Rights and Responsibilities

The information below explains the rights and responsibilities of students with disabilities as well as the obligations TTUHSC El Paso has to provide academic adjustments, auxiliary aids, and/or services. Each student receiving academic adjustments, auxiliary aids, and/or services through the Accessibility Services is required to sign a student agreement, which outlines their responsibility for receiving academic adjustments.

Students with disabilities have a RIGHT to:

  • Equal access to courses, programs, services, and activities offered through TTUHSC El Paso.
  • Confidentiality of all information pertaining to the individual’s disability, except as disclosures are necessary to provide accommodation or are required or permitted by law.
  • Accessible formats of information if reasonably available.
  • Equal opportunity to learn through reasonable accommodations, academic adjustments, and/or auxiliary aids and services.

Students with disabilities have a RESPONSIBILITY to:

  • Meet qualifications and maintain essential institutional technical standards for courses, services and activities.
  • To self-disclose as an individual with a disability when an academic adjustment, auxiliary aids and/or service is needed.
  • To follow published procedures and seek information, counsel, and assistance in a timely manner to request accommodations and services.
  • Complete and submit the Self-Disclosure and Accommodation Request forms to Accessibility Services.
  • Provide recent documentation from an appropriate professional detailing how a student’s disability limits participation in courses, programs, services, or activities and provides support for each accommodation request.
  • Inform Accessibility Services if the student elects not to use an approved accommodation. An Accommodation Waiver form will need to be completed.
  • Renew accommodations after any break in educational enrollment.
  • Promptly inform the Accessibility Services director of any problems with the manner in which an accommodation(s) is being provided.

Faculty and Staff have a RIGHT to:

  • Establish essential functions, abilities, skills, knowledge, and standards for courses, programs, services, and activities, and to evaluate students on this basis;
  • To identify and maintain the academic and technical standards that are fundamental to providing a quality academic program, while ensuring the rights of individuals with disabilities;
  • To refuse an unreasonable accommodation, adjustment, or auxiliary aid or service that imposes a fundamental alteration of a program or activity at TTUHSC-EP;
  • To select and recommend accommodations which are equally effective for individuals with disabilities.

Faculty and staff have a RESPONSIBILITY to:

  • Include a statement on syllabi to inform students with disabilities how to access accommodations on campus through Accessibility Services.
  • Refer any student that reports having a disability, but that does not currently receive approved accommodations, to Accessibility Services.
  • Maintain the same academic standards for all students. With appropriate accommodations, students with disabilities are expected to perform at the same academic proficiency levels as their non-disabled peers.
  • Work cooperatively with the students and Accessibility Services in providing accommodations only to those students approved for accommodation. A notification is received by the school’s dean’s office (to include relevant support staff) each semester with the students that are currently approved for accommodations through the Accessibility Services.
  • Ensure that students receive the needed accommodations without undue complication.
  • Respect the student’s right to privacy; keep disability-related information confidential. Students with disabilities are protected under FERPA and the civil rights law. At no time should faculty and staff make any statements or implications that a student with a disability is any different from the general student population.
  • Remember that the student has the right not to self-disclose or discuss the particulars of their disability with faculty or staff except on a need-to-know basis.
  • Contact Accessibility Services immediately in the event problems occur.
  • Be aware that further accommodations/arrangements may be made at a later time by a member of the Accessibility Services staff.

Students are not expected or required to provide faculty with detailed documentation about their disabilities. Therefore, Accessibility Services does not give advance notice to faculty regarding students with disabilities who are enrolled in their classes. From a legal standpoint, it is strongly advisable that faculty not request or expect such detailed documentation from the student. It is, however, entirely appropriate for faculty to request that the students provide verification from the Accessibility Services director that they are registered with Accessibility Services.