Requesting Accommodations

Access the First Time Applicant Form by logging in with your NLU username and password. Your form will include: 

• Student and contact information
• Identification of your specific disabilities (if known)
• Accommodations of interest
• Description of access barriers faced in your student experiences, as well as how accommodations may eliminate or alleviate some of these barriers
• Disability documentation (if available)

Please provide as much information as you can, and our office will confidentially review your form when determining your eligibility for academic accommodations. 

Your documentation of disability can be uploaded in Step 1 with your First Time Applicant Form. Or, you may email documentation to our office at CSAR@nl.edu. Students who do not yet have documentation are still encouraged to apply, with opportunity to attain and submit documentation within 30 days after their initial consultation (Step 3). 

Documentation may be a full IEP or 504 plan from high school, and/or medical documentation from a licensed professional. 

• Information to include in documentation: A specific diagnosis, how long the condition is expected to last, symptoms of the condition, how the condition/symptoms affect the student medically and academically, any medications taken and how they affect the student medically and academically, academic accommodations suggested based upon the diagnosis, any other pertinent information for supporting the student.
• Examples of a licensed professional: Medical documentation can be provided by a medical doctor, licensed clinical social worker, psychiatrist, psychologist, etc. The documentation must contain the professional’s letterhead (name, address, telephone number, professional credentials), date written, and signature.
• Examples of insufficient documentation: Incomplete IEP or 504 Plans with missing pages, medical provider letter with no specific conditions or diagnoses listed, illegible documents.

Once the First Time Applicant Form has been submitted for review, Center for Student Accessibility Resources will reach out to the student within 1-2 business days to schedule an initial consultation. This is a conversation to explore the student's disabilities (diagnoses, symptoms, how this interacts with coursework), needs, and how NLU resources can help the student succeed.

At the conclusion of the initial consultation, reasonable academic accommodations will be determined through conversation and by the professional expertise of the staff member.

• Criteria for unreasonable accommodations: poses a direct threat to the health or safety of others, makes a substantial change to an essential element of the curriculum, creates a substantial alteration in how the university provides services, or poses an undue financial or administrative burden.
  
  
• Examples of specific unreasonable accommodations: bringing a service animal to a culinary kitchen classroom where food is prepared, allowing a student to submit a PowerPoint presentation in lieu of a required final written paper for a course, requiring an on-campus only course to be taught to one student remotely.
  
  
• Examples of high school accommodations that are not offered in college include: a one-on-one classroom aide, reduction in assignment (e.g. number of math problems, word count in essay), significant alteration of teaching methods (e.g. daily one-on-one support, create study guides), use of “cheat sheets,” transportation, resubmission of past assignments.

After attending an initial consultation, the student (along with their advisor and assigned faculty) will receive an email that contains their Letter of Approved Accommodations. This document will contain details of all accommodations approved for the student by Center for Student Accessibility Resources, along with responsbilities for the student and their faculty.

Students are required to carefully review all contents, and reach out with any questions or concerns to the staff member.

Accommodation letters are effective immediately upon receipt. Center for Student Accessibility Resources cannot retroactively enforce accommodations, and faculty must be informed of the student's accommodations in order for the student to be able to use them. 

IMPORTANT NOTE: If a student's schedule or assigned faculty changes, or if the Letter of Approved Accommodations fails to reach one of their faculty for any other reason, it is the student’s responsibility to make our office aware. The student can forward their accommodation letter to their faculty, or they can request Center for Student Accessibility Resources to deliver the accommodation letter to the faculty.