DisPatches, Spring 2009
DSPS Finds a New Home
Disabled Students Programs & Services have moved to Learning Resources Center 115 and 136, in the very heart of the Kentfield campus.
After many years in a reconfigured Auto Tech building on the fringe of the campus, DSPS is now above the bookstore, in the library building.
The move was necessitated by ongoing construction work funded by Measure C. The old DSPS building, along with Dickson Hall and Dance/Landscape, are slated for demolition to clear the way for a new Math/Science building.
“Now we’re centrally located,” says DSPS Coordinator Chris Schultz, “with easy access to library services, tutoring services and other support services, here in the middle of the ‘learning culture.’”
The primary challenge now, says Schultz, is getting students and faculty familiar with the new location. His office, along with reception and the DSPS counselors, is in LRC 115, directly above the bookstore and across the stairwell from the library’s main doors. The High Tech computer center, Study Skills lab and other support staff are in LRC 136, somewhat obscurely located down a corridor behind the Tutoring Center.
“We’re having to get accustomed to working in a new dynamic,” says Schultz. “I spend a lot of time wandering over to make sure people’s needs are being met. Before, I could just yell down the hall. It’s been hard finding testing facilities, too, having lost all that extra space we had in Dickson Hall.”
Nonetheless, this is seen as a positive move, far better than some of the scenarios which were postulated, like “permanent portables” in a parking lot.
“Being more centrally located,” says Schultz, “we’re hoping that as students become more aware of us, students who didn’t take advantage of us in the past may now do so.”
The Adapted Physical Education Program, which is temporarily housed in portables by the tennis courts in parking lot 12 while the Irwin P. Diamond PE Complex is being renovated, expect to be back in their refurbished old home in the Fall Semester.
Learning Specialist Frances Rouda (left), DSPS Coordinator Chris Schultz and Learning Specialist Ellen Tollen welcome students at an Open House in the new DSPS quarters on February 18, 2009.