Services for Students with Disabilities

In 1971, the Committee on Aid to Disabled Students, a student-oriented group, was created by the Student Government Council. Two years later there was enough funding to launch Disabled Student Services under the Office of Student Services. According to a booklet called “Meeting the Challenge: A Guide to Barrier Free Learning,” Disabled Student Services provided  “the services necessary to integrate students with disabilities into the academic, social, and cultural life of the University and Ann Arbor communities. It offers assistance in locating readers, interpreters, attendant care, and accessible housing.”

The booklet covered physical and mental conditions, and provided a glossary of related terms in the back to people who may not have been familiar with them.

In 1989, the office was renamed Services for Students with Disabilities. The change in the order of words reflected how myths and misinformation about how people with disabilities could function in day to day life were just as difficult to overcome as infrastructural barriers.