By Emily Schoch | Staff writer
Baylor’s Office of Access and Learning Accommodation hosted an open house Thursday evening to give professors a sneak peek into the testing environment for students with disabilities.
OALA is part of Baylor’s success strategy as a way to accommodate students with disabilities. If a student has a documented learning or physical disability of any type, they can apply to OALA to receive accommodations.
In March of 2024, OALA moved to the basement of the Sid Richardson Building. This move was intended to give students a quieter testing environment with less foot traffic. The old office, on the first floor of the Sid Richardson Building, housed lots of noise and distraction.
TJ Watson, testing and technology coordinator at OALA, said it was necessary to have an open house inviting professors in to see the new testing environment that some of their students utilize.
“[The open house] is to provide faculty members who have students with accommodations to kind of get a better understanding of some of the work that goes into not just the testing center, but also the whole picture, including our other departments, such as transportation, and the hard work that our accommodation specialists put in to make sure that students are receiving the kind of accommodations that they really do need,” Watson said.
According to Watson, professors might find it helpful to have Insight on how their students are being aided by OALA.
“I think it’s really important that they have an understanding of kind of what the spaces look like so that they can understand how it may provide certain advantages over classrooms,” Watson said.
A large part of what OALA does is helping Baylor students utilize their resources in order to gain accommodations that will help further their education. Some students need an individual testing room, while other students may need their tests read aloud. Regardless of the need, OALA creates a space for students to succeed.
Sarah Gerald, senior accommodation specialist, said some professors might be uncomfortable when their students use OALA as their accommodated testing site. She said it is important to showcase OALA to them so that they can feel comfortable allowing their students to test in an alternate site.
“When they come down and they can see the systems that we have — whether it’s the camera system so that students are monitored or the check in so that students have to leave everything in a bin before they can go and get their test — I feel like it gives the professors a lot more validity to what we’re doing and they feel more confident about having the student test somewhere other than in their classroom,” Gerald said.
