Removing Barriers (Fall Webinar Series)

Hello and good morning.

My name is Brittany Otter an I'm here from the student Disability Center at CSU to talk about removing barriers.

I'm so excited to be here today.

So thank you so much for joining us. Looks like we have a few folks here. First, just wanted to say if you have any questions, feel free to put them in the questions. Oh thank you. Good morning to you too. Mitchell, if you have any questions or comments you can put them in the questions or chat feature and in the boxes on the left hand panel and I'd be happy to answer any questions as things go along.

And I do have a power point slide presentation that I'll go through and share with you, and I'll do my best to describe all the images and information for Accessibility as we go through.

So welcome glad to be here.

Like I said, I represent the student disability center here at CSU and our whole mission is to provide accommodations and support toward learning and academic success. Basically, our job is to remove barriers for students who have any sort of disability or condition or impairment, learning challenge or whatever barrier that might exist in the learning environment. So we'll talk more about that in a moment. First, I wanted to share with you. We are open.

I think a lot of folks are trying to figure out what exactly does services look like in the pandemic right now, and so if you need to contact us, you can email us at sdc@colostate.edu on our website we have.

Our website is disability service. Sorry disabilitycentercolostate.edu, and we have virtual drop-in hours there as well on Microsoft teams.

And we also are open in our office and the Institute for learning and Teaching Building 121. It's the first floor from 7:45 AM to 4:45 PM Monday through Friday.

Sorry, no weekend hours and then we also have FA Q Page on our website that has lots of wonderful information about the fall semester and ongoing semester accommodations for students.

And that will continue to be updated as semesters go on for new students, and knew parents as well.

We also have.

Updates about all of our health protocols and things that are going on in our office that will be on our website as well. An service updates. Right now all of our appointments are going on by phone teams or zoom appointments only. Just because our offices are big enough to have the six feet social distancing required right now. But you can drop by our office and make that appointment in person. Or you can call our front desk as well. That number is 970.

4916385 so just wanted to give you a way to contact us.

So what do we do? I'm going to give you a little background on our services and why we exist.

But first I wanted to give a little description of who we serve. So right now the students who are enrolled in fall 2020 semester make up a huge diversity of disabilities or medical conditions.

On this pie chart we have a number of different conditions listed. You'll notice that a very very large percentage of the conditions are chronic health conditions.

ADHD or a DD learning disability and then.

About a little over 1/3 of the pie chart is mental health conditions, primarily anxiety, depression, and any other mental health condition like bipolar PTS, di or other mental health conditions that folks might have.

A lot of people often are like, well, I didn't know that I'm in a health condition. Counts as a disability and it sure does.

Um?

We also have many students this semester who have immune compromised conditions like asthma, diabetes, kidney disease, heart disease, cancer, that are impacting their ability to attend, class in person and that makes up about 15% of our population right now. And that's a large chunk that were accommodating due to the pandemic. So as things change and shift new barriers come up for people and we want to make sure that we're removing those barriers as they happen.

A lot of people ask what if my disability isn't documented or diagnosed? Can I still get services at the STC?

What if I don't have medical insurance? What if I don't currently see a therapist? What if I am not sure that I have a disability or a mental health condition, but there's always been something that has been difficult for me and in school?

Like maybe it has didn't go well, or maybe it was really difficult for me to be able to turn in assignments on time. Or what if I missed a lot of school?

Well, what we say is come on in.

We want to hear from you. First. We will care about documentation and diagnosis later. Sure, eventually we want some kind of verification of your disability. But first and foremost, we want to hear from you and your story. Everybody's unique and everybody has an individual story to tell.

So when we think about removing barriers, first we have to understand what is the barrier that a student is experiencing.

When we remove a barrier, we call these accommodations, which is an adjustment to the educational environment to reduce barriers caused by the inherent in Accessibility of institutions that were built by or for those with disabilities.

And so your fault that the environment was built that way.

So it's up to us as the institution to be able to accommodate and adjust that environment. These accommodations provide equitable access to the University life. Housing course work, pretty much everything you would do as a CSU student.

I have a picture here of two different types of access. One is equality and the other is equity. There. In the equality picture there are a number of folks with different abilities attempting to ride the same type of bike. There's a wheelchair user, a very, very tall person.

A person who is Average size and then a very very small kid but the bike is the same bike, very same size for every person. So the wheelchair user is just sitting next to the bike going, thus not really going to work for me that all person is having to Crouch over and barely being able to move the pedals because they're hitting the handlebars. The average size person is like this works for me. Having having a great time.

And the little kid can't even reach the seat. That's gotta be really uncomfortable.

That means really equality. Everybody gets the same thing, but in this picture, as it demonstrates everything being the same doesn't always work for every individual person.

Instead, accommodations seek to make things equitable. So in the next picture it describes an adaptable bicycle for the wheelchair user.

A taller bicycle for the taller person. The same bike for the average size person and the kid bike for the little kid and everyone is having a great time and has what they need. That's what we want to do when we accommodate folks in higher education.

So what are some examples of barriers that might occur in the academic environment?

Well, there may be difficulty completing exams in that timed environment. How about you? But I would often get nervous about exams so much that I would panic during exams and use a lot of that time to try to.

Figure out how to not panic instead of answering those exam questions.

Difficulty focusing in class and writing down lecture notes at the same time. That takes a lot of brainpower and that can be hard.

Maybe even nervousness about raising your hand in the classroom or being called an out of the blue.

Maybe that even prevents you from participating in the first place.

Consistently being late to class or turning in homework late and feeling really nervous about what the teacher might think of you because of that.

And that might be due to a very, very legitimate medical reason.

Having a hard time getting out of bed, let alone working on school work, maybe have a depressive episode or.

I I had a student who from day to day would have their body, would go numb and might not be able to get out of Bed.

Or difficulty accessing course materials because.

For not iaccessible in a digital format.

Someone who might be low vision or someone who might have a learning disability and find it difficult to comprehend things just visually. We can provide way alternate ways to access that material and breakdown those barriers.

Those are some examples.

I wonder what examples you have experienced.

Or know about if you have any examples of barriers that you have seen or experienced or witnessed for other people, go ahead and put those in the chat.

So now if we look at accommodations.

If I were to look at those barriers again some ways, we would make things equitable to those people would be.

Extended time on exams.

For someone who has difficulty finishing exams on time.

For someone who is having a difficult time.

Able to.

Um, taking notes and listen at the same time.

What about recording lectures using assistive technology so that you can listen and then look back at your notes later and listen again later?

For students having a hard time raising their hands in class.

We can ask professors not to call on them randomly and just wait until they raise their hand to allow for time for processing or to limit some of that anxiety.

For difficulty with getting things done on time and making it to class for whatever disability related reason, we can provide extensions on assignments and flexibility in attendance.

For folks who need materials in a digital iaccessible format, we can provide alternate format textbooks such as digitally accessible PDFs, class handouts, and course materials.

Also we have found especially this semester that emotional support animals have been really helpful in providing a lot of relief emotionally and therapeutically for a lot of students.

Unfortunately, we don't have any dogs or cats to give you, but we can work through the process to be able to help you out in getting them approved on campus.

We had one of our participants say that they have a large amount of treatment every day to cope with their medical condition, which will often make them late for early morning classes.

So glad you brought that up. So one of the accommodations we might give to help with that barrier could be something like priority registration to be able to register for classes that are later in the day and also allowances for being a little bit later for class or some of that attendance flexibility when needed. Thank you for sharing.

I'm a little bit about support animals. We do have a number of different types of support animals on campus. You will see service dogs on campus and also emotional support animals.

I wanted to give a little rundown on the difference between both service dogs or dogs, or sometimes a miniature horses that are trained to perform a specific task for a person with a disability that can accompany them wherever they go. Class food core labs that person goes with them because they are trying to perform an essential task for that person.

They're basically an extension of themselves.

An emotional support animal or any household pet that provides emotional comfort that resigns in that persons dwelling or residents of an individual with a disability.

So this emotional support animal does not come to class does not come to the dining Hall, does not come to an event with you, but does reside in the actual residence Hall room. And before this animal can come to campus.

Students do need to get approval from the student Disability Center in order to bring that to campus.

Just wanted to give that information up front.

I know some students would really love if I shared this information.

When it's not obvious if someone has a service dog worse or an emotional support animal, really it's easy to tell because you can just ask someone. Is the dog a service animal required because of a disability?

If they say yes, wonderful, then you can ask what work or task has the dog been trained to perform. If you have a service animal that you're bringing to campus, know that you are likely going to be asked this question many, many, many times. Even if your dog has a service dog vest on.

If people ask you other questions other than these two questions, let her office know, because they shouldn't be. They shouldn't be asking about your disability. Your medical documentation asking about the requirements or even asking you to demonstrate the task that they're hoping that the dog will perform.

So if you're wondering, do I qualify for services or these accommodations? Something I could benefit from?

Do I even need accommodations the best way to find out is to set up an appointment, and again I'll go over the contact information again at the end of the meeting.

Our schedule can get pretty full. I wanted to say that up front. So for new students coming in the next semester, it would be great to schedule that a few weeks prior to this semester or even a month prior to the semester so that you're ready to go. You have all your combination set up and you are prepared and set for the next semester, but we will always take new students, no matter when you come in to this semester.

Um, we don't provide some things because they're not accommodations. That includes things like we don't change or alter expectations or core standards, and I think you would agree that wouldn't be something you'd want because we want to make sure that everybody is meeting in the same standards and requirements to graduate from CSU.

We are also not providing personal services like finding, hiring or providing a personal aide for personal hygiene, personal medical care, things like that, or personal tutoring or transportation to and from campus. We do have limited accessible transportation during non pandemic semesters in which we have an accessible van that provides limited services on campus.

But when that gets to capacity, we don't have the ability to fund additional spaces on that van, so.

So students generally are responsible for their own transportation.

Um, trust as a heads up.

So steps to get signed up, step one, contact us to make an appointment by phone or email by 97044916385 or emailing us at sdc@colostate.edu.

Second, meet within accommodation specialist and discussed barriers you experience and some accommodations that will remove them. They also discuss some things like campus resources, strategies, community support and we have some great clubs and ways to get involved on campus too.

Step three is then to turn in any documentation if needed, an complete any paperwork needed to activate your accommodations.

Super simple 3 steps.

So what we've learned in fall semester so far on the road to recovery through the pandemic is that there are some things that we're doing that are a little bit different now that we just want to give you a heads up for in the future. If this is going to continue on spring and fall an more we have some additional accommodations we are providing for students.

One is that we do have a process on our website where students can request an adjustment from the COVID-19 face covering requirement. So if a typical mask does not work well for students, we can look at alternate San adjustments like face Shields and masks with events and things like that to provide equitable access.

Students may also go to our website and report in access barrier. That can be something like this website or video is in Iaccessible or even I'm not receiving appropriate support or I need new accommodations.

And that can be anyone in our campus that can utilize that. Whether or not they work with our office.

We also have accommodations that provide remote access for students who have.

Compromised immune systems or underlying health conditions that put them at additional risk for kovid.

And we also provide additional health precautions in classrooms where every remote option is not available, such as an anatomy lab, we can provide that student their own workspace.

And their own tools set their own lab equipment. Things like that.

So that's our news and things that we've been providing for students to remove barriers during the pandemic, and so many more things. But those are just some general, general things that we've started doing.

Lastly, I wanted to show you some of our stuff so that you know who you'd be working with and reaching out to so quickly. This is me.

Britney auditor you she, her pronouns. I'm originally from Seattle and I've been in Colorado for about 8 almost nine years now and I've been working in disability services for, Gosh, eight years, seven years, something like that and I'm really glad to be here. And at CSU I went to school here as a graduate student and I'm so glad to be here working as a full time staff member.

Work, Simmons is our administrative assistant. She's the person who coordinates are front desk staff and will often be the one answering the phones. She is originally from Central Texas and earn her bachelors degree in exercise, sports science from Texas State University and she moved from Texas recently was so excited when it snowed for the first time because she had never seen snow before and she enjoys reading, crafting, working out.

Recycling. She's also doing her Masters in ecological restoration, so some things to connect with her about. We have some accommodation specialist. These are the people that you would be meeting with for your appointments. So these are folks that would be would be talking to you about your barriers about your accommodations and providing any documentation if needed about your disability.

So this is Kathleen Kathleen's worked at the STC since 1994.

I'll let you. I'll do the math on how long that's been. She's growing up in Colorado. She's raised her daughters here. She got her bachelors degree at CSU and Masters at CSU. She is a ram fan and just at heart, complete ram and Mark were glad to have her.

She also works with a lot of our ESA requests and has dogs of her own, so she's wonderful.

This is Joe Diner. Joe is from Colorado and he is also a proud ram. He understood degree and Masters degree from CSU. You know, notice a theme here.

And he's worked in that student Disability Center for a very long time. Also happens to have a disability.

And can really relate to a lot of students in in that aspect as well.

And then Amanda Wimmer is another one of our accommodation specialists. Amanda has been working in the student Disability Center since 2014 and she earned her bachelors at CSU. She's currently working on her Masters and she.

Disability center

again. You'll notice a theme of students serving serving in our office after they have been students here at CSU.

Nicole Gatti is our coordinator of ultra accessible text accommodations, so when I talked about getting iaccessible digital versions of text and handouts, Nico is the person who would do that for you. He's been working at the student Disabilities Center since 2014 as well, and he worked in the office as student staff. So did Amanda as well.

And he was born and raised in Germany, and he got his degree at CSU. So he's also working at on his Masters degree in Business Administration.

Alicia Zmuda is our coordinator of alternative testing accommodations, so if you get any testing accommodations like extended time on exams, anything like.

A reader for exams or assistive technology on exams. Alicia is the person who will be working with you and she started working in 2015 as a course transcriber. A different job on campus and she's been with us ever since. And she is originally from Colorado Springs and she earned her bachelors degree here at CSU as well.

She's also our resident artist, so any art that comes out of her office comes from Alicia. So she made all of these wonderful images for us.

If you are a deaf and hard of hearing student DD cleaver is going to be working with you. DD has been at the STC for over 25 years and she is the coordinator of deaf and hard of hearing services Ann. She's also an interpreter. She originally is from Crete NE and she is lovely and wonderful and we're happy to have her on our staff along with DD is Gina Byrd, our staff interpreter. Gina has been working as a sign language interpreter for the STC for over 30 years.

She's originally from Philadelphia, PA and outside of work she loves people. I mean, she's just used such a bright person. If you ever get to know her, she says you're right person. She is always at our front desk so his DD so I'm sure you're going to meet them at some point.

I also forgot to mention we also just hired a new accommodation specialist, Mel Lafferty. Mel is originally from North Dakota and is.

Studying at UNC right now for her doctorate in higher education and we're happy to have her. She studies mindfulness as well and is a wonderful addition to our team, so Mel would be another person you would possibly be meeting with as well.

We also have a ton of students, staff and support from hourly positions. These are all of our wonderful student staff celebrating our 40th anniversary of our student Disability Center. Can you believe it's over 40 years old? That's our front desk. That's what it looks like when you go into till 121.

And there's over 22 students. Staff that support our front desk testing alternate format notetaking captioning in many more. So if you're ever looking for student employment, Ann, you're wanting a great community. Our office is a great place to work. We love our students. We celebrate them. We have great traditions and holiday celebrations so please join our staff if there's ever openings. We would love to have you.

And then we also have 12 American Sign Language interpreters for in class and remote support for deaf and hard of hearing students, and 12 to 15 transcribers to provide meaning for many notes for deaf and hard of hearing students as well. And we love all of them and appreciate all of them so much.

Um?

So that's that. Again, our contact information is SDC. At colostate.edu, our phone number is 970-491-6385 and our website isdisabilitycenter.colostate.edu and we look forward to meeting with you and hearing from you.

Are there any questions?

If you have any questions, feel free to put them in the questions chat.

Alright, have you ever worked with the student with a medical condition call and cystic fibrosis? It's somewhat rare but would need quite a bit of accommodation. Absolutely. I'm so glad you asked. We have. We worked a full students from a variety of backgrounds with a lot of different medical diagnosis. Some that I in my world had never heard of before and had to learn about and I sure have worked with students with cystic fibrosis. Actually, a number of students.

Even though it is somewhat rare and we have provided a number of accommodation, so that's not something that were unfamiliar with and we're happy to provide support on an individual basis, so again, we don't just have a menu of things that we just provide to people and say here, this Is It. We really do make an individual accommodation assessment day. What works best for you? You tell us what you need and we will provide that access that provides equity, right? Not the one size fits all approach.

But equity what fits for you? What makes your educational experience?

Iaccessible and and.

Enjoyable for you.

Does that answer your question?

Awesome.

Great.

Well, thank you so much for attending the.

Web and R.

Are there any other questions before we wrap up? I have plenty of time.

Alright, well it seems like.

Everyone got their questions answered, so please feel free again to make your way to our website or to email us or call us for an appointment. We're happy to provide accommodations and access and remove those barriers that may exist for you in the educational environment.

And I'm so excited to meet you. I hope both of our attendees make an appointment an I I'm going to remember your name so I can say I remember you from the women are series from admissions and I am so excited to meet you in the future so.

Please don't be shy and and make sure to reach out to us and I hope that you have a wonderful rest of your day. So thanks for coming.

Oh, I have another question here. If you need a single dorm, do you get that through the disability center or through housing? Oh, I'm so glad you asked that. Thank you so much. Yes, we do provide housing accommodations as well when you apply for housing you will go through an application process and housing and what we have done is work really closely with housing. They are great partner with us and we have developed a housing accommodation request form that is embedded within the housing application so that you don't have to go through the process 3 million times.

It stressed part of the housing application.

It will open up a separate window. That way you don't have to worry about closing out your housing application, but that'll allow you to submit information you need to know about. We need to know about your accommodation piece. That way it goes to our office. Any documentation or any disability information goes to the student disability center. That way that confidential medical stuff doesn't get to housing. It doesn't get into their system and it stays private and confidential within our records.

And so you just do that and then we reach out to you to say, hey, this makes sense, or let's chat a little bit more if needed. And then we communicate with housing behind the scenes to move forward on your accommodations.

Subway, that's a straightforward process for students.

Great question.

Awesome.

Well, thank you so much for attending and I hope you have a great rest of your day.

Alright bye bye.