological Services (CPS) offers support and programming that vary by semester based on need. An ASL club invites people of various levels of experience to come learn the language.

Jenkins also co-leads the Accessibility Liaisons, which discusses the physical and mental nature of different disabilities. The focus group gives accessibility feedback to different departments on campus.

“Together we have a pretty global perspective as far as how different things on campus might impact someone with a disability,” she says. “We have a lot of individuals with chronic medical conditions that might affect their mobility, but it is not as apparent as someone who uses a wheelchair or other assisted mobility device.”

Although Accessibility Services helps students immensely, Jenkins recognizes that there is always room for improvement.

“I think there is always more to be done,” she says.

“I think a lot of what we do is very much reactive to problems that come up and concerns that come to our attention. I think as an institution as a whole, we are trying to be more proactive with things.”

Woods says one of the biggest accessibility problems she sees right now is that students are limited to just one accommodation. For example, a deaf student must choose between an interpreter or a note-taker during class instead of having both services due to the cost.

Woods writes that she was allowed both services in her master’s classes at Ohio State University. She adds that although OU provides interpreters at many public events, the services are often not publicized enough, and many deaf people don’t know when the services are available.

Jenkins says one step toward overall accessibility improvement could be a universal design for learning, which would make learning more accessible for everyone, not just for those with disabilities. For example, instead of giving students 45 minutes for an exam that takes 30 minutes on average, professors would give students 90 minutes to account for different test-taking styles.

Another common aspect of universal design for learning is a portfolio assessment, where a professor gives the class a range of options for assignments rather than requiring everyone to write a paper or do a presentation, providing students with multiple ways to demonstrate their knowledge of the material.

Jenkins says that even with a universal design for learning, there would still be a need for accommodations, because nobody is impacted by disability in the same way. She stresses that the most important part of accessibility is to evaluate each person and situation individually and offer the best solution possible, not just a cookie-cutter solution.

“I think we’ve done a good job of making sure we have a baseline to address the more common requests that come up,” Jenkins says. “The biggest thing is we really try to evaluate everyone as an individual so, even if it’s something that’s been done the same way for 20 years, we’re still going to reevaluate and look at it again with each individual person that comes through.”