About Faculty Resources for Inclusive Instruction

Welcome to the Portals and Pathways to Inclusive Instruction website for faculty. It is designed to provide faculty with information about disabilities, the law and its application to higher education and best instructional practices for students with (and without) disabilities.

There are now more than 400 students at Emory University with documented disabilities. Emory University has made a commitment to serve students with disabilities in compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. The university provides full access to its programs for all qualified individuals. It takes this responsibility seriously and will support faculty in their efforts to provide the best possible instruction to diverse learners.

Please add your questions and comments to these pages. Send feedback and requests to wnewby@emory.edu.

The Director

The Director of the Faculty Resources for Disabilities position was established to help faculty understand students with disabilities and to support instructional practices to meet student needs. The Director is associated with the Center for Teaching and Curriculum (CTC) of Emory College and the University Advisory Council on Teaching (UACT), two vehicles that promote the scholarship of teaching and the development of innovative and effective instruction. Although the Director works cooperatively with the Office of Disabilities Services, this position is primarily to support faculty, not to provide direct services to students. Often, however, in working with faculty, consultations with students are helpful.

Wendy L. Newby, the Director of Faculty Resources for Disabilities, comes to Emory from North Carolina State University where she was employed for 17 years as an administrator, educational diagnostician, psychologist and clinical trainer of graduate students in assessment and intervention.

She graduated from Cornell University with a background in child development and family relations and worked both in the United States and abroad as a teacher and tutor for children with special learning needs. She received her Masters degree in special education from North Carolina State University and her doctorate in psychology from that institution. She is licensed as a psychologist in North Carolina and Georgia.

Services

The services for faculty provided through this office include providing:

• general information about disabilities
  
  
• information about procedures for students who are suspected of having disabilities but do not have documentation
  
  
• consultation to students at the request of their instructors regarding the interaction between their disabilities and their learning needs
  
  
• information about services and resources on campus that support students with disabilities
  
  
• general information about the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA) and its impact on post-secondary instructional practices
  
  
• information about ADA as it relates to faculty with disabilities
  
  
• specific information about how to implement accommodations for a student with a disability within the objectives of a course
  
  
• training for faculty on instructional strategies that benefit students with disabilities, such as syllabus development and universal design for learning approaches
  
  
• support for administration and faculty regarding policy development related to students with disabilities
  
  
• development of resources for faculty regarding students with disabilities, including instructional modules, seminars and focus groups

There are also services for students that are associated with this office. These include:

• consulting regarding procedures for registering with the Office of Disability Services (ODS);
  
  
• advising regarding courses, programs or special activities, such as study abroad;
  
  
• arranging for academic support through a learning specialist;
  
  
• determining the specific ways that accommodations granted by the ODS might be employed most effectively in the classroom;
  
  
• reviewing applications for participation in an alternative foreign language course or allowing a course substitution for the foreign language requirement*.
  

* Note that accommodations for foreign language are offered within the regular foreign language classes as these are specified by the ODS. In addition, some students may qualify for an alternative course that has been developed by the Department of Spanish and Portuguese that uses a special approach to teaching, small class size and individualized assignments. Information about the special procedures to qualify for this course are available at the ODS web site or through that office.

Contact Information

Wendy Newby
Phone: 404-727-6766
Fax: 404-727-9536
Email: wnewby@emory.edu or on learnlink

The office is located at 310 SAAC bulding on the Emory's Clairmont campus and will maintain an office on the 2nd floor of White Hall in the Office of Student Academic Affairs.