Although Dartmouth offers a variety of resources for learning-disabled students and professors generally adhere to the College's policy of granting accommodations, students with learning disabilities vary in their opinions of how well Dartmouth has met their needs.
Many students that spoke with The Dartmouth pointed to the uniqueness of being learning-disabled at Dartmouth. They cited the emphasis professors put on maintaining high academic standards, a heavy workload and compressed term length as being especially challenging for students with learning disabilities.
The learning-disabled population at Dartmouth is a relatively small one. Approximately 10 percent of the U.S. population has some kind of learning disability, but at Dartmouth, only about 3 to 4 percent of the student body fits this description, according to Nancy Pompian of the Academic Skills Center.
Pompian attributed this to the greater time and effort students with learning disabilities need to put in to achieve the same results as their non-learning-disabled counterparts.
She estimated that the most common disabilities are reading disorders like dyslexia, writing disorders and others lumped under the general category of "specific learning disorder."
The Academic Skills Center serves as the main liaison between faculty and students and provides a support network for learning-disabled students. Although Attention Deficit Disorder is not technically a learning disability, the Center also offers ADD coaching to help affected students improve their organizational and time management skills.
Pompian said that when she first arrived at Dartmouth in the 1980s, she encountered "some initial skepticism about the legitimacy of some of these learning disabilities," but added that professors have since grown much more open to making special arrangements.
Comments by professors reflected this new flexibility. Most said they automatically grant students special accommodations when they ask for them and do not bother to call Pompian to check the veracity of their claims.
While increased tolerance and education may be partly responsible for this new openness, special accommodations are also mandated by law.
The Americans with Disabilities Act, signed in 1990 but not widely implemented until several years later, provides rights for disabled people, whom the act defines as anyone with some condition that inhibits any major life activity.
In academic settings, this means the instructor is required to make "reasonable accommodations" that do not, however, alter the fundamental content and structure of the course.
Classics Professor Jessamyn Lewis voiced a common definition of what constitutes "reasonable" accommodations: "You can't necessarily be expected to change the pace of the class for one student, but at the same time, one student who is putting in the time and effort should not be penalized if he or she simply can't manage the assignments."
Dartmouth does not, though, have a formal process for informing professors how to deal with learning-disabled students, Pompian said. Instead, Pompian will often "go around from time to time to department meetings to talk to them about what they can and should do."
The lack of a more formalized procedure frustrates some faculty, however. Terry Godlove, a visiting religion professor, said he received "absolutely no information about learning disabilities."
Godlove said he was not sure which resources were available for learning-disabled students and that he would not know whom to contact if faced with a student who did need special accommodations.
Though no formal policy exists, Dartmouth tells professors that they should be supportive of all disabled students.
Lewis said that shortly after coming to Dartmouth in the summer of 2000, she received a blitz "from somewhere on high" telling professors to oblige the needs of any student identified with learning disabilities.
Other professors said that their department heads urged them to include on their course syllabi an invitation for learning-disabled students to meet with them individually to discuss any specific accommodations they might require, such as extra time or a separate room for an exam.
To merit special accommodations, students must provide Dartmouth with documentation of a current assessment made by a "qualified professional" such as a psychologist. The evaluation must include a specific diagnosis and must rule out any other potential problems that could mimic the effects of a learning disability.
To ensure that students receive the specific type of accommodations their disability merits, the diagnosis must include a detailed description of the kinds of learning situations that might present special challenges for the student and recommendations for how these difficulties should be addressed.
This attempts to eliminate the possibility for abuse of special privileges, something professors said they have not encountered.
Students reported vastly different experiences in obtaining the accommodations they asked for. One Tuck '03 business student described Dartmouth as "incredibly supportive," and an undergraduate said he's experienced no discrimination or insensitivity from professors.
One '04 who asked to remain anonymous, however, confessed that he had been "pretty let down" by Dartmouth's lack of responsiveness to his requests.
"People in Academic Skills Center are great," he said, "but the problem is that they have no power to actually enact any of the necessary accommodations. And despite what they say, faculty members really aren't sympathetic."
Indeed, even when offered accommodations, students do not always take them. Rusty Cheney '03 said he could have gotten a reduced reading load for Education 20, but turned it down, thinking, "It wouldn't have been beneficial in the long run."
"A disability only becomes a problem when it's in an environment that selects against it," Cheney said. "That's what these accommodations are for -- to even the playing field."
