Courtney Cézair Mayers FP’12 owns a golden retriever. But unlike other dogs, Holden helps Mayers open doors, pick things up and balance. Holden is a service dog.
Mayers has Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, a connective tissue disorder that causes skin laxity and joint hypermobility. She says that talking to Disability Services (DS) staff from the College helped her make her decision to come to Mount Holyoke.
“Before I accepted at any school, I spoke to Disability Services,” she said. She asked each college’s DS staff if it had appropriate accommodations.
But once she arrived at the College, Mayers encountered a series of obstacles to accessing dining halls, showers and orientation programming on campus.
The problems started on Sept. 6, 2009. It was move-in day, she said, when she and a friend approached the Abbey dining hall with Holden in tow. Holden was wearing a balance harness, which meant that he was functioning as a service dog.
According to Mayers, a student worker turned her away at the door. Mayers explained that the service dog lived in the building with her. “I think she thought I was making it up,” Mayers said. But after a call to her supervisor, the student allowed Holden to enter the dining hall.
It was not the last time such a call had to be made. “The first month, I was like, OK, there are no other service dogs here, it’s understandable. I kind of thought it would work itself out. It was more an issue that people just needed to get informed.”
She could not anticipate that Holden would be barred again from other dining halls. “It started to get frustrating. It wasn’t something that happened every single day.”
But service animals are legally defined in the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, and must be allowed into these halls. In November, Dining Services posted signs in the halls to resolve the problem. “I’ve had zero problems [with dining] since then,” said Mayers.
But problems persisted, said Mayers, in housing and other areas. Because of unaligned curb cuts, she says, she is at greater risk when crossing the street in a wheelchair. The back door to Safford, which is labeled accessible, leads to another door which is not.
Associate Dean of Students and Director of Disability Services, Elisabeth Hogan, said that she was unable to comment on individual student cases.
As a rule, students must register with DS to be considered for accommodations. The second step is submitting a Clinician Disability Certification Form, which must contain documentation in reference to that individual’s needs. The form lists specific questions about the student’s diagnosis and the clinician’s recommendations.
“Our goal is really to work with the student to provide access to their educational experience and also work with the student to become as independent as possible,” said Hogan, “and also, so that people can advocate for themselves.”
New additions to Disability Services include online registration and the sponsoring or co-sponsoring of more educational event programming.
“We’re trying to create other campus-wide conversations. So when people are thinking about diversity and inclusion, this is part of students’ identities,” said Hogan.
However, Hogan and Associate Dean for Learning Skills John Body agreed that DS in need of more consolidation. Over 300 students in total are registered with DS at the College, and their diagnoses have become more complex over the past five years, said Hogan.
“Determining what’s reasonable and coordinating those accommodations is more complicated and more involved in terms of coordinating with various departments,” said Hogan.
The Disability Services personnel, she said, hope to consolidate the divisions into one office, including services offered by Maureen Bourbeau, adaptive technology specialist.
Gia Bufalino FP’12 suffers from several neurological disorders, and says that DS recommendations conflicted with accommodations her professors offered her. When her husband sued for child custody and she had to leave for California to be in court, she was academically penalized.
“The entire system needs to be redone,” said one student who asked to remain anonymous. “No one has checked up on me once, and I’m a first year. It should be inherent that every first year student has a meeting with [their liaison] at least once a month as a check-in.”
According to Mayers, awareness is key to solving problems of accessibility on campus. She hopes to start a support group for students with disabilities next year.
“I think the problem is that [DS is] seeing more and more students with disabilities at the College. The reason they’re seeing them is that the laws have been in effect for some time now at the secondary level, and that’s sort of enabled students to get here,” she said. “They had no idea so many of them were coming. And the office doesn’t seem to be able to handle that many people. That’s the bottom line—that there doesn’t seem to be a structure in place to handle those cases. And that’s where people start to have unfortunate experiences.”
If students encounter problems, Body said they could appeal to the Disability Review Board or Academic Administrative Board (AAB).
Body agreed with the point that more students with disabilities had begun enrolling in recent years. “There’s good news, but on the other side, there’s real strain trying to provide,” he said.
Related posts:
- Campus orgs hold Dining Services Awareness Week
- Dining Services to implement changes to Torrey, breakfast
- Diminishing the barrier of disability on campus
- Students discuss definitions of bullying, hazing on campus
- Pressing awareness for consumption of to-go ware
