[Georgia_ahead] FW: Student Expectations

[Bonnie Martin]

Hello again,

 

I am forwarding a response Jim Marks makes to the DSP who is concerned
about students circumventing P&P.  It is a different response to the
same request I just sent by Howard who use to work with OCR.  Just
thought some of you would enjoy Jim's comments.  I needed them after the
day I have had today!

 

Bonnie  

 

________________________________

From: Disabled Student Services in Higher Education
<DSSHE-L at LISTSERV.BUFFALO.EDU> [mailto:Disabled Student Services in
Higher Education <DSSHE-L at LISTSERV.BUFFALO.EDU>] On Behalf Of "Marks,
Jim" <marks at MSO.UMT.EDU>
Sent: Monday, December 03, 2007 7:15 PM
To: DSSHE-L at LISTSERV.BUFFALO.EDU
Subject: Re: Student Expectations

 

Disability services in higher education will almost always be a sloppy 
business. The mental health of DS professionals will be stronger if we 
separate what we can control from what we cannot, and put our primary 
energies in what we can do instead of what cannot be accomplished. For 
instance, the subject line of this e-mail is "Student Expectations." I 
doubt that students have expectations that match up much with those of 
the DS professional, so I presume we're talking about the professional's
expectations for the students rather than the students' expectations for
themselves. . DS professionals can control our expectations, but not 
those of the students. We should never set our own expectations so high 
that they are unreachable. Besides that, the whole point of being a 
student is to take risks and to mess up a bit in those risks. As such, 
DS professionals ought to be looking for the teachable moment rather 
than always trying to prevent them. I like to think of ourselves as 
guides or shepherds rather than as controllers or precisionists. We 
constantly teach, cajole, and threaten, and we hope for more successes 
than failures. But the fact is, we will never get it right, even if our 
goal is to work ourselves out of a job. Just keep doing your best to 
educate students and faculty, then let it go. Also, avoid the self 
inflicted wounds of more paperwork. Paperwork is evil and should be 
used with caution and restraint. Those contracts or memos of 
understanding are not going to change behaviors much. At best, the 
paper will document your saying, "I told you so," but we can do that 
without the paper anyhow. 


Jim Marks 
Director of Disability Services 
University of Montana 
jim.marks at umontana.edu 
http://www.umt.edu/dss/ 

-----Original Message----- 
From: Disabled Student Services in Higher Education 
[mailto:DSSHE-L at LISTSERV.BUFFALO.EDU] On Behalf Of Nikki Dyer 
Sent: Monday, December 03, 2007 2:52 PM 
To: DSSHE-L at LISTSERV.BUFFALO.EDU 
Subject: Student Expectations 

Colleagues: 
A number of our students, who have sought services from Disability 
Support Services this semester, have chosen to disclose their 
accommodations to their instructors in ways which are less than ideal. 
More specifically, students are providing notices of their 
accommodations to faculty on the day of an exam, are not meeting with 
the faculty in a private one-to-one setting to discuss their 
accommodations in a "pro-active" manner, and they are sometimes 
expecting accommodations beyond what is featured in their notice to 
instructors. I am confident that I am not alone in having to address 
these concerns and am asking what you all are doing to combat these 
behaviors. I have considered generating a "Statement of Understanding" 
for students, but other than this, I am at a loss. Any insights would 
be appreciated - as always. 

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