CCSC Bureau Chief Sam Azanza is back again with this week’s CCSC recap. They had to stop cramming a final paper worth 30% of their grade so please be nice.

The Satow Room is exactly where I want to be on a Sunday night, especially when CCSC discusses ultra-important topics like the Disabilities Town Hall and student wellbeing. But before I get to that, here are some announcements.

Selected Announcements

• The Junior class cruise is happening on Thursday night and all 400 tickets were sold!
• College Days is coming up this week and multiple class council events are being run. Check out the event page here.
• The college has provided more funding for Butler Banner this year. Speakers will be flown out, along with current faculty, and the New York Times will be present. However, because of the amount of planning being done about the allocation of funds, the event will be postponed to Fall 2019.

Main Takeaways from the Disabilities Town Hall

A member of CCSC presented the major issues talked about in the Disabilities Town Hall that took place last Wednesday, opening the discussion for what CCSC can do in order to support students with disabilities.

One of the major issues talked about in the Town Hall was the idea of awareness. Not a lot of resources about disability services are available during NSOP, thus new students are unaware of the registration process for the Office of Disability Services (ODS).

Students with disabilities also spoke out about how some advisors are uninformed in terms of disability concerns, thus do not feel supported by them. Some students were also advised not to take certain classes because of their disabilities, rather than being helped to take the classes they want in a way that accommodates their disability. Campus leaders are thinking of putting together a guidebook for advisors in order to teach them about various disability concerns.

Lots of faculty members and TAs are also unaware of how to assist students with disabilities and lack the training to help them. It was said that all TAs are supposed to be trained regarding this, however, a TA that attended the Town Hall mentioned that they never received training.

Many people had complaints about ODS itself, saying that working with them is a nightmare. There are a lot of required forms that are daunting, hard to navigate, and time-sensitive. Some students went through expensive testing in order to be accommodated by ODS but were still told that these results were not enough to register them under the office.

ODS also provides very limited housing options that are offered to students under ODS, so not everyone is able to be accommodated. Students under ODS are also not allowed to join a group with friends, and overall housing policies are wildly unclear.

Wellbeing Website

CCSC continued their discussion from last week regarding the Live Well Learn Well website. There was an open discussion about what CCSC can do to make sure that students know about the accessibility of wellbeing resources in a centralized place.

They talked about possibly integrating the website into NSOP events, or a possible media blast to promote it. Some council members also proposed putting the website higher up in the medical services homepage and adding it into the syllabus given to CC students at the start of the school year under additional resources.

That’s all for this week’s recap. Crunch time begins now! Have a great week and stay healthy, Columbia!

Importance of accommodation in the classroom via Flickr.