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Housing selection for students requiring health-related accommodations has functioned much of the same over the past few years at Elizabethtown College. Committed to providing equal access for all students, Etown students residing on campus are able to request specific housing to suit individual living concerns, such as disabilities, health or psychological disorders or allergies.
However, this semester, students noted some shortages of Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) compliant housing.
While many requests are for a single room without a roommate, the process is a bit more complicated because some people may have additional or sometimes multiple considerations. Often, the accommodation requests of students consist of features such as first-floor housing, room assignment near a bathroom, room assignment in a residence hall with fewer students sharing a bathroom, rooms with a strobe fire alarm, residence halls with year-round air conditioning, rooms near an ADA compliant bathroom, approval to have an assistance animal, a residence hall with LED lighting, ability to be in a chosen Living Learning Community (LLC) such as Stonewall or Honors and so on.
“Sometimes I follow up with the health care providers who submitted the supporting documentation to gain a better understanding of what the student needs,” Director of Disability Services Lynne Davies said, “and sometimes the student will be ‘approved’ for a certain accommodation, such as a single room, but may have to wait until one becomes available.”
Davies explained how some housing accommodation requests needed to be made in advance. She provided the example of how assistance animal requests need to be made at least 60 days prior to the semester for which the request is made.
“In some instances, the requested accommodation simply isn’t available or is available in such limited quantities that not everybody who needs it will get it. This was the case this year with students who needed a single room,” Davies said.
This year, nearly 3 times as many requests for Independent Living Units (ILUs) with single rooms that are available on campus were submitted. These spaces were offered to the groups who had the best lottery number, mimicking the traditional ILU lottery. This left some students feeling that they were denied the accommodation. However, according to Etown housing, residencies that suited everyone’s specific, individual needs weren’t available to offer.
“ADA doesn’t mandate colleges to provide spaces that simply aren’t available,” Davies stated.
Interim Assistant Director of Residence Life Michelle Henry works with Davies in terms of the specifics of Etown’s housing accommodations. While Davies works with students and their medical providers to decide what kind of accommodation is needed, Henry uses the accommodation request and student preferences to find residence facilities that suit the students’ needs best.
Due to the amount of students with various ADA accommodations, a deadline of February 3 was shared with all students on campus to provide disability services with specified living requests. Within the notice, students were encouraged to turn in their documentation to Davies.
“We realize that sometimes students’ medical needs change,” Henry said, “and we worked with a few students who felt their placement might not be best for the accommodation and made adjustments from there.”
In the upcoming years, Etown looks to continue the renovation of the current on-campus housing. In unison, students agreed that the changes definitely needed to be made and look for positive changes to come in the future of the College’s residential options for students in need of various housing accommodations.
