While students with disabilities rely on the Sara Bea Center for Students with Disabilities for accommodations, University employees with disabilities look to the Office of Institutional Equity for resources.

Monique Frazier, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) program manager, said she joined the office in 2014.

“My main role is to work with faculty and staff and their department and physician in a collaborative, interactive process, in which we find workplace accommodations that will help them complete the essential functions of their job,” she said.

Faculty and staff must self-identify as disabled to receive accommodations, Frazier said, so the burden is initially on the faculty member to begin the process of requesting accommodations.

“They can initiate that when they first start, they can initiate it three years down the line. They can initiate it at any time,” she said. “After they have initiated that process, the burden is then going to be on the University, the supervisor, the chair of that department to provide the resources and initiate that interactive process.”

Read the full article, part of a series on disability at Notre Dame and Saint Mary's,  in The Observer.

Originally published by Catherine Owers at ndsmcobserver.com on April 25, 2016.