The Student Disability Services Office (SDS) started with just 25 students in 1997. As of December 2024, SDS had grown to serve 734 Butler students with disabilities (and counting!). That represents around 13% of the total student population, making students with disabilities one of the largest diverse populations on campus!
Our mission is to ensure that every student with a disability has equal access to a college education; SDS is committed to accessibility. We work with students individually to ensure that the supports they receive provide equal access to their education in a way that acknowledge their specific needs.
SDS supports disability as an aspect of diversity in a myriad of ways for Butler students, faculty, and staff, including:
- running a bustling testing center for students with exam accommodations
- providing assistive technology tools and software for students with specific needs
- working to improve the accessibility of campus, including both the digital and physical spaces
- working one-on-one with students who need support with self-advocacy or transition into college
- collaborating with ability-related student organizations on campus to support the advocacy side of accessibility
- facilitating disability awareness programming across campus
Opportunities for Support
SDS strives to provide a comfortable, stress-free space for students to take accommodated exams, and with over 700 students, that space can get dated and worn over time.
Last year, Day of Giving funds helped us start sprucing up our space through the purchase of new, more comfortable chairs for our students to use in the SDS Testing Center!
This year, we hope to continue revitalizing our space by replacing the very old carpeting in the SDS Testing Center where students take their accommodated exams.
We also plan to begin work on the creation of a pre-orientation program for students with disabilities. This could allow those students to move onto campus a few days earlier in August and give them the opportunity to work directly with SDS staff to orient to campus and navigating the transition to college.
SDS provides various assistive technology and software tools, including text to speech software for those with learning disabilities. These technologies have allowed students to access their reading materials and improve their academic outcomes, and we hope to expand the number of SDS students who have access to this software.
Student Reflections on SDS as part of their Butler journey:
Jennah Worthington ’23, Allan Schneider ’22, Hannah Stigter ‘22
Jennah Worthington ’23: ‘With SDS, I was able to complete exams feeling much more relaxed and confidence in my answers, since I did not need to rush.”
Allan Schneider ’22: “None of [the success he achieved in his psychology program] would have been possible without [the] SDS office who were always there to help and provide a comfortable and safe atmosphere for all students.”
Hannah Stigter ’22: “By having the accommodations that I had, I was able to successfully apply study techniques and feel like I was set up for success in each of my classes.”
Visit our SDS Alumni Page to learn more about where these graduates are in their career journeys today as well as to read more alumni stories.
