I concur completely Cathy!  Our disability service office is effectively worthless.  It is so disheartening to have more expertise than the "rehabilitation counselors" and not be able to do anything.  I would also like to have a discussion about doing a better job of making the essential functions more visible.  It is not fair to the student nor the faculty when we have to go through  an extraordinary protracted process to dismiss a student who signed at the beginning of the program that they can meet the essential functions and clearly cannot even with accommodations.

Christine Wright
Arkansas State University

Sent via the Samsung Galaxy S8 Active, an AT&T 5G Evolution capable smartphone

-------- Original message --------
From: AOTA ot-pd List <ot-pd@aotalists.org>
Date: 12/12/19 1:40 PM (GMT-06:00)
To: ot-pd@aotalists.org
Subject: [OT-PD List - AOTA] -  RE: Thoughts for ALC Planning for Boston

Thanks for asking Gavin. I suspect that I am not alone in noting that we are admitting more and more students with learning, emotional and mental health disabilities.  We are relying on our university disability services to assist us with individual student issues, but it might make sense to gain a broader perspective, e.g. national trends, legal updates, the issue of reasonable accomondations in fieldwork settings, etc.
Cathy

Cathy A. Dow-Royer, Ed.D., OTR
Chair, Founding Program Director and Professor
Western New England University
Division of Occupational Therapy
Doctor of Occupational Therapy Program
1215 Wilbraham Road
Springfield, MA 01119-2684
(413) 782-1423

From: ot-pd@aotalists.org <ot-pd@aotalists.org>
Sent: Thursday, December 12, 2019 12:18 PM
To: ot-pd@aotalists.org
Subject: [OT-PD List - AOTA] - Thoughts for ALC Planning for Boston

The External Email below originated from outside the University. Unless you recognize the sender, do not click links, open attachments, or respond.
With the opening yesterday of registration for the conference in March it made me realize that it won't be long before we will begin to think about planning the Academic Leadership Council meeting that happens on the Tuesday/Wednesday before conference each year.

As is the case there will be set sessions that always happen but equally we will have the opportunity to think about "keynote speakers" and other sessions that we can have some input into who and what we listen to and do.

Therefore I thought I would reach out and elicit ideas from the group as to what people would like to hear or do - please just post, or send me ideas directly, if I get enough ideas I will come back to the group and see if I can get a consensus about what we would like to hear about and then I can be prepared/informed for when the planning with Neil starts in earnest.

I hope everyone has had good semesters and is looking forward to a change of pace over the next few weeks as students head home for the holidays

Best wishes
Gavin
_____________________________________________________________
Gavin R Jenkins, PhD, OTR/L, ATP | Chair & Associate Professor
Department of Occupational Therapy
UAB | The University of Alabama at Birmingham
355 School of Health Professions | 1720 2nd Ave S | Birmingham, AL 35294-1212
P: 205.934.5437 | jenkinsg@uab.edu<mailto:jenkinsg@uab.edu>
uab.edu<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__uab.edu_&d=DwMFAg&c=QzRQJlHx0ZTYmlwGx7ptjrPEeuNmnYRxm_FN73lod7w&r=TdTmEArxWfc8mEj8SkVFiKMtyy-EffzysoYJUUIrNl0&m=CMM2yCcM83rydE5gE-PBa59aumBI9EWpHLNKMDl9KLw&s=Plmwh-jCitEKg0jSReJLPwzpmE5lHpSgAcEZs8Q3CD8&e=>

"Being an occupational therapist means you accept the consistency of the inconsistency"
"CREATIVITY and CURIOSITY"