Student newspaper of the University of Tulsa
CSAS policies and procedures difficult to navigate, cause discrimination concerns
October 16, 2017 Issue 8 - Volume 103
“I’ve spent so much time, effort and money to get the required testing . . . and I did all of this because I need an extra 25 minutes on exams. If I get my accommodations, my complaints will still stand.”
While CSAS promises to provide support for students with disabilities, their process can be so complex and time-consuming that some students leave disappointed. Editor-in-Chief Kayleigh Thesenvitz reports.
More than 325 students use the Center for Student Academic Support every year, but not everyone leaves with the best impression of TU’s disability services. The most common accommodations given are for testing, whether that means extra time on tests or taking tests in a distraction reduced environment. However, getting academic accommodations is a complex process. While CSAS is technically compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), having to maneuver the system has stirred up feelings of discrimination. Student Stories Kaitlyn Counter was diagnosed
assessment she needed for free, so she contacted the clinic. However, Counter was turned away due to a legal conflict of interest for any TU-affiliate to provide documentation that CSAS would use to make their determination. “They have the resources to give students this assessment that they require for ADHD accommodations, and they just don’t allow you to use it,” Counter said. “I feel like my case wasn’t handled at all, honestly. It’s easiest for people to do nothing and that’s exactly what happened when I went to CSAS to request accommodations,” Counter said. “I felt like I was always getting the runaround and no matter what documentation I presented them
her anxiety since high school. As a freshman, Newman said, “I was having a really rough time, and there were some repressed memories coming back up,” referencing a time when her class watched “Boys Don’t Cry”, a docudrama about a trans-male being bullied and abused. “I had a really difficult time coping and getting to a point where I was able to go to classes and be okay,” she said. Her counselor suggested she go to CSAS for accommodations to excuse absences. Newman carpools to school each day, so she can’t roll out of bed and get to class as easily as most students and she can’t leave campus mid-day if she feels an oncoming attack.
man said. “You can go over the health center to get a diagnosis, but they can’t write you a letter. They can help you, but they can’t give you documentation.” Newman’s psychiatrist suggested he write a letter to her general practitioner explaining Newman’s mental health so that the general practitioner could then write a letter to CSAS. However, Newman’s general practitioner refused to do that because he didn’t feel comfortable accepting a third party diagnosis and could not diagnose her himself. “It ended up being a stalemate, and I still to this day do not have accommodations,” Newman said, recounting that she went through a catastrophic withdrawal for that
graphics by Madeline Woods The types of documentation doctors provide must meet different standards depending why the patient requires the information. Evaluations that are sufficient to determine a need for care or for verifying disability for SSDI or LTD do not necessarily meet the state and federally determined requirements for academic accommodations.
with ADHD in the spring of 2016, as a sophomore. After the diagnosis she took her problems to CSAS because “everybody talks it up like they’re really going to help you.” “I got a letter from my psychiatrist stating the accommodations that I need, what he thinks would help me … he did all of this paperwork that [CSAS] gave me to give to him. Basically they laid it all out for me and they were like ‘this is what you need,’ and I brought it back to them,” she said. Counter’s documentation went before the Eligibility Committee, who denied her accommodations and sent her an email which said there was insufficient evidence of her disability. Counter is still working to gain accommodations this semester, as a senior. Counter went back to CSAS and was told she needed to take a 6-8 hour formal assessment with a licensed professional, which included an interview and a series of aptitude tests, with an estimated cost of $2,000. “I asked if they had any resources or if they offered that testing — and they didn’t point me in the direction of any places that would offer it, but they said could give me the names of some psychiatrists’ offices,” which Counter said she already had access to. Counter was told by her employer that the True Blue Neighbors Behavioural Health clinic offered the
with, there was always another form I needed.” “I’ve talked to quite a few other students here at TU who have an ADHD diagnosis from a licensed professional and they all have the same complaints I do; it’s near impossible to get accommodations if you’re too broke or too busy,” Counter said, Counter has since received the necessary testing from OSU’s psychological services center in Stillwater for less than the $2,000 she was initially quoted. “I paid $150 for the evaluation plus $12 in tolls … plus whatever the cost of gas was,” Counter said. She hopes to hear back from the Eligibility Committee with her results within the coming weeks. “I’m still nervous that I’m going to get an email from CSAS saying they don’t think I need accommodations even though I turned in the official documentation they requested. That would be devastating,” Counter said. “I’ve spent so much time, effort, and money to get the required testing; I even had to skip class to make my final trip out to Stillwater to get my official documentation. And I did all of this because I need an extra 25 minutes on exams. If I get my accommodations, my complaints will still stand.” Jay Newman, a junior, had a similar experience. Newman suffers from anxiety, depression and PTSD and has been medicated for
Newman’s accommodation would allow her to have more than the three standard absences if she had a doctor’s note excusing the absence. “I’ll take the blame for the three days I take off if I get sick, but if I have a panic attack or something triggers my PTSD, I can’t control that,” Newman said. “It really sucks when that happens in a circumstance where you have to be at work or you have to be in class — where you have to be a functional member of society.” When Newman went in to CSAS
semester so as not to fail her classes due to absences. “It was so easy for me to just quit, but they made it so difficult for me to get help,” Newman said. Since then Newman has enrolled in 12 credit hours each semester and will be in school for a total of five years. “It has gotten a lot better, but I could have done so much better academically,” Newman said. To make matters worse, Newman said “I’m here on scholarship, and my scholarships end after eight semesters, so I’ll have to pay out of pocket for my last year.”
“Every time I go in there I have an anxiety attack, I dread going in there.” ready to lay out problems, she was disappointed by the lack of emotional support she was given in the meeting. Newman recounted how she felt as though she was treated dismissively in the exchange and was told ‘I’m not a counselor,’ when Newman tried to explain why she needed the accommodations. Newman was told she needed a letter from her psychologist explaining her condition, but that she couldn’t get that letter from her regular psychologist at the Alexander Health Center because of its affiliation with TU. “It’s kind of ridiculous,” New-
“There is no reason that doing what you need to do for your mental health should negatively impact your college performance,” Newman said. “Everybody should be able to get their education and better themselves.” Emily Harris went to CSAS for the first time last year to waive a lab because she has a condition which doesn’t allow her to stand for long periods of time. As a veteran, CSAS had Harris bring in her full VA medical record. Harris inquired about what accommodations were available and recounted, “they were like ‘well what do you need?’ and I was like,
‘no, what do you have so I know what I can choose from.’” Since then, she has received a handful of additional accommodations, including her service dog, Stevie, but she lamented the length of the process and a feeling of hopelessness while navigating the paperwork. “Every time I go in there I have an anxiety attack, I dread going in there,” Harris said. “It takes them a month to get the process going,” Harris said, recounting a specific instance where she was waiting to hear back from CSAS before she decided to drop a second lab, and by the time they got back to her, it was too late to drop the class without a W on her transcript. Harris was also concerned about the Eligibility Committee. “All these people I don’t know are meeting to determine if I have a condition the doctor has already told me I have,” she said. “I have appointments at the VA, and I have anxiety attacks from PTSD, and if I have something going on, I’m not going to go to CSAS all the time, because I don’t trust them to help,” Harris said. Megan Lowry, a student veteran who worked in President George W. Bush’s security detail, has also been less than satisfied with her interactions with CSAS. Lowry suffers from a traumatic brain injury she acquired while in military service. Lowry did receive temporary note taking accommodations and then eventually permanent accommodations, but has serious concerns with way CSAS handles its business. “They requested that I bring in my entire medical record, and they wanted me to tell them what accommodations I wanted,” Lowry said, explaining that she was not given any idea of what the available options were before being told to say what she wanted. “They were also giving me grief about my prescriptions, they wanted me to write down all of my prescriptions, what I was taking, and what it was all for,” Lowry said. “That is not something I should have to disclose to the school, because I don’t take them during the day, it doesn’t effect my schooling, so why should I have to disclose that information?” “They don’t have counseling skills, so I shouldn’t have to go into any of my mental health stuff with them, they are not doctors so why do I have to tell them the specifics of my disabilities? What makes them safe to tell?” Lowry questioned. “Then I find out, after all of this, that it goes to a board where somebody from my college is going to know what my disabilities are,” Lowry said. “I feel like that’s a violation of privacy.”
Continued as CSAS, pg. 6