Syllabus Statements: A Point of Visibility for Disability Services

Abstract

Course syllabi are an important point of visibility for higher education disability services offices, lending importance to the presence and accuracy of disability and accommodations statements within them. The present study is a content analysis of course syllabi from a large Northern Virginia university from the Fall 2020 semester. Researchers collected syllabi from publicly available webpages—including department websites—resulting in a sample size of 61 syllabi with 58 disability/accommodation statements available for analysis. Researchers analyzed and coded syllabi for the presence of an accurate name and contact information for the institution’s disability services office, the accuracy of procedures for establishing accommodations, and the usage of the office’s pre-written disability/accommodation syllabus statement. Of the 58 syllabus statements, only 39.7% included completely accurate information related to disability services and accommodation-related procedures. Further, none of the syllabi in the sample used the syllabus statement(s) made publicly available by the university’s disability services office. The authors outline action items for disability services professionals and other campus stakeholders to leverage syllabi as a key point of visibility for disability services and ensure that students are provided with clear, concise, and accurate information necessary to establish accommodations entitled to them under federal law.