LETTER: Clarifying Accommodations for Students with Disabilities

To the editors:

We read with concern the Oct. 21 Fifteen Minutes scrutiny "Accommodate to Learn," which opened with an anecdote about a student with a disability who was required to re-take Expository Writing 10 after not completing the course's final paper. Because the reporters' organization of their story may lead some readers to infer that the Expository Writing Program was insensitive to a student's disability and his need for accommodation—and because the reporters never contacted the Writing Program to ask how we respond to students with disabilities—we write to make the facts clear.

Those of us teaching in and administering the Writing Program take great care in how we respond to students identified by the Accessible Education Office as needing accommodations for their disabilities. We work every semester with the AEO staff and the Freshman Dean's Office to determine fair accommodation for students with disabilities and medical issues.  Many students with disabilities or other issues that affect their work communicate this information to their preceptors and as a result we are able to adjust deadlines in a way that lets those students complete their work in an appropriate timeframe.

Thomas R. Jehn and Karen L. Heath

Cambridge, Mass.

Oct. 21, 2010

Thomas R. Jehn, Ph.D., is the Sosland Director for the Harvard College Writing Program and Karen L. Heath serves as the Senior Preceptor.