Accessibility for Students With Disabilities

During this transition to remote delivery of our courses, Brooklyn College’s faculty remain our most vital resource in ensuring reasonable accommodations for students with disabilities. As you prepare course content to deliver via distance learning modalities, we ask that you consider the following overarching principles and key resources:

• Under Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), CUNY colleges are required to provide equal access to our academic programs—even in a distance learning environment.
• The Center for Student Disability Services (CSDS) will continue to serve as a key resource for facilitating technical assistance and support to faculty in determining the best ways to reasonably accommodate students with disabilities in whatever modality teaching and learning takes place. Contact the director, Valerie Stewart-Lovell, and assistant director, Josephine Patterson, if you have questions or concerns about how you can best support our students as you transition to an alternative mode of teaching.
• The barriers that exist at the intersection of a student’s disability and course design may be different from those posed by the original course format. Some accommodations students used before may no longer apply in distance learning formats, and some accommodations not considered previously may need to be considered now. We appreciate our faculty’s flexibility and collaboration with CSDS staff and students with disabilities themselves to meet their accommodation needs in distance learning modalities.

Reasonable Accommodations

Reasonable Accommodations: A Faculty Guide for Teaching Students with Disabilities was developed specifically to provide CUNY faculty with information and best practices to meet the needs of students with disabilities and achieving the goal of equal access.

• Technology in the Classroom and for Online Courses
• Alternative Text for Students With Disabilities

CSDS will work closely with our CUNY Office of Student Inclusion Initiatives to ensure that our faculty have the support they need to successfully and meaningfully accommodate students with disabilities. We are grateful to our faculty and to our disability services professionals for their abiding commitment to the access, success, and wellness of students with disabilities.

Accessible Virtual Meetings Guide

The Mayor’s Office for People With Disabilities has developed a guide meant to provide information on how you can make your virtual meetings accessible to people with disabilities. It includes information on what you should do before the meeting, using an accessible virtual conferencing platform, and providing accommodations as well as online disability etiquette.

• Accessible Virtual Meetings Guide (PDF)

Registering With the Center for Student Disability Services

The Center for Student Disability Services is currently working remotely. In order to receive disability-related academic accommodations, students must first be registered with CSDS. Students who have a documented disability or suspect they may have a disability are invited to schedule an interview by calling 718.951.5538 or sending an e-mail. If you have already registered with CSDS, e-mail Josephine.Patterson@brooklyn.cuny.edu or testingcsds@brooklyn.cuny.edu to ensure the accommodation e-mail is sent to your professor.