Disability Resource Center improves and expands services
Members of the Disability Resource Center staff include (front row, from left) Lori Carte, Susie Swensen, Anita Brieda, Nicole Jasinski, (back row, from left) Heidi Smart, Jesse Raney and Keri Turrell. Staff members not pictured are Winnie Fitzmaurice and Cindy Hedgecough. (Purdue University photo/Andrew Hancock)
The Disability Resource Center (DRC) is making moves to enhance disability services around campus. Recent behind-the-scenes adjustments, such as changing the caseload assignment system and information storage databases, have streamlined student services. Larger-scale changes are also in the works as part of a plan to integrate DRC services with the overall student experience.
The DRC, a part of the Office of the Dean of Students (ODOS), offers academic adjustment and auxiliary services to Purdue students with documented disabilities. Staff members in the academic adjustment area, known as accommodation specialists, meet with students to determine how to minimize the impact of a student's condition in the classroom environment. Accommodation specialists provide written accommodation notifications to students, which are given to instructors and other relevant campus partners. The center also offers auxiliary services, such as Braille textbook transcription, sign language interpreters and service providers such as note takers, readers and scribes.
In 2010, DRC began to solicit feedback from campus organizations, such as the Purdue Academic Advising Association (PACADA) and the Academic Council on Disability Issues (ACDI). Feedback from these groups helped establish how the center's services could be streamlined to better fit the needs of students, faculty and staff members, says Jesse Raney, associate dean of students and director of the DRC.
"Most of the accommodations we supply for students are directly related to their access to classroom environments," Raney says. "We can't effectively identify areas for improvement without respecting faculty and staff members' opinions and perspectives."
Most of the collected feedback had a central request -- make students' experiences more efficient.
Recently, the center changed how accommodation specialists are assigned to students. Previously, specialists were assigned based on a student's disability and college. Confusion arose if students had a temporary disability, switched colleges or had more than one documented disability. Now, specialists are assigned based on a student's last name. Changes like this help streamline communication and prevent student confusion, Raney says.
"We are trying to make it so that students don't have to go to so many places, and be directed to so many people, in order to receive services," Raney says. "Right now, they come here for accommodation help, then to their advisors for advising help and another place for testing. We want to make this process as easy for them as possible, whether by streamlining communication or relocating services."
One large-scale initiative in the works is a shift in the oversight of accommodated testing services. Soon, the staff of the DRC will conduct the administration and oversight of accommodated testing. Raney says this transition will make it easier for students who associate DRC staff with their academic accommodation and adjustment services.
"Once we begin to oversee accommodated testing, we will be able to make it easier for students to navigate our system," Raney says. "Students will come here to receive either academic adjustment or auxiliary services and we can act as a starting point, should they need to contact or visit another office on campus."
Raney says these adjustments will further Purdue's mission to provide an enriching academic environment for every student.
"Every person on our staff is dedicated to finding better ways to help students with disabilities," Raney says. "A student with a disability is still a student. Their disability is a part of their lived experience but it's not who they are. We don't want to make it a more cumbersome experience then it has to be in order for them to participate equally in a classroom setting."
The DRC has started open searches for three new staff positions. These staff members will oversee the area of academic adjustments, coordinate accommodated testing and facilitate service providers for students in the DRC. For more information on open DRC staff positions, contact Jesse Raney at jlraney@purdue.edu.
