Mary Little: Hi and Welcome to East Tennessee State University Disability Services.
Thanks for coming by and taking the time to get to know a little bit about our office.
This opening slide has four pictures of various campus views.
The first one is a photo of Centennial Hall, one of our residence halls.
The next one is a photograph of the ETSU Color Guard performing with their flags.
The next one is a group of students participating in a professional conference,
and the last photo is one of graduating seniors in their full regalia at the ceremony, obviously, celebrating
I'd like to start by introducing you to our office staff.
This slide shows pictures of the staff members and my name is Mary Little.
I'm the Director and I'm also the ADA/504 coordinator on campus. My photograph is on the far left of this slide.
To my right is a photo of Laurel Singleton, the Associate Director
Next is a photo of Libby Tipton, our Lead ASL interpreter. Libby is providing the interpreting for this video.
Next to her is a photograph of Prasant Akunuri, our Interim Accessibility Coordinator.
This next slide is to introduce you to our Graduate Assistants.
We have four Graduate Assistants working in our office. The first photograph is one of Chris Chester.
Next to his photo is one of Cleo Farr.
And next to Cleo is Pamela Crisp.
And next to her is Abigail Lesley.
Our mission is to provide services and to promote an accessible environment
to allow students with disabilities an equal opportunity to participate in their education as well as other campus activities.
We offer a variety of accommodations and assistance to the eligible students who register with our office.
This slide shows a picture of the "Ability" poster, which says "Ability" with a big exclamation point, the ability to serve, educate, embrace, engage.
We provide accommodations to ensure access for students with disabilities.
Students must request and be eligible for accommodations.
In order to qualify, students complete an online application, have a meeting with a Disability Services staff member, and provide documentation of disability.
The accommodations provided can occur in a variety of settings.
For example, in the classroom, in the exam setting, housing, and even in the dining locations on campus.
The slide shows a picture of a Livescribe pen, which is a specialized note-taking pen that is sometimes approved for students.
This next slide, I'm going to let Laurel Singleton take over and describe to you how to get started with requesting accommodations.
Laurel Singleton: Hello everyone. The first step in getting registered with Disability Services is to contact our office,
either by phone or by email to schedule an intake appointment.
When working with the DS staff member, an individual will send you an email containing the New Student Application.
Students will complete the new student application before the intake appointment. When filling out the
application, students are given the opportunity to upload their documentation
along with this application or students have the option to wait until the
day of the intake, or even after, to submit documentation to our office.
This slide contains a screenshot of the new student application that students will see during this registration process.
Some examples of accommodations are audio recording of lectures,
exam accommodations such as extended time, a low distraction test setting.
Disability Services has its own accessible testing lab.
Disability Services can provide Braille materials and ASL interpreting.
We can also assist with captioning.
We have a mentoring program and can provide a variety of housing accommodations as well.
This slide contains finger spelling of the letters ETSU in blue and gold.
This next slide contains a screenshot of Sonocent.
Sonocent is a note-taking assistance software that some students are eligible for.
Sonocent can be downloaded to individual students' personal computers.
To the far left, PowerPoints can be uploaded to the software directly from D2L course pages.
The middle section is a section where students can type their notes while in class listening to the lecture,
or they can go back later when they are listening to the lecture again and type notes at this point as well.
To the far right, this is where the audio is being recorded in sound bars, and while it is being recorded, students have the option of color-coding this information.
Our office also has a mentoring program.
This allows students to meet with one of our graduate assistants once a week to accomplish goals they have established for themselves.
The mentors can provide assistance with time management, organizational skills, social skills, and anything really adjusting to university level programs.
And this slide contains the "Mentor Me!" logo.
Once students have completed the registration process,
and have been approved for accommodations, the next step is for those accommodations to be communicated with faculty members.
Accommodations are communicated with faculty through Faculty Accommodation Forms.
Faculty accommodation forms contain information specific to the approved accommodations.
They do not contain disability-specific information.
Faculty Accommodation Forms are provided one semester at a time, so we request that students request these each semester.
This slide contains an image of the university's clock tower with some mountains in the background.
Mary Little: Thanks Laurel.
I'd like to share a little bit about the sensory room.
The sensory room is a special room that we made available to students on the Autism Spectrum.
It's available to approved students through keycard access and it's there, that they might go and just enjoy the calming atmosphere of the room.
There are two photographs in this slide of the room, and it shows that it's furnished with a soft carpet, a sofa,
a couple of beanbag chairs, soft lighting, weighted blankets, we have fidget toys, coloring pages.
And it's basically just a place for those students who may be experiencing a moment of being overwhelmed.
and they are able to access this room and take a moment for themselves and regroup.
So that's something we're very excited to make available to the students on the spectrum who are registered through our office.
I also want to tell about a couple of groups that are affiliated with our office and the first one is Delta Alpha Pi honor society.
Delta Alpha Pi is an international honor society and here at ETSU, we sponsor the Psi chapter of Delta Alpha Pi.
It's described as an academic honor society that was founded to recognize high achieving students with disabilities
who are enrolled in a college or university as an undergraduate or graduate student.
Shown below that description is the Delta Alpha Pi logo which is shown by the Greek letters.
Also on this page is a flyer for the group Outside The Box.
Outside The Box is a social meetup that we sponsor for students on the Autism Spectrum.
It's a very student-led group. The students get together weekly and engage in the activities that they are most interested in.
So at the end of this each year,
the graduate assistant mentor will brainstorm some activities for the following year,
and then the following year we'll start checking things off the list as we go. The students enjoy a lot of board games,
sometimes anime movies, sometimes we go out for lunch.
So it's a really fun social meetup specific for students on the spectrum.
And we have a flyer shown on this slide.
This next slide shows a couple of campus buildings on the left is a picture of Nell Dossett Residence Hall.
We are currently located in the Nell Dossett Residence Hall on the third floor.
This residence follows on South Dossett Drive, and it's on the far end of campus closest to the CPA and the stadium.
Our permanent location, however, is in the DP Culp Student Center on the third floor.
We hope to return to that location very soon as the renovations begin wrapping up.
And this last slide, I'd like to leave you with our contact information. Our main office phone number is 423-439-8346.
This slide shows our fax line as well as our web address www.etsu.edu/students/ds/ and if you access that web page, you can find
the emails for the individual staff members as well as a variety of other information relating to that what we've shown here today.
So we look forward to meeting with you and talking more about those things of interest to you.