A letter from Director Webb to a faculty member:
Dear Faculty Member: I'm writing you as Coordinator of Disabilities Services. The College is facing an increase in the number of students who, because of their disability, have an accommodation of a notetaker for their classes. Most faculty have not, up to this point, been involved in helping to arrange for notetakers. However, since faculty are now more likely to be involved, I thought it wise to write you about how the College currently sets up notetakers.
We ask students to show professors their College ADA Verification Letter at the beginning of each semester so that professors know of their academic accommodations. The ADA Letter lists the accommodation(s) approved by the subcommittee of CSSP. If "notetakers" is an accommodation, it will be listed in this letter. Sometimes students who have this accommodation don't actually wish to utilize it (it's sometimes an "option" that may or may not be exercised depending upon the format or nature of the class), so it is important to confirm with the student that he or she does wish the support. If the student does wish to use this accommodation, he or she should have in his or her possession special notebook paper provided by the Office of Disabilities Services. (It's a variety of "carbon" paper.) With students increasingly having access to laptop computers, it might also be the case, at least for certain courses, that a notetaker's notes can be offered by simply sharing a document file.
Currently, the College does not pay students to be notetakers. Instead, we have generally found good students who will volunteer to be notetakers. We ask faculty to ask the students of his or her class for someone to volunteer to serve in this role, taking time in this announcement to stress the importance of the role without indicating that it is for a particular student. A professor could do this in her or his introduction to the class the first day or might consider an email announcement. The latter way is more time consuming and logistically complicated but affords more privacy to the student with the accommodation.
As in other ways that we provide accommodations to our students with documented need, we are always looking for better and more efficient ways to do things. If you have any suggestions about this process, I welcome hearing them. Otherwise, I want to thank you for adding your support to that which we give our students with disabilities.
Richard E. Webb, Ph.D.