Information for Instructors
Under the Americans with Disabilities Act and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, instructors must provide reasonable academic accommodations for qualified students with disabilities. Examples of academic accommodations include provision of lecture notes for students with attention concerns or low vision; extended testing time for students with reading concerns; scribes for students with orthopedic difficulties taking written exams; and preferred seating arrangements. Instructors are to announce procedures for arranging academic accommodations at the beginning of each semester and include the information in the course syllabus.
Our staff is available to provide consultations via email or phone. We encourage all faculty, staff and students to call us should questions or concerns arise.
Arranging for Accommodations
Students seeking academic accommodations first register with Student Disability Services and meet with a counselor in our office who reviews documentation and determines eligibility for services. Students approved for accommodations then arrange to meet privately with course instructors. At this meeting they present the instructor with a Student Academic Accommodation Request (SAAR) form and discuss their academic needs. Please do not provide accommodations to students without this form.
Students who request academic accommodations for disabilities but have not yet registered at SDS need to be referred to our office to complete the registration process before accommodations are arranged. For more information, please contact our office at 319-335-1462 or sds-information@uiowa.edu.
Students Who Suspect They May Have a Disability
If you have students who suspect they might have a disability but have not been evaluated previously, please encourage them to contact SDS for more information. University Counseling Service (UCS) provides screening and psychoeducational evaluations for learning disabilities and attention deficit disorders on a limited basis. Students may contact UCS at 319-335-7294 for information regarding appointments. Assessments are also available at several clinics on campus. If a student chooses to use an off campus resource for testing they should have the assessor refer to our documentation guidelines.