USC’s services lag behind other conference schools’
USC’s Office of Student Disabilities Services has received hundreds of requests to proctor tests over the last two years, but it may not be well-suited to handle them.
Such requests have increased by 333 percent since 2010, up to 1,222, according to Stacey Bradley, Student Affairs’ associate vice president for administration.
The increase helped the office pull down a $60,000 budget increase, so it could add an office coordinator, its sixth full-time employee. It also employs three full-time graduate assistants and one temporary employee.
The office coordinator role, which hasn’t been filled yet, will also proctor tests, said Karen Pettus, the office’s director, but Pettus said her office needed a dedicated position to handle the requests.
“We would have liked to add a second new position to serve as a full-time test proctor, but I am still happy we will at least be able to add one new office coordinator to our staff,” Pettus said.
Other Southeastern Conference schools have dedicated test proctors; many of them, like Louisiana State University and the University of Georgia, didn’t see a similar increase in test proctoring requests over the same time period, representatives of those schools’ offices said.
Pettus theorized that budget cuts set USC apart, as funding fell for graduate teaching assistants in some departments. Prior to the cuts, TAs proctored tests themselves, rather than sending students to the Office of Student Disabilities, Pettus said.
But USC’s payroll department reported that the total number of TAs at the university actually increased from 2010 to 2012, from 173 to 231.
“When we noticed the significant increases in numbers, we asked faculty why they were sending more students to test with us,” Pettus said. “What we heard from faculty in several departments was that they no longer had teaching assistants ... so they needed the students to come here to test.
“This trend toward fewer TAs may be in certain departments but not across the board.”
USC keeps TA records at a departmental level, and only compiled a total for the whole university after The Daily Gamecock filed a Freedom of Information Act request.
The Office of Student Disabilities appears outmatched by other SEC universities in broader terms, too.
The office meets minimum accommodation requirements required by laws such as the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, Pettus said, but representatives of UGA’s and LSU’s offices said they tend to exceed those requirements, success they attributed to support from their administrations.
“We feel we exceed the requirements of [Section 504 and ADA] very well,” said Stacia Moses, a program specialist in LSU’s Office of Disability Services. “We have no trouble getting funds. Our office is one of the example offices in the conference. Students never complain about accommodations.”
LSU has seven full-time employees, three graduate assistants and 12 student workers in its Office of Student Disabilities.
At UGA, the Disability Resource Center has had good administrative support and generally surpasses federal requirements, said Amanda Hales, a representative of UGA’s Disability Resource Center.
“Administrative support has always been positive, and we feel like we exceed the requirements of Section 504 and ADA,” Hales said. “We try really hard, and when we have issues with funding we rely on fundraising, especially donations from alumni.”
UGA’s office has 17 full-time employees, 20 full-time test proctors and more than 100 paid student workers, who mainly take notes for students who require that accommodation, according to Hales. USC lacks such paid note-takers, Pettus said, though unpaid volunteers do fill that role.