After an extensive search, the University's newly-created Student Disabilities Services office finally has a director.
Jerome Knast, a local psychologist, has been appointed to head up the office, which is a division of the office of the Vice Provost for University Life. Knast will run the program along with office coordinators Alice Nagle, Bill Sandberg and Troy Odom.
In order to find the new director, Associate Vice Provost for University Life Max King and his approximately 25 search committee members reviewed resumes and interviewed about a dozen candidates.
King said that after a long search process -- it took nearly a year to identify a person for the post -- Knast was an obvious choice.
"He has a very good reputation in the deaf community, so he understands the whole range of physical disabilities," King said. "Because of his private psychological practice, he is very well-versed in learning disabilities. He's a very good administrator."
With an extensive educational and employment background to boot, Knast appears ready to take on the task of making Penn's campus more accessible for disabled students.
Knast received his Ph.D. in rehabilitation from New York University and continued to work for 26 years in psychiatric hospitals, special education schools and in private practice. He has also performed a number of learning disabilities evaluations for Penn students.
The changes enacted by Knast and his staff will affect approximately 350 students this year, all of whom are covered under the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act.
Penn's student disability services were placed under an external review about two years ago, resulting in the recommendation to create a new office which would consolidate the previously scattered services.
King said he expects the change in structure to be a fairly small but positive step.
"Our first goal of course is to consolidate things and have them run smoothly," King said. "We don't expect any grand changes in the services we're offering."
Located in Suite 110 of Harnwell College House, SDS deals with a broad range of disability services. The office will provide quiet places to take exams, books on tape, wheelchair accessible classrooms and exam rooms, braille and large-print reading materials, sign language interpreters and computer-assisted real-time captioning.
The office will be a compilation of the counseling, psychological, learning disabilities and learning resources centers.
And Knast is working to expand on those services.
"What we've been trying to do is to make Student Disabilities Services as user-friendly as possible," Knast said. "This summer we spent a lot of time updating our Web site so that information... is available."
The office has also created electronic forms so that students who need exam accommodations or letters of explanation to professors can submit the requests electronically.
And beyond the services it offers, Knast wants to offer students peace of mind.
"We want students to know that the services of Student Disability Office is free to all students and that everything is completely confidential," Knast said. "We want to make sure that there is no stigma attached to having a disability on campus. We want to encourage universal design so that all classes are accessible."
