This semester, Jason Durtschi is taking notes for more than just the midterm.
Working with the Center for Disability Services, Durtschi, a graduate student in social work, is a note taker for U students with hearing or cognitive disabilities.
The note-taking program is a service that helps students with documented disabilities receive the same educational opportunities by having student volunteers take notes for them.
Durtschi got involved as a note taker when two of his professors announced the opportunity to help out another student in the class.
“I thought this would be a great opportunity to help someone out and to make a little extra money to pay for my recent impulse buy-an iPod,” he said.
Volunteers earn $50 a semester through the center for taking notes.
The only requirement is legible handwriting and the willingness to help others learn, said Heather Jensen, coordinator of deaf services at the center.
“It is a really simple program. All students have to do is fill out a contract saying they’ll attend class and take notes,” Jensen said. “The disability center provides the paper and copies so students can simply come by anytime and drop off the notes.”
Volunteer note takers can now also type notes on their laptops and send them via e-mail to the students through the center.
Because e-mailed notes cut out the expense of paper and copies, this new procedure allows the center to pay students $75 instead of $50 per semester for note taking.
But it isn’t usually just about the money.
“It’s a fantastic opportunity to make a small difference, and it raises awareness that we all have fellow classmates who struggle with something as seemingly basic as note taking,” Durtschi said.
Durtschi said the best part is that the program is easy and rewarding.
“I take notes on my laptop anyway,” he said. Taking notes for someone else “has motivated me to come to class everyday, and I’ve learned to take better notes,” he said.
Despite the ease and rewards of the program, many requests for note takers go unfilled every year.
Currently, the center has more than 150 requests for note takers and receives approximately four to five new requests each day, said coordinator Suzanne Eastmond.
Of these requests, approximately half have yet to be filled, she said.
Jensen believes the requests go unfilled simply because students and professors don’t understand the program.
Sometimes professors announce the program once and then forget about it, she said.
People interested in joining the program can visit the CDS Web site at disability.utah.edu and listen for announcements made in class, Jensen said.
