New office provides disability resources

Accommodations for staff, faculty, and students with disabilities will be the focus of the new Office of University Disability Resources.

Coordinating the office's activities is Kathy Sweetland, who has been appointed full-time intercessor after more than three years in the role part time. She is continuing her intercessor work in the area of sexual harassment.

Remaining part-time intercessors are Warner School professor Frederick Jefferson, x5-3937, racial and ethnic concerns; Medical School professor and pediatrician Ruth Lawrence, x5-4354, sexual harassment issues for Medical Center faculty and staff; and Warner School professor emeritus Gerald Gladstein, x5-5931, general concerns.

As coordinator of the Office of University Disability Resources, Sweetland works closely with disability resource coordinators in each school to ensure that students with disabilities get the help they need. Procedures for this will be implemented this fall. Additional policies for staff and faculty will take form this academic year and be in place by the start of the 1999-2000 fiscal year.

Sweetland also is the liaison with Planning and Project Management in the Facilities Department to make sure the University meets its accessibility goals for people with mobility impairments. But physical modifications alone don't solve all disability access problems, she said.

"We need to move past the concept that disability means someone in a wheelchair and recognize that many disabilities are invisible at first glance," Sweetland said. "We're thinking beyond mobility improvements to adaptations for hearing loss, reduced vision, learning disabilities, mental health issues, and other 'invisible' disabilities."

Just as Sweetland meets with individuals who have questions about sexual harassment, she is available to students, faculty, and staff who have concerns about disability issues. She also meets with departments to arrange educational workshops and consults in individual circumstances.

"The Office of University Disability Resources is here to help supervisors and others who need help negotiating this new territory," she said.

Sweetland's office is located in the Administration Building Room 24 on the River Campus. She can be reached at x5-9125.