Rights and Responsibilities

The Center for Academic Support Services in Academic Affairs provides reasonable academic accommodations, access or referrals related to auxiliary aids, and support services that are individualized and based upon disability documentation, functional limitations and a collaborative assessment of needs. 

Students request accommodations/auxiliary aids based on what they are authorized to use and specific class needs. Academic Affairs does not guarantee to meet personal preference requests, but rather ensures that access to reasonable academic accommodations and auxiliary aids will be provided in accordance with ADA and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. 

As a Student of Antioch College, You Have the Right To:

• Equal access to courses, programs, services, activities, and facilities offered throughout the College.

• Reasonable academic accommodations and services after providing the Academic Affairs with appropriate documentation of your disability and a joint assessment of needs with the Academic Administrator/Registrar. You must submit your V.I.S.A. to your instructors within two weeks of receiving them so that your instructors have time to make reasonable accommodations.

• Confidentiality. Disability documentation will be kept on a confidential need-to-know basis in Academic Affairs. Exception: Records may be shared if you agree, in writing, to release them, or when such a disclosure is required or permitted by law. 

• Advocacy support. If you appropriately make known your need for an approved academic accommodation to your instructor and it is denied, notify the Associate Director of Student Support Services immediately. The Associate Director of Student Support Services may be reached at 937-319-0093 or studentsupport@antiochcollege.edu.

• Discuss your concerns if you believe that your right to appropriate accommodations has not been met. Disability-related concerns should be discussed with the Academic Administrator/Registrar. If unresolved, you may report your concerns to the Vice President of Academic Affairs, if necessary. Note: This division may need to involve other appropriate college personnel in order to fully address the issues at hand.

• Our goal is to facilitate individualized reasonable accommodations and supports. However, the Office for Civil Rights (OCR), U.S. Department of Education protects the rights of students and ensures that individuals who meet the program qualifications and eligibility requirements are given equal opportunity to participate. You reserve the right to file a grievance through OCR, if you believe your situation has not been resolved within the college support system. 

As a Student of Antioch College, it is Your Responsibility To:

• Meet qualifications and maintain essential institutional standards for courses, programs, services, activities, and facilities. 

• Contact the Center for Academic Support Services in a timely manner for assistance to identify and secure academic accommodations and supports. In addition, inform the Associate Director of Student Support Services if you are uncertain about what you need or are having difficulty getting what you requested. 

• Request classroom and testing accommodations in a timely manner from faculty (at least one week in advance).

• Register with the Center for Academic Support Services and provide sufficient and appropriate documentation of your disability from a qualified professional and how the disability limits your participation in courses, programs, services, activities, and facilities to be eligible for any accommodation from the Antioch College. You must contact the office during the first 2 weeks of each term to ensure that self-identification accommodation letters can be created for you to provide to instructors. The letters are referred to as V.I.S.A. (verification of individual student accommodations). If your accommodations need to be adjusted, you are encouraged to schedule an appointment to discuss those needs with the Associate Director of Student Support Services. Upon approval of the request, updated V.I.S.A. letters will be created for the student to distribute to instructors. 

• When requesting classroom and/or testing accommodations from your instructors, a V.I.S.A. letter/form must be presented to each instructor for each class, each term you are enrolled and should be provided no later than the 2nd week of each term. Note: Students should make an appointment with instructors to share the approved accommodations as stated on the V.I.S.A. letter. 

• Inform Academic Affairs if your name, address, telephone number, etc. should change.

The primary concern of the Center for Academic Support Services and Academic Affairs at Antioch College is the successful completion of students’ academic goals. The college is dedicated to providing access for all students.

Rights of College Students with Disabilities

The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, as amended, prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability and protects qualified applicants and employees with disabilities from discrimination in hiring, promotion, discharge, pay, job training, fringe benefits and other aspects of employment. The law also requires that covered entities provide qualified applicants and employees with disabilities with reasonable accommodations. An individual is considered to have a disability if that individual either 1) has a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more of that person’s major life activities, 2) has a record of such impairment, or 3) is regarded as having such impairment.

The ADA further prohibits retaliating against an individual for asserting his/her rights under the ADA. The Act also makes it unlawful to discriminate against an individual, whether disabled or not, because of the individual’s family, business, social, or other relationship or association with an individual with a disability.

It is the policy of Antioch College not to discriminate against individuals with disabilities—who are otherwise qualified—in administering educational policies, employment policies, scholarship and loan programs, and athletic and other College-administered programs.

It is further the policy of the College to enable those individuals with disabilities to participate as independently as possible in Antioch College activities so that campus life will be enhanced and the individual lives of members of the College community will be enriched.

Antioch College resolves to make reasonable efforts to see that the opportunities it offers are accessible to all qualified individuals. Appropriate academic adjustments and modifications of policies and procedures will be implemented for students with disabilities.

In addition, Antioch College adheres to the policies and procedures and Section 504 of the Federal Rehabilitation Act of 1973, which reads: “No otherwise qualified handicapped individual…shall, solely by reason of his/her handicap, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving federal financial assistance.”

In April of 1977, the Department of Health, Education and Welfare issued a regulation that defines handicapped persons as those individuals who have a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits a major life activity, and generally requires that “each program and activity, when viewed in its entirety, is readily accessible to handicapped persons and is offered in the most integrated setting appropriate.” Specific requirements of interest to students with disabilities include the following (in summary form).

1. Admission to Classes

Institutions may not, on the basis of disability, exclude a qualified student with a disability from any course or area of concentration. This provision requires that some classes may have to be relocated, and some laboratory equipment may have to be modified to accommodate the needs of a qualified student with a disability, and that auxiliary aids must be permitted in the classroom when they are necessary to ensure the full participation of a student with a disability.

2. Academic Requirements

Instructors are obligated to make changes in course requirements if necessary to ensure that such requirements do not discriminate against a qualified student with a disability. Similarly, the faculty must alter or waive any requirement for a major or a College degree that has the effect of discriminating against a qualified student with a disability. Examples of such modifications may include changes in the length of time permitted for completion of requirements, or providing an alternative for particular laboratory assignments or field trips. If a requirement is essential to a course, major or degree, and a student with a disability cannot fulfill it, then the person is not “qualified” within the definition of this term.

3. Other Adjustments

Prohibitive rules, which would have the effect of limiting the participation of a student with a disability in campus activities, must be waived for the student with a disability. Such rules include a ban on having a service animal in classrooms or residence halls, or on using a tape recorder in a classroom or during guest lectures. If an instructor is concerned about possible misuse of recordings of lecture material that will be published or otherwise protected by copyright, the instructor may ask a student to sign a form on which the student agrees that any recordings will be used only for his/her own personal study.

4. Examinations

If necessary, course instructors are obligated to provide alternate testing procedures for a student with a disability, so that the results of the evaluation represent the student’s achievement in the course, rather than the student’s impaired sensory, manual or speaking skills (except where skills are the specific factors being measured).

5. Counseling

A student with a disability may not be counseled toward a more restrictive career than would be suggested for a non-disabled student, unless such counseling based on strict licensing or certification requirements in a profession.

6. Procedures

Specific procedures for students with disabilities to receive accommodations are available through the Center for Academic Support Services.

7. Student Appeal

The College provides, as required, an internal procedure through which a student may appeal an adverse decision on a request for some academic adjustment. Further information about the student appeal process is available through the Center for Academic Support Services.