Mission
Otero College’s Accessibility Services Office is committed to providing equitable access to education and fostering an inclusive learning environment for students with disabilities. Otero College understands the profound value of diversity and aims to actively engage with all stakeholders to create an environment where everyone’s unique abilities are celebrated.
Vision
Otero’s Accessibility Services Office envisions Otero College as a campus that is fully inclusive of all people with disabilities that recognizes and celebrates their unique experiences and contributions.
Values
Otero’s Accessibility Services Office believes that disability is a natural facet of diversity, and we value inclusion and the lived experience of students with disabilities. Per Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, “No otherwise qualified individual with a disability in the United States…shall, solely by reason of their disability, be excluded from the participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance”.
Definitions
Major life activities include, but are not limited to, caring for oneself, performing manual tasks, seeing, hearing, eating, sleeping, walking, standing, lifting, bending, speaking, breathing, learning, reading, concentrating, thinking, communicating, and working.
Physical or mental impairment includes, but is not limited to:
- any physiological disorder or condition, cosmetic disfigurement, or anatomical loss affecting one or more of the following body systems: neurological; musculoskeletal; special sense organs; respiratory, including speech organs; cardiovascular; reproductive; digestive; genitourinary; hemic and lymphatic; skin; and endocrine; or
- any mental or psychological disorder, such as an intellectual disability, organic brain syndrome, emotional or mental illness, and specific learning disabilities.
A qualified student with a disability is any student who: (1) has a physical or mental impairment which substantially limits one or more of such a person’s major life activities, (2) has a record of such impairment; or (3) is regarded as having such impairment.
Reasonable accommodation includes any modification or adjustment that can be made without lowering or substantially modifying essential requirements of a course or academic program; fundamentally altering the nature of a service, program, or activity; posing an undue financial or administrative burden on the College; or posing a direct threat to the health or safety of others.
Substantially limits means unable to perform a major life activity that the average person in the general population can perform, or significantly restricted as to the condition, manner or duration under which an individual can perform a major life activity as compared to the condition, manner, or duration under which the average person in the general population can perform that same major life activity.
Accessibility Services Contact
Frida Beyerl
Accessibility Services Coordinator
(719) 384-6963
frida.beyerl@otero.edu
Learning Commons 118
Semester Hours:
M - Th: 11:00 am - 8:00 pm
F - 9:00 am - 4:00 pm