Welcome to Disability Resources and Services at Temple! Our office serves Temple Owls with disabilities to empower them to fully experience everything Temple has to offer. We work with students who have learning disabilities, ADHD, mental health challenges, autism spectrum disorder, brain injuries, physical/mobility barriers, medical conditions, vision and hearing loss, and speech/language disabilities.

What to Expect

Registering

The first step to implementing accommodations is to register! If you are a new student to Temple, you won’t be able to register until you’ve been given your Temple University ID number (TUID). For current students, you can just go ahead and fill out the form! If you’d like more details on how to use our system, you can check out the instructions.

Once you’ve filled out the form, you will be matched with a coordinator. Your coordinator will then send you a welcome email and invite you to schedule an appointment using our online system.

You MUST have an initial intake appointment in order to set up accommodations. This is true even for students transferring from other schools, or if students had an IEP or 504 plan in high school.

Come Prepared

Think about what challenges you are experiencing, or you think you might experience, at Temple and in your specific program of study. Consider some of these key areas:

• Note Taking
• Assignments (inside and outside of the classroom)
• Physical Barriers
• Reading
• Test Taking

Write down any questions or concerns you have, in advance of your appointment, so that you can discuss them with your coordinator!

Intake Appointment

This is the first appointment you’ll have with us, and typically when we set up accommodations. Before your appointment, your coordinator will have reviewed any documentation that you’ve provided. Your coordinator will ask about how your disability impacts you as it relates to your experience here at Temple. The goal of accommodations is to provide access to your courses or other Temple activities. Accommodations are a creative and collaborative process between you and your coordinator to identify barriers to access and find solutions to break down those barriers.

After the Appointment  

After your accommodations have been approved by your coordinator, you have the ability to request that your accommodation letter go to you professors.

Letter of Accommodation

This is a document that goes to your professors that identifies you as a student who needs accommodations. This letter does not say why a student has accommodations. It instead simply states what accommodations need to be provided.  It is the student’s decision whether to disclose the reason behind accommodations. This letter will not be released to your professors without your permission. To request that your letter be sent to your professors, go to the MyDRS portal and choose “Semester Letter Request”. Next, choose “Add New”, and indicate the semester you would like to submit the for.

On the right side of the page, you will now see a list of the classes you are registered for. Just above that list, you will see two buttons: “Submit for All Accommodations” and “Review the Renewal”. If you choose the first, it will let me know that you want all of your approved accommodations to go to all of your professors. If you’d like to choose which approved accommodation goes to which professor, then choose “Review the Renewal”.

Your coordinator will typically send the letter to your professors within one business day.

Because you are requesting the letter go to a specific professor, you need to do this Accommodation Request each semester.

 Other Services

DRS has other services available to students such as communication access (CART and ASL Interpreting) and Assistive Technology. While you can meet with the assistive technology coordinator prior to formalizing accommodations, there are some products that may not be available until after you’ve met with a coordinator.