The University of Minnesota is exploring a process change to have the Disability Resource Center (DRC)  communicate accommodations to faculty on behalf of students. 

Current DRC process requires students to communicate their accommodations to their professors, often exposing the uneven power dynamic between the two sides, where students often can feel intimidated by their professor. The process change aims to ensure students with disabilities can get their necessary accommodations, according to the DRC.

Enjie Hall, the DRC director and the University’s Americans with Disabilities Act coordinator who joined the University last year, said she took on this project following feedback from both students and faculty who felt the current system was ineffective.

“This general concern about the power dynamic is something that has been articulated that I have heard,” Hall said. “On the faculty side, effectively managing the accommodations.”

Hall added she imagines a system of self-advocacy balanced with institutional responsibility where students decide how they want to utilize their accommodations and when to share them, while the DRC acts as the primary communicative liaison with faculty. 

Zak Farah, Diversity and Inclusion Committee director for the University’s Undergraduate Student Government, said the new process would be beneficial as it allows the DRC to act more in its capacity as a bridge between students and faculty.

“Symbolically, it would be a massive step forward in terms of the academic success of students and faculty interaction,” Farah said. 

Hall said the uneven power dynamic between professors and their students can often create an uncomfortable or intimidating environment for students advocating for their accommodations. 

“That’s what we’re taking a hard look at,” Hall said. “What is that institutional responsibility? Who should be responsible for accessibility? Where do we also amplify the voices of our students?”

Isabel Laderman, a third-year education student at the University, said she has worked continuously with the DRC to get accommodations for Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, a connective tissue disorder, since her freshman year.

Due to the chronic pain caused by her Ehlers-Danlos, Laderman said it can be difficult for her to complete everyday tasks, like taking exams or walking to class at the same rate as her peers, which her accommodations aim to support.

Although Laderman said she feels more comfortable communicating her accommodations to her professors now, she remembers it being an intimidating conversation when she first came to the University. 

“When you have to email your professor you’re then forced to disclose your disability and it can be very intimidating,” Laderman said. “Especially if you have experiences of ableism.”

In high school, Laderman said she had negative experiences with teachers who she felt were dismissive of her disability and often reluctant to accommodate it. When she came to the University, Laderman worried she would combat similar reluctance.

Laderman added she has been lucky because most of her professors have respected her accommodations, but she knows other students who have faced arguments with their professors over accommodations, sometimes needing to involve their access consultant to advocate for them.

In situations like these, Laderman said a new system in which the DRC communicates accommodations to faculty would give credibility to student disability accommodations, taking considerable pressure off of students, particularly those like her who had negative experiences previously.

“You may just have a really terrible background experience with accommodations,” Laderman said. “You’re already transitioning to this entirely new school and a lot of times location just adds that extra pressure.”

Hall said there is a possibility for a future online portal allowing faculty to see their students’ accommodations in an organized digital format.

“Professors have lots of students in their class, and when they’re trying to figure out and organize 30 students and their individual accommodations that can be a chunk,” Hall said.

Other campuses in the University’s system have already implemented this change, according to Hall. Technological barriers involving the DRC’s case management system have kept the Twin Cities campus from making the switch, though she commits to implementing new measures as soon as possible. 

“There is nothing more important than us being able to serve the community that we are here to serve,” Hall said.

Clarification: The previous version of this article missed the word policy. The DRC is looking into a process change.