Rights & Responsibilities
Educational access includes the provision of classroom accommodations, auxiliary aids and services to ensure equal educational opportunities for all students regardless of disability. Creating equal educational opportunities is a collaborative effort between the student, the faculty member, and Disability Services.
Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) protect students with disabilities from discrimination that may occur as a result of misconceptions, attitudinal barriers, and/or failure of the institution to provide accommodations, auxiliary aids, or services.
Principles of ACCESS
A - Accessibility: faculty members play a role in making their classrooms accessible to all students.
C - Communication: It is imperative that students with disabilities, faculty members, and Disability Services communicate on a regular basis.
C - Confidentiality: All instructors and Disability Services staff must respect a student's right to confidentiality.
E - Eligibility for Accommodations: Disability Services is the office designated to determine eligibility for federally mandated academic accommodations and services.
S - Student Responsibility: Students have a responsibility in ensuring they get the necessary services.
S - Support: Both faculty and Disability Services work together to support students in their legal right to access an education.
Students have the right to:
- be treated with dignity and respect
- an equal educational opportunity
- appropriate confidentiality of personal disability information except as required or permitted by law
- reasonable and timely accommodations
- equally effective communication
Students seeking accommodations have the responsibility to:
- meet and maintain essential academic and technical standards required for admission
- self-identify as a person with a disability to Disability Services (DS)
- demonstrate and/or document that they are a student with a disability as defined by the ADA
- provide sufficient documentation of disability from a health care professional
- make a formal request for accommodations through DS, and renew this request each semester
- follow Lesley University's policies and procedures for obtaining reasonable accommodations, such as meeting with a Disability Services representative and providing Accommodation Letters to faculty
- adhere to Lesley University's Community Standards of Conduct Policy
The Faculty has the right to:
- determine course content and general methods of teaching
- ensure that the standards in their course are not lowered or compromised
- ensure that a student has demonstrated mastery of the essential requirements of a course in order to obtain an appropriate grade
- fail any student if he/she does not demonstrate mastery of essential requirements
- question a specific accommodation request if it is either inappropriate for their course, or if the nature of the request would alter the essential requirements of a course
- determine through consultation with knowledgeable professionals the most appropriate ways to adapt their course to the needs of a particular student who has requested accommodations through the process outlined by Disability Services
- be treated respectfully by all students in their class
The Faculty has the responsibility to:
- acknowledge that students who are registered with Disability Services have provided adequate and sufficient documentation of their disability from a registered health care professional. Accommodations are based on this documentation
- respect the student's confidentiality about the specifics of their disability
- cooperate with Disability Services to provide authorized accommodations and support services in a fair and timely manner
- recognize that some students with disabilities have academic or behavioral problems that are not related to their disability. Faculty is therefore not obligated to treat such problems any differently then they would for a non-disabled student.
PLEASE NOTE:
Faculty do NOT have the right to ask students if they have a disability. For those students with documented disabilities, faculty do NOT have the right to ask about the nature of the disability. However, if students choose to disclose their disability, this information should be treated confidentially.