- [Instructor] Hello, and welcome
to the Student Accessibility Services instructional video
on sending accommodation letters.
Remember that you must watch this video
as well as any other relevant videos
including those on exam scheduling,
requesting and retrieving notes, and/or eBooks
before filling out our form that will then give you access
to the myACCESS web portal within one business day.
Again, you must watch all the videos and complete that form,
and then wait for the reply within one business day
to UVM email that gives you access to use the web portal.
So in terms of sending out accommodation letters,
the first step is to actually navigate
to our myACCESS web portal.
The easiest way to get there
is either through your myUVM web portal,
or if you go to our homepage, which is UVM.edu/access,
you can scroll down on the right-hand side
about halfway down,
you'll see a link that says myACCESS student portal.
Now this brings you to the myACCESS student portal homepage
and I would recommend bookmarking this page
just because it's going to be your hub
for using accommodations
throughout the course of the semester.
Now, in terms of sending accommodation letters,
it's important to emphasize
that this is the first step in any semester.
So before you schedule any exams or request any notes
or any other accommodation to any one of your courses,
you need to first inform your faculty
of the accommodations that you're requesting
in your courses for that semester.
Now, future semesters,
after having gone through this process,
we'll actually give you access to the web portal
on the first day of classes
without you having to kind of go through this process
of watching instructional videos.
However, you will still need, each and every semester,
if you want to utilize accommodations,
to send out a new batch of letters for your new courses.
So on the left-hand side, we have an icon.
This is accommodation letters. It's the envelope icon.
So we're gonna click that,
and then we're gonna go to the accommodations tab
on the top, left-hand side,
right under the main menu button.
Now, what this will do is bring up a list of the courses
that you registered for in this particular semester.
So always make sure
that you have the appropriate term selected
here in the drop-down menu,
and also remember that you're never gonna be able
to send letters in advance of the first day of classes.
Anytime during the semester,
you will be able to send letters,
but you'll not be able to send letters
prior to that first day of classes.
Now, during the add/drop period, if you add a class,
that will show up for you the following morning
after you register, and if you drop a class,
that will disappear for you the following morning
after you drop it.
So what we're gonna do here is click requests
on the right-hand side of any of the courses
that are listed there for you,
and it's gonna bring up a list on the left-hand side
of the accommodations that you're eligible for,
and then on the right-hand side,
you'll see a list of the courses
that you're currently registered for.
So what you want to think about here
is what accommodations you're going to request
in each one of your courses.
What I usually emphasize to students
is that just because you're requesting an accommodation,
in no way mandates that you have to use that accommodation
in that particular course,
but it does give you the option of using it.
So I usually suggest to students
that you err on the side of caution
if you're at all unsure as to whether or not
you're gonna use an accommodation, put it in place
just because you're still under no obligation to use it.
If you don't put an accommodation on a letter,
you can always change your mind
and add it in later on in the semester,
but you'll have to go through a process
of first letting your specialists know,
and then faculty are given a period of time
in order to implement the accommodation
if it's something you put in place
halfway through the semester.
So just make sure to think about that
before you send the letter off, and again,
err on the side of caution.
If you put an accommodation in place in a particular course
and end up not needing it,
it's not the end of the world, it's okay.
So you have a few options here.
So some students decide
that they want all their accommodations
in every one of their courses,
and that's certainly fine if that applies in your case,
and so what you can do is make sure
that all the accommodations are checked off
on the left-hand side,
and then you can check off all your courses
on the right-hand side,
and then you would select,
"My accommodations are correct the way they are,"
here in the left side.
Please leave this optional note blank.
If you do fill that out,
it will actually go to your specialist
as opposed to your faculty member.
So I'll talk in a moment about what you can do
if you wanna send a note to your faculty member
about the accommodations you're requesting,
but this will go to your specialist
and will prevent the letter
from going directly to the faculty members.
So you can leave that blank.
And then we have some terms and conditions at the bottom
which I'll get to in a moment.
However, if you decided
that you wanted a different accommodations in place
in different courses, you could actually say,
"Okay, in this course, SAS 101,
in this case, I'm gonna select all my accommodations
and then you can submit your letter
and then you could go back for CFAS 202 here
and select three accommodations,
say, let's leave out peer note-taker...
And then send that letter off.
So you have the flexibility
of putting all of the accommodations in all of your courses,
or you can kind of customize them one after the other,
which is what we'll do here.
Now, the terms and conditions at the bottom
basically emphasize that it's really important
for you to follow up with your faculty
after you send these accommodation letters.
So the biggest difference from accommodations
at the K through 12 level to college
is that it is incumbent upon you as the student
in a college or university environment
to follow up with your faculty
after you send your accomodation letter.
So by sending the accommodation letter here,
you are officially informing a faculty member
that you're eligible for these accommodations
and that you're requesting them in that particular course.
But because each and every course is different
and how a faculty member teaches that course is different,
you are going to want to follow up via an email
or an in-person conversation with a faculty member.
It doesn't have to be anything super in-depth,
but just to touch base with them
and see if they have any questions about the accommodations
that you're requesting.
If you don't do that,
you are jeopardizing potentially your ability
to use that accommodation in that particular course.
And after you kind of go through the process
of watching these videos and filling out the form,
you'll actually get an example email template
that you're welcome to use
if you are unsure about how to go about
following up with a faculty member.
You can always check with our office for support
and your specialists can certainly help with that as well.
But you're not gonna agree to these terms
and then you'll click submit.
So that sends off the letter there.
And I'm gonna go back in SAS 101
and I'm gonna request all my accommodations in that course.
Gonna click "My accommodations and current
the way they are."
And say that I agree to the terms and submit.
And that way both of my letters are sent.
Now you can actually view a copy of the letter
that you're sending to the faculty member
once you do submit it.
If you go to get letter on the right-hand side,
it will pull up a copy of the letter.
It's gonna be a PDF so we can open it with Adobe.
It may also open directly in your browser.
And so what you'll see here is an official letter
that comes from Student Accessibility Services
addressed to the faculty member.
Your specialist's name will be listed on it
as well as your name.
And then it will list the classroom and exam accommodations
that you're requesting in that particular course.
Also, please note, again, student steps and faculty steps.
This emphasizes again to the faculty member
that you as the student, after having sent this letter
are gonna follow up with the faculty member
and that is your responsibility to have that follow up
and if the faculty member has any questions,
they need to let you know.
It's important to remember that if a faculty member
has a concern about an accommodation,
they're always welcome to be in touch with us.
But when push comes to shove, a faculty member
can only challenge an accommodation request
if it compromises an essential element of the course.
That has to be a conversation with our office.
Generally, faculty are going to be
very accustomed to this process.
We work with about 20% of the UVM population here at SAS
so faculty members
are generally gonna have multiple students in each course
that are requesting accommodations
and most faculty members are familiar
with what that looks like.
If you ever get pushback
and are not sure about how to handle that,
please be in touch with our office, but also keep in mind,
once you do have that follow-up conversation
with a faculty member which is step two
after step one of sending these letters out to them,
that it is their responsibility
to provide those accommodations for you in that course,
or if they have a concern
to let you and to let our office know.
And this is exactly what the faculty member sees
on their end.
They have their own side of the web portal
and so this is just kind of a handy guide.
If you're unsure
or you want to know what the faculty member
is seeing on their end, you can always reference this.
I also want to point out that we do not in any way
disclose anything confidential about you in the letter.
It doesn't disclose anything
alluding to a student's diagnosis or disability,
it's just about the accommodations that you're requesting.
And the reason I say that
is because that information is kept confidential in SAS.
Faculty members do not need to know why you were eligible
for particular accommodation, they just need to know
what accommodations you're eligible for.
And so when you have that follow-up conversation
with the faculty member,
please know that you are in no way expected or required
to disclose anything related to your disability.
If that's something that you want to do,
that's entirely your right,
but just please understand that that is not an expectation
from Student Accessibility Services
and that information is kept confidential
and it's not necessary in order for you
to get the accommodation in place in a particular course.
Now, back to the web portal.
Once you've sent your accommodation letters,
you're essentially set for the rest of the semester
unless you add a class, which I said earlier,
will show up for you the following morning
after you register.
If you send a letter for a course that you end up dropping,
that will be removed overnight after you drop the course.
So that's the process for sending out accommodation letters.
And again, please watch our other instructional videos
as it relates to other accommodations
if they're relevant for you on booking a test
or scheduling an exam,
requesting or retrieving notes, requesting eBooks.
Once you're completed watching those videos,
you can go to the student forums page here and then complete
the SAS workshop video training confirmation.
Once you complete that,
you'll get a response within one business day,
confirming that you filled out the from,
you've watched the videos and give you access to the portal
to go and send your accommodation letters.
Thanks very much.