SDSU-IV inaugurates Student Accommodation Services Center
CALEXICO — San Diego State University Imperial Valley (SDSU-IV) inaugurated its Student Accommodation Services Center (SASC) with a ribbon cutting ceremony on Wednesday, March 8.
“The SASC is important because it is a final acknowledgment that we are a program that is here to stay,” SASC Coordinator Norma Aguilar said.
Aguilar said the program has grown over the years; from not having many services and having a chair and table to getting computers and materials, to now inaugurating a designated space inside the library.
“About a year and a half we finally got assigned a specific budget allocation for our department,” Aguilar said.
The center’s mission
“is dedicated to empowering students with disabilities by ensuring they have access to appropriate support and services that minimize academic and physical barriers,” according to an informational brochure.
Among the SASC support services and accommodations include academic advising, assistive technology services, note takers, test accommodations, blind and low vision services, deaf and hard of hearing services, library and study room access, and on-campus cart services, according to the brochure.
The SASC allows students to relax, work on assignments and have their exams proctored in a stress-free ambiance. The center supports students with all types of abilities, whether temporary or persistent, per the brochure.
Aguilar said this center not only helps students but they are legally entitled to accommodation services.
“You have to accommodate people, and it’s important to create awareness so that families can also learn to defend and protect their families’ rights because they don’t know a lot about disabilities,” Aguilar said.
Former SASC student worker and SDSU-IV alumni Jorge Lopez assisted with coordinating and taking notes for a student.
“I feel the experience changed me in a very impactful way,” Lopez said.
Lopez said while he was looking for a job circa 2019, he joined SASC but later realized he could help students. He took notes for a student who had a visual disability and remembered learning how she had to navigate through campus.
He started noticing the accessibility in the campus surroundings by helping the student.
Later, Lopez had an administrative role at SASC and kept helping the student.
“She was reliant on me to be her eyes,” Lopez said.
He now works as a legal assistant and has seen the growth of SASC.
“It seems like they can handle more students at a time now they’ve been given their own space, which is nice because if you’ve seen the office that they used to work at before, it was a very small space,” Lopez said.
“More people are working for it now, they’ve got in their own space, and the school seems to have been more willing to allocate money to changing things where you’re trying to make everything more accessible to everyone,” Lopez said.
SASC student assistant Angela Piña started working with the center in 2019 as a note taker and assisted a class at the SDSU-IV Brawley campus.
“Compared to when I first started there has been so much growth,” Piña said, “and because of the advocacy of a lot of staff who have helped us along the way, we are very grateful for them.”
SASC is committed to promoting self- advocacy among students with disabilities, working collaboratively with the SDSU-IV community to increase disability awareness, and providing academic support services and assistive technology, per the brochure.
“Spaces are important to make and build communities, to bring people closer together,” Piña said.
She said this space is important for students to make sure they are welcome and comfortable.
“I think it’s important for people to take a moment and try to understand what it’s like to live in a world where things are not readily available or accessible to you,” Aguilar said.
“And then maybe they would be more understanding and have a better perspective because you don’t know what a person’s going through,” Aguilar said.