As a climate assessment module, one of the things we hope to help you do is not only get a sense of what you are doing well or what you are doing that could be improved, but in particular, identifying what are the things in your context and your campus that can really begin to communicate a willingness to work with students.
Climate, you know the environment in the broadest sense, and probably more important than anything in the physical environment, is the social climate. Certainly things like, in your classrooms, creating an environment that makes accommodations to seem a natural and normal process. That may range from a statement on your syllabus inviting the students to discuss any needs of accommodations with you versus a statement on your syllabus saying, "in order to comply with the ADA…, please contact me."
If a student comes into a class and the facility is not accessible to them in one way or another, it tends to say to the student we don’t want you here, you don’t belong here.
One of the most telling statements was made by the former Provost here at OSU. What they wanted from me, from the position, was someone to help the university to do the right thing and if we did the right thing, compliance would take care of itself.
