Founded in 1836, Emory University in Atlanta, GA enrolls over 7,000 students annually, with first- and second-year students required to live on campus. To support its disabled student population, Emory, a private institution, turned to Symplicity Accommodate to streamline its case management system to meet its accommodation requests.
Situation
At the helm of managing accommodation requests is Allison Butler, Director of Accessibility Services and ADA Compliance Officer. For more than six years, Dr. Butler has ensured that Emory’s students and faculty with disabilities are provided with an accommodation plan and accommodation requests are handled properly. Managing the accommodation requests was time consuming—the process required manual entry into an online spreadsheet and the intake process required a lot of back and forth that needed to be streamlined. So, looking for a way to streamline and easily work collaboratively as a department, Emory in January 2020 adopted Symplicity Accommodate.
Solution
Looking for a centralized system to support accommodation requests, student intake notes, and case management, Symplicity Accommodate was the best solution to meet Emory’s institutional needs. “The case management piece of Accommodate was huge,” said Dr. Butler. “Having to go back and forth in Excel for an intake process, uploading documents to a shared drive, and more was a headache. The fact that everything could be housed in Accommodate was a dream for us.”
During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Emory University relied on Accommodate to provide seamless case management support. To train, update procedures, and train additional staff, Emory has utilized the Symplicity Help Center alongside webinar trainings. Additionally, Accommodate has helped Dr. Butler and her staff to eliminate unnecessary paperwork so they don’t have to ‘chase down paperwork.” Staff members can cross collaborate using the Accommodate notes feature to ensure any staff member that meets with a student is on the same page.
"Having to go back and forth in Excel for an intake process, uploading documents to a shared drive, and more was a headache. The fact that everything could be housed in Accommodate was a dream for us."
Dr. Allison Butler
Director of Accessibility Services and ADA Compliance Officer, Emory University
Success
Since adopting Accommodate, Emory has been able to better manage electronic records and bring them “up to date.” To get them there, Emory relied on Symplicity’s support team that got them from implementation to launch. “Everyone was really awesome and helpful in walking us through launching the system campus wide… helping us navigate certain challenges that we experienced in onboarding,” Dr. Butler said. “We definitely needed their support, especially transitioning to the pandemic and the support was really, really nice to have.”
"Everyone was really awesome and helpful in walking us through launching the system campus wide… helping us navigate certain challenges that we experienced in onboarding"
Dr. Allison Butler
Director of Accessibility Services and ADA Compliance Officer, Emory University
With Accommodate, Emory has been able to be more creative with its student engagement. Now, with more streamlined processes and a better case management system, Emory’s Department of Accessibility Services has created a division that manages more student support such as peer mentoring, alongside an advisory group. Today, Dr. Butler has three dedicated staff members who can provide an additional layer of support to help students navigate their university experience led by the Assistant Director, Jackie Reese.
