Re: An LD Student Who Needs a "Scribe"

["A.F. Herzog/H.C. Graham" <herzgrah@chesco.com>]

Dear Sue,
	This is a thorny one and because of the legal issues involved needs to be
handled carefully.  If a student files a case for discrimination under the
ADA, both the individual faculty member and the institution can be held
liable.
	The best first step you can take is to communicate with the person on
campus who is responsible for determining the particular accommodations
provided under the law for a student with a disability.  Under the
Americans with Disabilities Act, every university/college needs to appoint
such an individual.  Faculty members who have had the student in the past
do not have that authortiy; the learning resource person you mention
doesn't sound like she's the designated individual, but I'd want to
establish whether she is or isn't.  Someone at your university has
responsibility for checking the medical documentation provided by students
with disabilities and determining what accommodations are necessary.  The
nature of the disability is confidential information under the law; the
student is free to discuss or not discuss the particulars with you.  
	I'd begin by doing a little more followup about how students become
documented as disabled on your campus.   Yours, Anne Herzog

Writing Center Director
West Chester University 


At 04:50 PM 10/4/1999 -0400, you wrote:
>   Dear All:    How would you handle 
>a student with a learning disability who came to your writing center 
>asking for a "scribe"?    A few weeks 
>ago, our new learning center coordinator--an expert delegator, I have 
>witnessed--sent me an e-mail recounting a meeting she had with a 
>student whose learning disability entailed an inability to write. This 
>student, she claimed, had used a "scribe" in the writing center in 
>the past (he is a junior), someone to whom he dictated his papers. 
>  I responded that no student had, to my knowledge, 
>used the writing center in this fashion since I took over in the fall 
>of 98, but that I believed that there was software out there that 
>  (Her position 
>and budget have been funded by a $150K Teagle grant for two 
>  I suggested that she invest in this software, especially if, 
>in her judgment, there would be other LD students who might 
>require it.    He said that the 
>learning center director had referred him to the writing center. 
>  I wondered 
>aloud what he would do eventually when he needed to prepare 
>a report, say, on the job, or write a letter, say, to his local 
>  "As a teacher," I told him, "I feel I would be 
>doing you a disservice to just offer you a scribe, and that is NOT 
>  We talked 
>for a while longer, and I proposed that he put whatever prose he 
>  Though he seemed 
>intrigued by this option, his objection was odd and telling: "My 
>  I told him I was 
>not going to be focused on these at first, that many writers come 
>to us with these concerns, and that I just wanted to see how he 
>shaped meanings in his writing.  Because I have a policy of updating
>instructors about students 
>who register for sustained help at the center, I left voice mails 
>(without all the detail of my note above but basically) laying out 
>the plan the student and I had agreed to for his upcoming tutoring 
>  Wierdly, I had a voice reply on my own machine today 
>from one of those instructors, stipulating along the lines of "no, no: 
>  He needs to tell 
>someone else what he's going to write and they need to write it 
>  I left a gentle reply back, saying that we should at least 
>at first be guided by the student's own enthusiasm to try this on his 
>own, and suggesting that we could regroup after his first two sessions 
>or so to weigh results and strategies.    Am I right to find this a very 
>troubling way to use the center, or am I just being blind to the 
>  I do not trust 
>my own responses here, but these responses sure are strong! Any 
>light any of you might shed on this would be most welcome.  Yours, 
>Suzanne Diamond 
>Assistant Professor of English and Director, 
>THE WRITE PLACE 
>Marietta College 
>diamonds@marietta.edu 
A.F. Herzog & H.C. Graham
441 Highland Avenue
Downingtown, PA  19335
(610) 518.1212
herzgrah@chesco.com