College administrators, faculty and staff face challenges in meeting the needs of their diverse community of learners: legal issues, access to programs and the campus facilities, maintaining standards, and dealing with services that are expensive and sometimes requiring expertise not readily available on the campus. The numbers of students with disabilities at campuses across the country are increasing exponentially. The causes: 1) successful implementation of the IDEA legislation that brought students through elementary and secondary school to college; 2) medical expertise which permits rehabilitation and plans to return to the workforce after retraining; better treatment and accommodations which permit individuals who could not have competed in college to fully participate. Many faculty and staff have no previous training in working with students who have disabilities. The final and most difficult task is interpreting the ever-changing interpretation of the two civil rights laws that guide campus’ response: Section 504 and the ADA. This chapter will draw on the experiences gleaned from training faculty and staff at colleges across New York as well as provide duplicable models to set procedures in place at any campus so that the means of providing support is fair, reasonable, ethical and welcoming.

This topic examines the procedures and policies as originally stated and recently clarified in tests of the ADA and Section 504 in court decisions. In addition, there will be case studies to help us look at the applications of the law to commonplace situations that may occur at any time on our campuses. Finally, there will be suggested actions to take to bring campuses closer to compliance. The laws keep evolving and so do our responses. How we change and what we do in response to the changes can save us expensive, needless court battles. No matter how much funding we have, and how dedicated we are to meeting the letter of the law, it likely will be ongoing.