University plans for office of student disabilities

    Murray State faculty and staff take measures to ensure equal opportunity to students of all types.
    They  will enhance this mission by establishing a new student disability services office on campus, Velvet Wilson, director of student disability services, said.
    The new office will provide services from the student support services, the office of equal opportunity and the services for students with learning disabilities, Wilson said. 
    The office will officially open Jan. 1, but no definite location has been decided yet, Wilson said.
    “The office provides services for the hearing and visually impaired, people with physical disabilities, people with learning disabilities or anyone else who falls under any category of disability,” Wilson said.
    Wilson said the office gives academic support, such as assistance in tutoring. Students will  also benefit from physical accommodations in classrooms and dorms, formatting alternatives for textbooks for those with dyslexia, note-takers and computer software developed for certain learning and physical disabilities.
    Although the students at the University have support from all these offices, Wilson said a centralized office will better help students reach out for help and resources if they need them, Wilson said.
    About 491 students, or 6 percent, identify themselves as disabled in some way, Wilson said.
    She said the University has a smaller population of people with disabilities than the national average of about 1 in every 10 people, but she said she still believes a great demand for the services the disability office provides.
    “Many other universities have organized their offices of disability in a more efficient way in order to operate more proficiently and it has worked well for them,” Wilson said.
    While Wilson said other schools who better organize their offices were part of the motivation in making the new office, she said it was mostly commitment to students that Murray State strives to uphold.
    Stacey Minton, sophomore from Eddyville, Ky., has a learning disability and uses the office’s services when she takes exams because they supply her with a private setting and extra time for tests.
    In addition, Minton said students with some learning disabilities can have multiple-choice questions and answers read aloud, or take exams with computer software that accommodates their special needs.
    Minton said she is comforted by the fact that the University takes the necessary measures to ensure everyone has a fair chance to succeed.
    “People with disabilities don’t deserve to automatically pass their classes just because they don’t learn the same way as other people,” Minton said. “But we do deserve a fair chance to learn.”
    Contact Steele at stephanie.steele@murraystate.edu.