Accommodations Available
Any student with a documented disability is eligible to receive services from Student Accessibility Services (SAS). Clark University offers a range of legally mandated accommodations to students with documented disabilities to give them access to full participation in equal educational opportunities. Eligibility for these services is based on documented need and is determined on a case by case basis. The purpose of accommodations is to reduce or eliminate any disadvantages that may exist because of an individual’s disability. The law does not require institutions to waive specific courses or academic requirements considered essential to a particular program or degree. Instead, they are mandated to modify existing requirements to ensure that individuals are not discriminated against on the basis of their disability.
Reasonable accommodations are not intended to eliminate a student’s disability, but to support the student’s own efforts to circumvent obstacles to learning. Students are expected to meet the essential course and degree requirements. When necessary, SAS staff will consult with faculty regarding essential standards in order to determine reasonable accommodations. Accommodations are not substitutions for faculty academic decisions such as course content, grading, or syllabus requirements. These determinations are not within the jurisdiction of Student Accessibility Services.
Disclosure of a disability is voluntary; however, it is important to note that the university is not responsible for providing accommodations to a student who has not provided appropriate documentation of a disability to Student Accessibility Services and requested a reasonable accommodation.
Below is a list of some common accommodations provided by Clark University. In order for a student to receive accommodations, the student must provide appropriate documentation that indicates the need for each requested accommodation and then have an intake meeting with professional staff member of SAS. The University may deny an accommodation if it would fundamentally alter an essential requirement of a course, activity, job and/or program or pose an undue hardship. The list is not exhaustive as every accommodation decision is an individual one made through the interactive process between the director and the student, and some needed reasonable accommodations may not have a place on this list. This purpose of this list is to give readers an idea of what Clark has to offer when ensuring access is given to a student’s education.