These guidelines are designed to help faculty, staff, and student organizations provide accessibility for their events. The goal is to facilitate the participation of people with disabilities. While the answer to every question may not be cut-and-dry, the key is to remain respectful, responsive, and flexible.
1. Choose a physically accessible location for your event.
Many of our campus buildings were constructed before federal and state law required accessible design. Some architectural barriers exist within our campus that may require advance notice and planning to address.
If you're planning an event that is open to the Lesley community or the general public, you’ll need to make every reasonable effort to schedule the event in an accessible venue, given the challenges of relocating large events.
Choose a location for your event that is wheelchair accessible. Having your event in a wheelchair accessible location facilitates the participation of wheelchair users and people with mobility impairments.
Where activities are initially scheduled in inaccessible locations, upon a request for access, we may provide accessibility through the use of ramps, or relocation to an accessible location (where other methods of providing access are not feasible or practical).
In advance of selecting a venue, contact Disability Support Services at disabilityaccess@lesley.edu for information concerning the accessibility of the proposed venue.
Our online Campus Map with building directory has information about the accessibility of each building.
2. Provide ways for potential participants to request accommodations.
Your pre-event publicity, such as printed materials or website content, needs to include how participants can request accommodations they may need.
Put this statement on applications, registrations, and program announcements to find out if anyone needs accommodations:
Individuals with disabilities requiring accommodations or information on accessibility should contact Holly Aldrich (by phone at 617.349.8655, via Relay 711, or at disabilityaccess@lesley.edu).
3. Contact Disability Support Services if you receive an accommodations request.
If a participant notifies you, the event sponsor, of an accommodation they need, notify Lesley’s Disability Support Services Office immediately. Our ability to meet the participants’ needs depends on the timeliness of the request.
When there’s a request for access, including a change in location, Disability Support Services identifies an alternate venue that is accessible, or finds other means of providing access.
We’ll inform the event planner of the location change, or other steps taken to provide access.
Sign Language interpreters are booked weeks in advance. Pre-event publicity (including website) should encourage people who may need this service to notify a designated contact person by a set date.
4. Notify participants of event location changes.
If your event location is moved, you'll need to notify all participants of the location change. Update your website, contact known participants, and post a notice of the change in the venue of the original location.
5. Use visual access symbols in your event publicity.
Access symbols highlight accessibility information in your written event publicity. Download access symbols.
These guidelines are designed to help faculty, staff, and student organizations provide accessibility for their events. The goal is to facilitate the participation of people with disabilities. While the answer to every question may not be cut-and-dry, the key is to remain respectful, responsive, and flexible.
Student activities within residential life
This policy is intended to apply to all programs and services offered by the university. It's not intended to cover, nor could it realistically encompass, the range of student activities within residential life on campus, since many of these activities are largely, if not wholly, student-initiated, and many are also impromptu in nature.
We ask all resident students, however, to think about the principles of equal access reflected in this policy, even when this policy does not directly apply to an activity that they are initiating. Residents can contact Disability Support Services for help on how to provide accessibility for student-initiated events.