Strehorn returns to campus as LDSS director

by Sarah R. Buchholz, Chronicle staff

Kregg Strehorn (Stan Sherer photo)

regg Strehorn has traveled widely between his stints at UMass. The new director of Learning Disability Support Services (LDSS) worked as a case manager at LDSS during the final three years of his Ph.D. work on this campus. He left Massachusetts just over four years ago to take on a doctoral internship at the University of Oregon on his way to receiving a Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology.

     He stayed on in Oregon as a private-practice therapist and as a career counselor at the University of Oregon. In Oregon, he began his work as a psychological consultant to the sports psychologist to the Boston Red Sox minor league system. After leaving Oregon, he became an associate professor at the British American School of English in Czestochowa, Poland, and then a professor of English and anthropology at Universidad Catolica de Temuco, in Chile, where he also consulted with campus departments regarding mental health and disability issues.

     Living in Poland in a town with only four or five native English speakers was instructive, he said.

     "It was a neat experience, living in a culture where I didn't speak the language. There was a lot to learn about isolation and being different."

     Strehorn replaces Diane Campbell, who served as acting director of LDSS last year. Campbell now directs Boston's Benefiting Exceptional Students Together program, which serves students with intensive special needs.

     Strehorn said he is happy to be back in the area.

     "I really wanted to come back to the Valley," he said. "After growing up in California, the seasons here are so amazing."

     LDSS is working to keep its policies in line with often-changing national guidelines, he said. The office wants to help faculty stay on top of their legal obligations, as well, he said.

     "When students have a documented disability, by law they need these accommodations. We need help proctoring and putting reading material on audio tape. We're hoping that we'll have a University-wide proctoring policy."

     LDSS arranges for about 20 tests a week to be proctored, he said, but during midterms and finals that number can quadruple.
"It's quite complicated," he said.

     "We're asking faculty to work more closely with our office to get reading material on tape."

     Strehorn said because getting a book onto tape can take weeks, it's crucial for his office to get textbook lists as far ahead of the semester as possible, so it can begin the process of accommodation.

     "We're getting our Web page up for campus but also for students who are about to enroll and for parents and guidance counselors," he said.

     He hopes the office will have some of its crucial information on the Web, including forms, by December or January, he said.

     "Students are coming in better prepared than ever [to navigate services available]," he said. "High schools are doing a better job at educating them."

     Still, he said, students often have unrealistically high expectations of what the University can offer them.

     "The difference between services at the high school level and post-secondary level are big," he said.

     And his office works to ensure only students with documented use University resources.

     "We're more careful about the documentation that students need to receive services," he said.