Statement of Intention to Foster Student Independence
The Disability Resource Center (DRC) seeks to foster independence in the students it serves by:
- Providing individual services to students only after they identify themselves to our office as a person who seeks assistance, rather than seeking out students and suggesting to them that they should or should not apply for services.
- Publicizing our services to make students aware of their availability.
- Empowering students with information about their rights and responsibilities.
- Offering tools that students may use to advocate for their rights within the University system.
- Encouraging students to directly interact with faculty and staff regarding their disabilities and accommodation needs.
- Limiting our interaction with faculty and staff to an informational and educational capacity, rather than an advocacy role, except under extenuating circumstances.
- Encouraging faculty to directly interact with students regarding modifications in testing and classroom procedures before asking the DRC for consultation.
- Educating the campus community through brochures, in-services and other consultation activities in order to create an attitudinal milieu that is more conducive to student inclusion.
- Working with Campus Planning to create new construction and renovations which make the campus more physically accessible to students with mobility impairments.
- Allowing students the right to choose when to access our services and to choose when not to use our services.
- Students have the right to decline assistance from this office.
- Students have the right to succeed and/or to fail.
- Students have the right to choose their own academic process.
- Students have the right to choose their own course of treatment.
- Students have the right to face the consequences of their own actions.