Faculty Guide
Introduction
The UTSA student body is a diverse one. Students come from all walks of life, bringing individual talents, ideas, strengths and levels of ability. UTSA promotes and values diversity as an essential element to an active educational environment.
With this diversity comes the challenge of providing quality educational opportunities for all students. For students with disabilities, equal access to education often involves developing creative teaching techniques and making reasonable accommodations in the classroom to facilitate learning. Accommodations remove physical and instructional barriers to education and give students with disabilities the same opportunity as their non-disabled classmates to realize their academic potential.
UTSA has made significant progress in making its campuses and academic programs accessible to students with disabilities. Physical accessibility has improved, adaptive equipment has been acquired, and support services have been expanded. We are proud of this progress and committed to further improving the quality of education for students with disabilities.
The faculty play a major role in the provision of educational experiences for all. Curb cuts, ramps, elevators and adaptive equipment are essential for many students with disabilities, but the critical factor in the educational process occurs in the classroom.
This section should answer some of the common questions instructors have about their responsibilities to students with disabilities. It is designed to offer suggestions and strategies for developing academic partnerships with these students.
Remember, however, that the instructor's primary source of information is the student. This section is not meant to be a substitute for interaction with the student. Hopefully, it is a starting point for thinking about ways of creating equal access to education.
Disability Services (DS) is committed to ensuring that all information and communication concerning a student's disability is maintained as confidential. Disability-related information is collected and maintained on separate forms and kept in secure files with access limited to authorized DS staff. Information regarding a disability may be shared with UTSA faculty and staff only on a limited basis and only for the purposes of ensuring appropriate accommodation, providing a service or benefit to the student, or performing a task related to the student's education or student discipline.
Information in DS student files is protected by the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA).
DS is prohibited from releasing information concerning a student's disability to individuals or agencies outside the University without written authorization of the student. A student may request that DS disclose disability-related information to persons or agencies outside the University by signing an Authorization to Release Records and Information form. Before giving such authorization, the student should understand the purpose of the release and to whom the information is being released.
A student's file may be released to comply with a court order or subpoena.
A student has the right to review his/her own file with reasonable notification to the DS director.
