A critical responsibility for disability resource professionals is to engage with students to determine reasonable accommodations. As the situations presented to us grow in complexity, it can be harder to determine what is a legitimate academic accommodation. This presentation will take a step back and explore the roots of a disability office’s work and outline some considerations that should be made when making those difficult decisions.

Topics that will be broadly covered include:

• Why do we need to make these decisions? What is the focus?
• What is a reasonable accommodation?
• What do we know is important from an OCR perspective?
• A brief look at common accommodation scenarios
• Extra time for assignments
• Remote Attendance
• Flexible attendance

Presenter:   Adam Smith, Director, Student Accessibility Services, University of Central Florida.

Mr. Smith has experience at Eastern Michigan University and at Saint Louis University while serving in this field since 2004. Adam was previously part of a national US Department of Education grant that explored ways in which concepts of social justice could be more regularly and routinely incorporated into the operations of the disability services office. Adam has presented at numerous conferences and multiple other AHEAD and AHEAD affiliate venues on rethinking documentation, social model of disability and office implementation, effective initial student interviews and interactive process facilitation, disability language and various leadership and influence strategies for disability office personnel. Adam served on the Association for Higher Education and Disability (AHEAD) Board of Directors, now serves on the AHEAD external review team for campus program evaluations and does consulting and presentations with other disability offices and their campuses.

Moderator: Judy Spain, J.D., CCEP

Judy currently serves as the GICA Compliance Program Consultant and serves on the Board, Society for Corporate Compliance and Ethics.    She is a Professor Emeritus, an attorney licensed in Kentucky, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, and is a Certified Compliance and Ethics Professional.  She served as General Counsel and Chief Ethics and Compliance Officer at Eastern Kentucky University and Manhattanville College, where she developed and implemented compliance programs.  Judy is the author of the first book on higher education compliance, Higher Education Compliance:  Blueprint for Success.  Judy is also the author of Compliance Risk Assessments:  An Introduction published by the Society for Corporate Compliance and Ethics.  Her third book, Higher Education Compliance: What Governing Boards Really Need to Know is available in paperback, Kindle, and audiobook.