Accommodations

About Academic Accommodations

The Disability Resource Center ensures access, accommodations, and advocacy for UNC students with documented disabilities.

If you’re exploring academic accommodations — whether you have recent or older documentation, have never used accommodations before, or are simply curious about your options — you’re welcome here.

To get started, visit us during drop in hours or fill out our Initial Consultation Form to schedule a meeting. During this conversation, we’ll review your documentation (if available), learn more about your experiences, and discuss what access could look like for you.

How We Evaluate Academic Accommodation Requests

At the DRC, we engage in a confidential, individualized, and collaborative process with each student to determine reasonable academic accommodations.

This process includes reviewing any documentation the student provides and meeting one-on-one to better understand the student’s lived experience and access needs. In some cases, the DRC may also consult with faculty to gather information about the essential academic requirements of a course or program, including any licensure standards that may impact accommodation decisions.

Faculty input helps ensure that requested accommodations — after considering possible alternatives, feasibility, cost, and impact — do not compromise academic integrity or fundamentally alter the nature of a course or program. The DRC documents its rationale for accommodation determinations, ensuring transparency and alignment with university policy, federal guidance, and our shared commitment to equity.

Students who experience significant disability-related impacts in a residential setting may be eligible for reasonable housing accommodations. These accommodations are determined individually, based on documentation, and through a personalized conversation with the DRC.

The following documentation forms are available to support your request.

• Housing Accommodation Documentation Form
• Severe Allergy Documentation Form

Emotional Support Animals (ESAs)

If you are seeking to bring an Emotional Support Animal to campus housing as part of an accommodation, please review our Emotional Support Animal Request Procedures, which outline the steps and documentation needed to begin your request.

ESA Documentation Form

Each request is reviewed individually through the Disability Resource Center’s interactive process and in partnership with Housing & Residential Education.

Service Animals

The University of Northern Colorado recognizes the essential role of service animals in the lives of individuals with disabilities and follows guidance outlined by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Service animals are permitted to accompany individuals with disabilities in all areas of campus where the public is normally allowed access.

For students planning to live in campus housing with a service animal, please complete the following:

Indicate that you will have a service animal on your HRE Housing Application under the ADA Accommodations section.

Submit up-to-date vaccination records for your service animal to Housing & Residential Education (HRE), as required by local municipal code.

While no documentation is required to have a service animal on campus, we encourage students to notify the DRC if they would like support in navigating campus life with a service animal.

The Disability Resource Center coordinates a range of communication access options to support Deaf and hard-of-hearing members of our campus community, including students, faculty, staff, and visitors. These access provisions include:

• American Sign Language (ASL) Interpreting
• Computer-Aided Real-Time Transcription (CART)
• Closed Captioning

Requests for communication access can be made for any UNC-sponsored event, course, or activity. This includes—but is not limited to—classes, theater performances, student organization events, and meetings with faculty or staff.

To request communication access, please complete the Service Request Form. We encourage you to submit requests at least three business days in advance. While last-minute requests are not guaranteed, we will make every effort to fulfill them. Please note that requests are not reviewed during university closures, including holidays and breaks.

Important Notes:

For events hosted at UNC by outside organizations, the event sponsor is responsible for providing communication access.

For off-campus events, access services are typically arranged by the sponsoring organization.

The DRC does not coordinate interpreting or captioning for purely social events that are not university-sponsored.

If you have questions or want to learn more about communication access at UNC, please contact us at DRCInterpreting@unco.edu.

The DRC offers adaptive technology tools and services to qualifying students with accommodations to support them in engaging fully in both digital and physical environments. These resources are designed to reduce barriers related to reading, writing, studying, testing, and much more.

Assistive technology services may include, but are not limited to:

• Screen readers and text-to-speech tools
  • ReadSpeaker (Available for free to all Students, Faculty, and Staff.)
• Speech-to-text and dictation software
• Accessible digital/alternative formats of textbooks, documents, and quizzes.
• Digital/Alternative Note Taking Software
  • Genio Notes (Available to qualifying students.)

Resource Pages

• Bookshare
• ReadSpeaker

The Disability Resource Center (DRC), within the Division of Student Affairs, functions as the central point for providing reasonable accommodations for students with disabilities at the University of Northern Colorado. Under the direction of the Director of the Disability Resource Center, the office is responsible for reviewing requests for accommodations from students and ensuring equitable access to the educational environment for students with disabilities. It is the responsibility of the DRC to analyze all information when making equal access decisions.

If a student is denied accommodation or receives an accommodation that they consider ineffective by the DRC, the student may file an appeal of the decision through the DRC Appeal Process. The scope of an appeal review is limited to determining whether an accommodation decision was reasonable under the circumstances.

Students with disabilities are encouraged to first discuss any concerns with their assigned access coordinator or that person’s direct supervisor in the DRC. Most disability-related issues or complaints about accommodations, services, faculty, other campus departments, programs, or facilities are generally resolved at this level.

Any student who requires an accommodation to participate in the DRC Appeal Process may request an accommodation by contacting the DRC at DRC@unco.edu or 970-351-2289.

Accommodation requests for Housing and Emotional Support Animals have their own reconsideration/appeal processes for such decisions.

DRC Appeal Process

Step 1: Submission of Appeal by Student. If informal discussions with personnel at the DRC have not resolved the issue, a student may file an appeal by submitting the Accommodation Appeal Form within ten (10) working days of the receipt of the accommodation decision or event(s) with which the student does not agree. Information requested in this form includes the accommodation determination the student is appealing, the basis for the appeal, a description of the student’s concerns, and the resolution being sought in the appeal process. There will also be an opportunity within the Accommodation Appeal Form to upload supplemental documents that the student believes lend support to their appeal. The completed Accommodation Appeal Form will be forwarded to the DRC Director. (In some cases, the Director may need to assign the appeal to a designee if timelines cannot be met or if the Director served as the student’s access coordinator for the original determination).

Step 2: DRC Director Review of the Appeal. Once the Accommodation Appeal Form is submitted, the DRC will contact the student by email to set an optional meeting with the DRC Director to have a conversation prior to a determination of the appeal. The DRC Director, or their designee, shall meet with the student within seven (7) working days of the receipt of the appeal if the student desires a meeting.

If the student who filed the appeal does not want to meet with the DRC Director or designee to discuss their appeal, they should inform the DRC that is the case (e. drc@unco.edu; p. 970-351-2289), and the appeal review will proceed without the meeting.

Note: When an appeal is being reviewed during Steps 1 – 2 and the student shares new disability-related information or disability documentation that was not provided during the original accommodation request process, the DRC Director or designee reserves the right to refer the student back to the student’s initial DRC access coordinator for a reassessment of the accommodation request because the presence of new information may have impacted the original determination if it had been submitted at that time. Supplementary documentation uploaded to the Accommodation Appeal Form should be limited only to information that supports the individual’s claim that the original request was not evaluated reasonably by their access coordinator.

Step 3: The Appeal Decision is Communicated. A written decision about the appeal will be provided by the DRC Director or designee to the students’ Bearmail within ten (10) working days of Step 2 being completed. The appeal decision may have one of three outcomes:

The original determination is upheld.
The original determination is sent back to the student’s access coordinator who issued the determination for reconsideration and re-engagement in the accommodation determination interactive process.
The original determination is reversed or amended in part or in whole.

If the appeal decision changes the original determination such that an accommodation is granted or modified, such grant or modification is prospective, not retroactive.

Complaint Options & Reporting

A student, staff, faculty, or visiting third party who believes that they have been denied reasonable accommodations or otherwise discriminated against on the basis of disability or retaliated against in violation of UNC’s Non-Discrimination Policy (Board Policy Manual 1-1-508(2)) may file a complaint with UNC’s Office of Institutional Equity and Compliance:

Office of Institutional Equity and Compliance
University Center 3060
2101 10th Ave.
Greeley, CO 80639
Phone: 970-351-4899
Email: titleix@unco.edu

Complaints may also be submitted online: https://www.unco.edu/institutional-equity-compliance/

In addition, the student may explore resources, or file a complaint with, government offices external to the university including, as applicable:

(1) Office for Civil Rights, Denver Office
U.S. Department of Education
Cesar E. Chavez Memorial Building
1244 Speer Boulevard, Suite 310
Denver, CO 80204-3582

(2)  U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ)
U.S. Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Civil Rights Division
Disability Rights Section – 1425 NYAV
Washington, D.C. 20530

(3)  Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC)
Denver Field Office EEOC
303 E. 17th Avenue, Suite 410
Denver, Colorado 80203

(4)  U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)
Office of Compliance and Disability Rights Division
Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity
U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development
451 7th Street, S.W., Room 5242
Washington, D.C. 20410