College Student with a Disability:
A Faculty Handbook

"The Census of Americans with Disabilities: 1991/1992, published in January 1994, reports that nearly fifty million people with disabilities live outside of institutions…One out of every five persons has trouble performing one or more daily living tasks." Approximately one third of Americans will experience temporary disabilities resulting from broken bones, sprained muscles, surgery, or other life experiences.

According to the President’s Council on Employment of People with Disabilities, updated in January of 1997, 48.9 million people in the United States have disabilities. Of those, 60% are between the ages of 15 and 64 and 56% are between the ages of 21 and 64. Over half of the nearly fifty million people with disabilities are of an age to be in school, college or in gainful employment. Yet, only 14.3 million (30%) of those 50 million are working. Another 30% may be in your classroom, gaining skills to join the ranks of the employed. Chances are excellent that you will encounter a person with a disability in your classroom. Are you prepared to accommodate those individuals as required by law?

Several pieces of Federal and State legislation have shaped the way that America in general and higher education in particular look at people with disabilities.

In September 1973, the 93^rd Congress passed Public Law 93-112, the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. Section 504 of the Act states: "No otherwise qualified handicapped individual in the United States…shall, solely by reason of his handicap, be excluded from the participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance." In May 1977, the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare issued regulations implementing Section 504. This nondiscrimination statute and the regulations issued under it (especially Subpart E) guarantee not only the right of entrance for students with disabilities into our Nation’s colleges and universities, but also their full participation in all programs.

In July of 1990, the President signed into law the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). The ADA is a civil rights act that prohibits discrimination against qualified individuals with disabilities, using similar language to the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. The expanded definition of disability, according to the ADA, is defined as follows:

1. A physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities (e.g.: caring for oneself, performing manual tasks, walking, seeing, hearing, speaking, breathing, learning and working);
   
   

2. A record of such impairment (e.g.: a cancer survivor or someone who was misclassified as being mentally retarded); or
   
   

3. Being regarded as having such an impairment."
   
   

A Qualified individual, according to the ADA, is a person "who, with or without reasonable modifications to rules, policies, or practices, the removal of architectural, communication, or transportation barriers, or the provision of auxiliary aids and services, meets the essential eligibility requirements for the receipt of services or the participation in programs or activities provided by a public entity." The essential eligibility requirements for admission into California Community Colleges are high school graduation or the equivalent, or the ability to benefit from instruction, if the student is over 18 and has not graduated from high school. The "reasonable modifications" mentioned above may include such things as extended time for taking tests, changing a classroom location, or explaining a concept in more than one way. A student with a disability is not given accommodations in the educational setting to gain an advantage over students without disabilities. Rather, the student with a disability requires modest changes to enable him or her to access the same information, perform the same tasks, or explore the same mysteries as his or her peers without disabilities.

According to Title II of the ADA, "no qualified individual with a disability shall, by reason of such disability, be excluded from participation in or be denied the benefits of the services, programs or activities of a public entity or be subjected to discrimination by any such entity." Public entity is defined for the purposes of this handbook as "(A) any State or local government; (B) any department, agency, special purpose district, or any other instrumentality of a State or States or local government."

Title 5 Regulations for Disabled Students Programs and Services (DSPS), the California Code mandated by Section 504, was revised in November of 1992, and new implementation guidelines were issued a few years later to reflect the changes in Federal law caused by the 1990 passage of the ADA.

A qualified student with a verified disability, must, by law, receive accommodations, if requested. This Handbook will introduce some of the most common disabilities on college campuses and offer some suggestions in ways to adapt teaching methods to better serve students with disabilities. It is not meant to substitute for interaction between instructor and student, but rather to facilitate it. Instructors should realize that the student who lives with a specific disability is the real expert regarding his or her needs. The student may be able to suggest several solutions to any situation encountered in the classroom with regards to his or her disability.

Each student, regardless of the presence or absence of a disability is a person first, with individual strengths and weaknesses. Most students consider their disability to be a small part of their lives. It should be treated accordingly.

For more information, the instructor may contact his or her DSPS Office, or the Section 504 and/or ADA Coordinator.