An applicant or enrolled student with a suspected or documented disability who requests accommodations for the disability is required to submit to an evaluation, at their own cost, by a health care professional identified by the College of Pharmacy.

 

• Applicants must submit, in writing, a request for evaluation to the Office of Student and Professional Affairs prior to admission. 

 

• Any existing student who has a suspected or documented disability and who seeks special accommodations from the University must submit, in writing, a request for evaluation to the Office of Student and Professional Affairs prior to the start of the school year in the fall semester.

 

• If a suspected disability develops during the school year for which accommodations may be requested, the student must provide, in writing, a request for an evaluation to the Office of Student and Professional Affairs as soon as the student becomes aware of the disability requiring special needs. 

 

The student must sign a waiver allowing the health care professional chosen by the College to provide medical information related to the disability to the College for evaluation.  At a minimum, required documentation for a student with a disability requesting accommodations includes:

 

• A letter from the College-identified health care professional stating whether or not the student's disability will impair the student's ability to meet the curricular outcomes and technical standards of the program with or without accommodations.

 

• Copies of the student's diagnostic evaluation, along with the results of any diagnostic tests used in the diagnosis.

 

• A list of specific accommodations that may be necessary.

 

Students with accommodations are required to be reevaluated, at a minimum, every two years.

 

Accommodation decisions are addressed on an individual basis.  The Office of Student and Professional Affairs, in conjunction with the ULM Counseling Center Director, will evaluate the effects of the student's disability in relation to the curricular outcomes and technical and academic standards.

A student approved for accommodations should follow the process explained below.

 

1.  Prior to or on the first day of class, of each semester, the student should register as a Special Needs Student with OSPA.

 

2.  By the end of the first week of class, once all syllabi have been obtained, the student should turn in to OSPA a list of all dates of tests for which accommodations will be needed.

 

3.  Students will need to sign a new release of information giving OSPA their permission to notify their faculty members for that particular semester of their special needs.

 

4.  OSPA will notify faculty members scheduled to teach a special needs student via email.  This notification will contain suggested and requested classroom accommodations for that specific student with special needs and the dates that tests will be given.

 

5.  During the first week of class, students should contact their faculty members to discuss their special needs.

 

6.  Faculty members are asked to provide OSPA the ExamSoft assessment name and password two hours prior to it being administered.  If the exam is scheduled at 8 a.m., faculty members are asked to provide this information to OSPA by 5 p.m. the day before.  

 

7.  Student will need to arrive in OSPA 5 minutes prior to the exam start time.

 

8.  Students will not be allowed to begin an exam early or late, unless prior arrangements have been made with the faculty member and the faculty member has notified OSPA in writing via email.

 

9.  OSPA has eight testing rooms that are monitored by OSPA personnel via camera at all times.  The testing room cameras are recording.

 

Accommodations do not apply retroactively and no accommodation will be provided until the evaluation process is completed.  If students fail to contact their faculty member during the first week of class, those faculty members are under no obligation to retroactively correct for this.  Accommodations apply to the present and future, not past events.

Courses in the College of Pharmacy that include training students in a clinical setting or require examination of a "hands on" nature cannot be altered to provide accommodations.  A change in those examinations, which are formatted in a clinical context, represents a substantial modification of the examination.  Therefore, no test accommodation of extra time or alternate testing location is possible for these examinations.  These examinations include, but are not limited to, the Practical (Errors and Omissions) exam and the objective structured clinical exam (OSCE) portion of the Summative exam given in the third professional year.  Likewise, completion of course objectives for IPPEs and APPEs must be accomplished in the usual time allotted (i.e., on a semester, four week, or other time basis) and requests for other arrangements cannot be accommodated.