Struggling to Accommodate

By: Sarah Remelius

May 7, 2018

Imagine 3,000 people needing to park at a football game but only having 16 available spots – this is what University of Texas students needing accommodations for testing are facing.

According to Emily Shryock, assistant director for Services for Students with Disabilities, this is due to not enough available testing space. About 3,000 students are approved for accommodation testing but only 16 spots are available at the Student Services Building testing center.

“It’s doable but it’s not in any way sustainable,” said Shryock when talking about the SSD’s current testing set-up. “Every year the number of students with accommodation requests increases so what we are doing is no longer going to be possible to keep up with the testing demand.”

The UT Senate of College Councils worked with Services for Students with Disabilities to introduce legislation in February which called for a centralized testing center on campus – it has since passed.

“The legislation was introduced because the university had known of a consistent problem with not having the proper space for alternative testing requests, a large number of which come from student athletes and students with disabilities, but hadn't come up with a solution,” said David Jenkins, senate policy director. “We found out and this was our solution”

The legislation is pushing to create a quiet space at the Perry Castaneda Library for students who need nontraditional testing, such as students with disabilities, athletes who miss exams due to competitions, or students who miss exams due to illness.

“A centralized testing center would absolutely help the situation,” said Kate Strickland, disABILITY Advocacy Student Coalition president. “I think such a testing center would not only be more centrally located for students to get to, especially students with mobility impairments, but we would be able to take all of our tests in a monitored setting at all times and be provided with our necessary accommodations much easier.”

The legislation is currently in the planning and implementation stage.

“The libraries director has given us her full support to have the center in the PCL and athletics and the SSD have signed on as partners for the project,” Jenkins said.

In the meantime, SSD first recommends students who do not need assistive technology, but need accommodations, to go to their professors, who are responsible for implementing their accommodations.

If that is not possible students are then asked to put in requests for any exams that are not finals at least two weeks in advance so SSD can reserve space for them. All accommodation requests for final exams must be reserved a month in advance.

“It does require planning in advance because we don’t have the space available unless we have that two week’s notice so that’s something that we talk to students about when they first register,” Shyrock said. “We send reminders and updates, so we are doing the best we can with what we have, but certainly it would be ideal if students did not have to plan that far in advance.”

The SSD has also been working with other colleges and departments to see what they can do to provide their own testing spaces. The UT chemistry department is an example of this, as it has created its own testing space.

“It takes a lot obviously to get a testing center for the whole campus so departments creating their own testing centers has been a little bit more practical and feasible,” Shyrock said. “That has kind of been our short-term strategy, but if we have a centralized testing center then there won’t be much need for that.”

In an attempt to accommodate as many students as possible, SSD also reserves rooms inside the Student Services Building on days with heavy testing. The 16 available spots are reserved mostly for students who need assistive technology.

Although SSD has a “very limited ability to provide testing space because they are a small office and only have a certain availability,” Strickland said she believes they are doing everything they can to help students.

“Honestly, I think SSD does the absolute best they can,” Strickland said. “They are always helpful, and try to make the best of a difficult situation because their office is only so big and they only have so many people that can work for them. I think the problem is more on an administrative level.”

Shyrock said she believes it is important to remember that testing accommodations is something that UT is obligated to provide and that it should be “as easy as possible for students.”

“We’re obligated to do this but at this point we don’t have a good system,” Shyrock said. “We want to be able to provide the space and resources to be able to do that in an effective and efficient way for everyone involved, and a centralized testing center would definitely help that.”