For students navigating college with a disability, the right support system can make all the difference. At GCC, that support begins with the Disabled Student Programs and Services Department (DSPS). “This surprises a lot of people, but do you have any idea what the percentage of adults with disabilities in the U.S. or California is?” asks Rita Zobayan, a DSPS counselor, rhetorically, “It is 27%.” Zobayan is illustrating just how widespread and misunderstood disability can be. “Typically, when people think of disability they think of someone in a wheelchair, someone who may be deaf or may be blind, but they don’t necessarily consider the invisible disabilities” she says. In an interview with El Vaquero, Rita Zobayan discusses how DSPS supports students with disabilities and details the registration process.
Students who register with DSPS gain access to the free services and a dedicated staff of certified counselors and support specialists. “We have what’s called the interactive process,” Zobayan explains, “where students fill out an application, submit proof of a verified disability, and then meet with a counselor.” While there is no shortage of paperwork during registration, as Zobayan jokes, she says the process is more about hearing from the student and giving them the chance to advocate for themselves. “We don’t just want the disability aspect because that is just one part of who they are,” she says. Together they create an Academic Accommodation Plan, based on eligibility and need, and a term-specific Student Education Contract. It is the student’s responsibility, and super important, to renew the contract each semester or intersession term.
Having registered, a student now has access to academic counselors, learning specialists, assisted technology and alternative media specialists, tutors, and adapted physical education classes. DSPS also hosts Connections, which are opportunities to gather, meet other registered students, and build community and friendships at GCC. “All of this is free, none of this costs the student anything,” says Zobayan. She explains that some students are reluctant to use DSPS services after having been through special education programs in grades K-12 and experiencing the stigma, bullying, and lack of privacy. Zobayan wants people to know that college is completely different.
Student’s are in charge of who they inform and why. Instructors are only informed of specific accommodations, not diagnoses. “That’s not because we think it’s something to be ashamed of, it’s not because we think disability is a bad thing or a bad word, but it is a private matter to you. We have privacy laws,” Zobayan says. Another difference to understand is that college level curricula are not modified for students with disabilities. “You’re earning a degree or certificate the same as everybody else on this campus,” she says. The purpose of DSPS is to provide the tools that some students need to succeed at the college level. It is about equal access to students of all abilities.
Accommodations are tailored to each student’s circumstances, and “Everything is based on need and eligibility,” Zobayan says. Every branch of the DSPS specializes in different types of academic support. Students with audio or visual processing needs may benefit from assisted technology or alternative media resources, such as access to course materials converted to braille, textile graphics, or audiobooks. Sign language interpreters or real-time captioning services may benefit students for lectures or on-campus meetings and events. Math and English tutoring sessions led by professionals with disability certifications are available. Temporary accommodations are available to students who may have a physical disability resulting from an injury or accident.
Sometimes accommodations are not necessary and what would benefit a student the most is learning more about their mind, body, and how their disability fits in. Whether it is study strategies, like time management and organization, or adapted physical education, DSPS students are learning about total well-being. Classes like Tai Chi can be very centering and promote memory skills. Adapted PE is available to all DSPS students and not limited to those with physical disabilities. “We actually have a number of students who take it just for their own personal well-being, their own personal health,” Zobayan says. Adapted PE is no different in terms of degree and transfer applicability, but they are taught by specialists in safe and mindful ways.
Learning specialists are qualified to assess students. “They can not assess for ADHD, autism, or mental health; we are talking very specifically about what are known as learning disabilities,” says Zobayan. She describes how having the suspicion of a learning disability can feel like, “…math never made sense to me, I just can’t read, I couldn’t focus, the words never made sense, or I knew I could read it, but I couldn’t understand it.” These students may be working with specific symptoms of very nuanced disabilities. Others may be undiagnosed or unaware of a learning disability altogether. However, Zobayan expressed how unlikely it is that a college-level student would not have prior knowledge, or diagnosis, of a learning disability.
Zobayan goes on to discuss some of the barriers that exist for people with disabilities. “We sometimes come up against cultural and community influences where there may be a real stigma against having a disability, a misunderstanding of what that could possibly mean and how it might impact a student’s future,” she says. There is a fear that the diagnosis will define a person’s entire identity in the eyes of other people. People often do not realize how common disabilities are, regardless of demographic or socioeconomic status. She wants people to have a better understanding of what disability is and what it is not. “We want people to realize, our students especially, but the broader campus in general, that there are many people who have achieved many great things and they have a disability,” Zobayan says.
The DSPS mission statement is to destigmatize, educate, and empower. Every year the staff and students work together to achieve academic dreams, and every year DSPS helps usher in another group of graduates and transfer students. “We’re really proud of our students…their successes are our successes,” Zobayan says. These people have always been a part of the makeup of humanity, but the history of disability is fraught with dark, exclusionary, and outdated practices. Zobayan describes a paradigm shift from the old-school medical model, where disability was seen as something to be fixed, to the social lens, or universal design for learning model, where the environment is changed to allow access. As awareness of physical disabilities and neurodiversity grows and becomes more mainstream, so does equal access to opportunities like education. Rita Zobayan points to DSPS students’ record of success, saying, “It shows that disability does not stop people from being, doing, completing, [and] achieving.”
DSPS offices are located in the San Gabriel building (SG 128) on GCC’s Verdugo campus. Both the Center for Students with Disabilities and the Accommodations Resource Center, now under one roof, are open Monday through Thursday from 8:00 am to 4:30 pm and Friday from 8:00 am to 3:00 pm. GCC faculty are welcome to attend periodic DSPS workshops to continue their education and enhance their awareness of students with disabilities. GCC students wishing to support their peers can look into the student organization Disability Advocacy Initiative (DAI) to learn more.
Find more information at the GCC DSPS web page.
Taylor Wiegand can be reached at [email protected].