Assessment of Campus Climate to Enhance Student Success (ACCESS)

Introduction
The importance of the assessment of campus climate
Overview of service offerings

Introduction

AHEAD is pleased to be offering a crucial service and research initiative under the direction of Dr. Susan Vogel that offers institutions of higher education (IHE) the opportunity to actively gather and utilize valuable information regarding the assessment of campus climate for students with disabilities at their institution. This information will also contribute to the collection of data from numerous IHEs that will assist IHEs in interpreting their findings and serve as the basis for a powerful and much-needed database to be used for purposes of broad-based national and international research and benchmarking. This groundbreaking service and research initiative is called Assessing Campus Climate to Enhance Student Success (ACCESS).

ACCESS collects data on, and provides information about, IHEs campus climate with regard to students with disabilities through the implementation of four questionnaires, each of which is specifically designed to gather crucial information from four impacting populations within the institution:

•	faculty,
•	administrators and staff,
•	students who do not identify as having a disability (students without disabilities),
•	students who identify as having a disability (students with disabilities).

The questionnaires for faculty, staff, and students without disabilities include questions addressing the following topical areas:

•	Familiarity and contact with students with different types of disabilities
•	Knowledge about disabilities
•	Knowledge about the legal mandates pertaining to disabilities in higher education
•	Knowledge about accommodations and willingness to provide them
•	Practices regarding creating a welcoming classroom and institution environment
•	Fairness of providing teaching, examination, and/or policy accommodations
•	Development and/or dissemination of policies and accommodations
•	Assessment of individuals with disabilities’ ability to be effective in their academic endeavors and chosen careers
•	Topics of interest regarding future staff development activities
•	Preferred method of delivery of staff development opportunities

The Students with Disabilities Questionnaire, asks respondents to assess the faculty, administrators, and staff on the topics pertaining to knowledge and willingness, (see above) and report on their practices.

The importance of the assessment of campus climate

The overall goal of the ACCESS program is to enhance academic success of students with disabilities. ACCESS was developed to assist IHE’s in creating more fully-inclusive environments for students with disabilities by enhancing knowledge and changing practices and attitudes of key individuals in the campus environment. The underlying assumption is that students with disabilities are more likely to achieve academic success in a welcoming and fully-inclusive accessible environment.

There are several additional reasons to assess campus climate pertaining to disabilities. One of the most frequently cited is to assist institutions engaged in annual evaluations because of the need to know how well an institution is meeting the needs of all students including students of diverse backgrounds; diversity includes students with disabilities.

Annual IHE evaluations typically include data regarding enrollment, retention, attrition, and graduation rates. Based on these findings, institutions often need to implement strategies to enhance outcomes for students with disabilities which include assisting faculty (and sometimes administration and staff as well) in meeting the needs of students with disabilities. Reponses to ACCESS provide institutions with information about the campus climate for students with disabilities based on self-reported knowledge, practices, and attitude of all those who play a role in students’ academic lives on campus. ACCESS also provides all respondents with an opportunity to express their interest in acquiring more information and how to acquire this information. Research has shown that increased knowledge and experience can change practices and attitudes. The information provided by the respondents to these questionnaires is the catalyst to changing campus climate.

Problems can also arise on a campus because of a lack of information regarding mandates pertaining to disabilities and/or lack of compliance with these mandates. Incentive mounts for an institution to take positive steps to address such problems when there may be a lawsuit and/or a visit from the Office for Civil Rights threatened. When this occurs, an immediate response and proactive approach are required in order to determine and remedy the identified problems. The four questionnaires that make up ACCESS are designed to identify the problems and ways to remedy them.

Regardless of the initial motivation to assess your campus climate, ACCESS provides IHE’s with the tools to take a proactive approach in creating a more inclusive and welcoming campus climate, one in which students with disabilities can enjoy equality of opportunity and a facilitative learning environment in which to achieve the highest possible level of postsecondary success.

Overview of service offerings

This fee-for-service program is offered to AHEAD members and member institutions on a cost-recovery basis.

AHEAD provides:

•	A comprehensive guide-book and accompanying CD-Rom that provide background information, research, sample reports, strategies to raise awareness and enhance return rate, and instructions for implementing the assessment on a step-by-step basis on your campus;
•	fully-accessible, secure, anonymous, user-friendly online questionnaires;
•	data storage, “cleaning,” and output of usable data sets for follow up analysis and reference;
•	data code books and narrative compilations (respondents’ comments) for each data set;
•	advanced consultation including recommendations for improvement, strategies for implementing change, and recommendations regarding “next steps” for the IHEs

The contracting institution:

•	Contracts with AHEAD to collaborate on the use of ACCESS and contribute its data to the benchmarking effort;
•	Establishes an institutional collaborative cross-cultural team to initiate and guide this effort:
•	Acquires institutional financial resources and approval for data collection;
•	Promotes the data collection effort;
•	Acquires access to email addresses of all recipients of the questionnaires
•	Works with the institution to email letters to all prospective respondents
•	Recruits appropriate individuals to participate in answering the questionnaires;
•	Conducts follow-up activities after data collection period ends;

Service includes:

•	The comprehensive Suggestions for Using ACCESS and accompanying CD-Rom that provide background information, sample reports and research, and instructions for implementing the assessment on your campus;
•	Up to 45 days of live access to the fully-accessible, secure, anonymous, user-friendly online questionnaires;
•	data storage, “cleaning,” and output of usable data sets for follow up analysis and reference;
•	data code books and narrative compilations for each data set.

The costs associated with ACCESS is based on the number of instruments utilized. Instrument/Data Service can be purchased in the following configurations:

Questionnaires and Data Configuration	AHEAD Members	Non-members
Package A
Faculty, Administrators & Staff, Students with Disabilities, and Students without Disabilities (4 questionnaires strongly recommended)	$ 2,000.00	$3,000.00
Package B
Faculty, Students with and without Disabilities (3 questionnaires)	$1,400.00	$2,200.00
Package C
Faculty, Administrators & Staff (2 questionnaires)	$1,200.00	$1,800.00
Package D
Faculty (1 questionnaire)	$600.00	$850.00
Package E
Administrators and Staff (1 questionnaire)	$600.00	$850.00
Package F
Students with and without Disabilities (2 questionnaires)	$800.00	$1,000.00