Students Requesting Accommodations for the First Time
Contact
Disability ServicesKagin Commons 651-696-6748
651-696-6698 (fax)
disabilityservices@macalester.edu
Admitted or current Macalester students with disabilities may request accommodations for academic courses or other programs/services. It is the responsibility of the student to make their disability status and subsequent need for accommodations known to Macalester via Disability Services. Our goal is to make the accommodation process easy to access via these steps:
Basic Information on Disability and Reasonable Accommodations
1) Complete New Student Application form in the AIM Database
Prior to your meeting, please complete the new student application in our AIM Database (using your Mac ID). This application provides staff basic information on your request, keeps sensitive information separate from other academic records and is the basis to provide Faculty Notification Letters. It will also allow you access to your accommodations for individual courses, services or programs at a later date.
2) Schedule and complete an intake with DS Staff
Accommodations start with an appointment. Intake appointments are essential to the process of determining disability, getting to know you, ensuring you understand the roles and rights of all parties in the “interactive process”. It is also important students understand policies and procedures, confidentiality and referral to other potential support services. Intakes typically take about 30-40 minutes and can be done via phone, Zoom or in person.
3) Provide documentation
The student appointment is the priority source of information disability impacts, but at times more information is needed. Please refer to the documentation section (below) for specifics on what documentation is, how it’s helpful to establish accommodations, especially in situations where the disability and need for accommodation are not clear. Don’t have documentation? Don’t worry, we’ll discuss it with you!
Students can provide documentation by uploading to the AIM database by logging in with their 1600 Grand credentials or emailing: [email protected].
Reasonable Accommodation Determination
After these steps have been completed, Disability Services staff will make a determination about what, if any, accommodations are appropriate based on the student’s functional limitations. Students should be aware that accommodations vary and determining what is reasonable for a course or program is based on what is essential in the course collaboratively with faculty, there may be timelines or additional information. Accommodations can take time to set up, so students should do this as early in the semester as possible.
Faculty Notification Letters/follow up
Academic accommodations will show up in AIM when courses are registered and/or about a month prior to courses starting. The accommodation process is an interactive one; students should communicate with Disability Services and faculty/program early in the term about their accommodations and follow up on any concerns in a timely way.
Once your accommodations have been completed, you are not required to meet with Disability Services every semester (housing accommodations require new requests every year).