FAQ: Understanding PMC Students’ Accommodations Process

Students with disabilities must be registered with the Paul Menton Centre (PMC) before they can request accommodations through the Ventus Student Portal.

Once they have completed registration with PMC, we recommend that they request academic accommodations at the beginning of every term as a best practice.

For in-term tests or midterms, we recommend that they request accommodations at least14 calendar days before an upcoming test or midterm in the course.

For final exams, the deadlines to request accommodations are published in the University academic calendars for both undergraduate and graduate students.

This request is done at the course level, which includes exam and/or teaching accommodations they have selected from a list of approved template accommodations. 

You are seeing template accommodations that have been approved for the student during the intake appointment with their PMC coordinator. These template accommodations are intended to address functional impairments and disability barriers anticipated for the duration of a student’s academic studies if there are no changes to their disability status. We recommend that you meet with the student to discuss which of their template accommodations are applicable in your course. If you have any questions or concerns, please reach out to the student’s PMC Coordinator whose email can be found in the student’s LoA.

Template accommodations are based on a student’s functional impairments and determined during their intake appointment with a PMC coordinator. These template accommodations are intended to compensate for the anticipated impact of a student’s functional impairments on their academic studies. The accommodation process is dynamic. A student’s accommodations can be adjusted at any time if there is a change in their disability status or if they have a new disability diagnosis.

You will no longer receive individual Letters of Accommodation (LoA) by email from PMC coordinators. Instead, you will be notified by email about the first student who sets up accommodations in your course after which you will be able to view individual LoAs for subsequent PMC students in the Ventus Faculty Portal. You will only be able to see the LoAs of students who have requested accommodations for your course.

There is no deadline for registering with the Paul Menton Centre (PMC). Students are able to register with the PMC at any point during the term. As a best practice, we always recommend that students request accommodations early in the term. The majority of PMC students do request accommodations early in the term. However, we do get some accommodation requests late in the term due to a variety of reasons, most of which are due to extenuating circumstances, including any of the following:

• A newly diagnosed disability;
• A newly acquired temporary disability (e.g., broken arm) due to unexpected circumstances;
• Difficulty getting documentation to register with the PMC;
• Students are in the process of being assessed for a disability; or
• Students being referred to PMC by instructors and student services because of academic difficulties.

There are two potential explanations for this. They may have not requested accommodations for your course in Ventus or they may not have fully registered with Paul Menton Centre (PMC) to receive accommodations through Ventus. In either scenario, please direct them to their PMC Coordinator.

The identity of the student’s PMC coordinator and their contact information will be listed in the LoA. If this information is missing, please contact pmc@carleton.ca or 613-520-6608 to be connected to the student’s PMC coordinator.  As well, contact information for PMC coordinators can be found on our website under the PMC staff listing.