On-Campus Residency Requirements

Special housing accommodations are not standard academic accommodations. To determine if special housing is a reasonable accommodation, we must receive detailed current and comprehensive documentation of the correlations of your disability with the need for special housing that cannot be secured through the Housing Room Selection Process.

A major part of the educational experience is for students to learn to live on their own. D’Youville University provides on-campus housing to enhance intellectual, social, and cultural development through the experience of living with other individuals who bring a variety of social and cultural backgrounds to the community.

Please note that requests for single rooms based on a student’s desire to have a “quiet, undisturbed place to study” are not considered eligible under the Americans with Disabilities Act or Section 504. By virtue of the shared facilities, resources, and number of people living under one roof in the residence halls, a single room does not provide for such quiet, distraction-free space to any appreciable degree beyond living in a standard double room.

Reasonable Accommodations:

• Disability accommodations are deemed “Reasonable”, under Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, if they are necessary to ensure equal access to the same opportunities as provided to all students.
• Accommodations are not considered Reasonable if they are merely to improve chances of success. The University certainly wants all of its students to succeed, however now that the student is an adult, success is the responsibility of the student, not the institution.
• Disability accommodations are only appropriate when there is a barrier to equal access.
• Accommodations are Reasonable when they include the student in the same opportunities everyone else has. Accommodations are not reasonable if they let students with disabilities out of the responsibilities or expectations the University holds for everyone else.

What does Access vs. Success mean when it comes to campus housing?

Access ensures that all students are able to receive the educational opportunities provided by the University. Success is considered when the requested accommodation would be helpful or desirable and could improve chances of success — especially when the student’s disability makes these situations more difficult. But, generally speaking, when no student has access to the opportunity requested, the request is generally regarded as a fundamental alteration to the housing program, and legally not considered “Reasonable”.

Students who are expecting a large degree of privacy and solitude may need to rethink whether the housing program is the best choice. While solitude and privacy are essential parts of the educational process, living in the housing community involves being able to negotiate with other students to ensure everyone's needs are respected. Students who are not committed to living in a community should reconsider housing as an option.

While the committee will review requests for single rooms, the provision of a single room as an accommodation is not common. Single rooms are not guarantees of privacy or of a quiet environment. Single rooms are also not guarantees of an allergen-free environment. A single room will not prevent a student from having to interact and negotiate living arrangements with other students, such as alone time, sleep patterns, and study schedules. Bathrooms are shared but are designed with single use facilities, meaning showers, toilets, and sinks are meant to be used by only one person at a time.

It is important to realize that students often receive the housing placement they want simply from going through the housing application process. Thus, even if the committee does not agree that a particular housing placement is a reasonable accommodation, the student may still receive that placement from the housing office based on availability, application priority, and other factors.