Now that you’ve had a brief overview of the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act and the Accessibility Standards for Customer Service, have a look at how they apply to your job.
Here are a few situations as they occur in three common campus settings: the classroom, the office and campus facilities. Take a few moments to consider them and depending on your role and responsibilities, think about what you would do.
In the classroom
Dr. Trevor Jones, a well-known environmentalist, is scheduled to deliver a lecture on campus. About a week and a half before the lecture, organizers email Dr. Jones asking for copies of his PowerPoint presentation, both a regular file and a text-only version.
While Dr. Jones tends to prepare for his lectures in advance of their date, he also likes to review the materials the day before so that he can make any last-minute adjustments. He tells the organizers this in a reply message. The organizers explain one of the lecture’s registrants is a person with a disability and they need his presentation so that they can respond to the person’s request for the presentation materials in an alternate format.
Dr. Jones makes final adjustments to the presentations and sends the requested copies to the organizers.
In the office
It’s mid-September and an inter-university committee convenes for its first meeting of the academic year.
As committee members are arriving, one member from another university approaches the Chair and hands her a microphone and transmitter, asking her to pin the microphone to her lapel. Although these individuals were on the Committee last year, this is the first time the member has asked the Chair to use an FM system. As she takes the microphone and transmitter, the Chair says to the member, “I’ve seen you in some other meetings and you never used one of these before. How deaf are you?”
Here, the visiting committee member is considered a customer of the host university. As a university employee and service provider, the Committee Chair should remember that while it’s natural to be curious about persons with disabilities, many persons with disabilities don’t welcome questions about disability or their use of assistive devices.
If they volunteer that information and invite you to ask questions, you may do so. However, if you are asked to use an assistive device, you should respect the person’s dignity and confidentiality and avoid making comments or asking questions about the person’s disability.
In campus facilities
Every year, the students, faculty and staff put on a very successful and popular production of the play “Rent”. Bridgett, an administrative assistant in the Department of Biology and who is hard of hearing, looks forward to attending. Buying her ticket the day before, Bridgett asks the student selling the tickets if there will be FM systems available at the event. The student says she doesn’t know and that the group hadn’t thought about this. She tells Bridgett she will inquire and follow up.
The evening of the play arrives and, Bridgett still hasn’t heard from the event organizers. She decides to bring her own personal system and arrives ahead of curtain time, although the hall is filling up quickly. She speaks with the audio-visual technician and because there are no other FM systems available, asks to use her personal system. To make her system work with the audio equipment, some testing is necessary and Bridgett helps the technician with this.
Although the system worked out well for Bridgett and she enjoyed the play, she was still upset because the planners did not follow up on her request for the FM system and that testing the equipment in front of so many people was embarrassing.
Often we do not know who, among our customers, will have disabilities. Therefore, we need to consider accessibility needs ahead of time. The planners should have tried to anticipate some accessibility needs and plan for these. They should also have asked attendees to inform them of any particular accessibility needs and then followed up on these requests in a timely fashion.
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