Student Accessibility Services

Welcome back! I hope you have had a restful and adventurous summer. Student Accessibility Services (SAS) had a busy summer working to improve our services for both our students and you as faculty. There are a few key changes that I wanted to note before the semester begins.

  1. Exam accommodations – As the number of students who are registered with us due to a disability continues to grow, so too does the need for exam accommodations. Most of the students receiving exam accommodations will need extra time (50%) on any of their assessments. I’d like to ask you to continue helping SAS by proctoring these exams in your space. Your help has been immensely helpful in accommodating students with disabilities.

For those students who need to take their exam in a distraction-reduced space, they are welcome to take it in our space. We have worked hard to not only up-date our space this summer but to streamline the approval process between you, the student and us for this accommodation. More specifically:

-All of our exam rooms now have surveillance cameras installed in the rooms. This allows us to ensure that our students are upholding their academic integrity without disrupting the work flow of the SAS office.

-All exams proctored by SAS in our space will begin at the top of the hour only. This will help us to reduce the chaos that sometimes occurs when we are proctoring exams.

-Students can now reserve a testing spot online, through our new database Accommodate. Students will log into the system, reserve a space and then an email will be sent to you from the system notifying you that your student is requesting to take their exam with us. All you need to do is to log into the system and approve the request. The following document will walk you through how to do it. This will eliminate the need for the paper form and signatures back and forth between SAS and you.

  1. Please consider including a statement on your syllabus notifying students of our services should they need them. For many students with disabilities the transition to college is difficult and they are not always aware of where to go if they need support. This statement helps a great deal.

“Tufts University values the diversity of our students, staff, and faculty; recognizing the important contribution each student makes to our unique community. Tufts is committed to providing equal access and support to all qualified students through the provision of reasonable accommodations so that each student may fully participate in the Tufts experience. If you have a disability that requires reasonable accommodations, please contact the Student Accessibility Services office ator 617-627-4539 to make an appointment with an SAS representative to determine appropriate accommodations.

  1. Invite us to your department meeting. Kimberly Doan, Assistant Director of SAS, or I would love to take 10 minutes of your next department meeting to go over these changes and what our office does in general. If you think it would be helpful, please send me an email: .

Finally, as always if you have any questions or concerns please contact us. We also have a Faculty Resource page on our website that I’d encourage you to visit for all sorts of helpful hints: We very much value your feedback and partnership in supporting students with disabilities at Tufts.

Welcome back!

Kirsten Behling

Director, Student Accessibility Services

Instructions for Faculty to Approve Distraction Reduced Exam Proctoring

SAS has moved to a new database, Accommodate, to increase efficiency and ease for both students and faculty. Accommodate is a simple to use system that allows faculty to approve exam accommodation requestsdigitally rather through the old paper forms. Please use this tip sheet as a guide for approving accommodations. If you’d prefer a one-on-one walk through, email us and we’d be happy to do that too.

Thank you for your support as we make this transition.

Kirsten Behling

SAS, Director

7 Easy Steps to Approving Exam Accommodations

  1. Log into Accommodate by clicking here:

Use your Tufts UTLN and password (the same one you use for your email).

  1. Select “Courses”

Choose the course that the student who is requesting the accommodation is enrolled in. You should receive an email from Accommodate telling you which course the student indicated in their request. Click on the title of the course.

  1. Click on “Room Bookings” to see what students are asking for the ability to take their exam in the SAS testing space.

  1. Click on the “Edit” button (a paper with a pencil) for each student you see in this list.
  1. Add any proctoring notes that you might have for the exam in the “Notes” box. Then click “yes” for “Testing Appointment Approved” and click “submit.

  1. You are all done! If you have other students taking the same exam you will see their name under the “Pending” tab. Just repeat what you did above for each of those students.