Disability Services Sees Increase of Emotional Support Animal Requests

Tennessee Tech Office of Disability Services reports an increase in emotional support animal requests over the past years.

Chester Goad is the Director of Disability Services.

“We have seen an increase in the last few years. You know, through the years in disability-related services there are always trends and trending topics. It really just depends on what is going on in current events at the time and different laws and regulations that are passing,” Goad said. “So our numbers have definitely started to increase. Well, let’s put it this way, the number of students requesting emotional support animals is increasing greatly.”

Goad said that even though the requests continue to increase, the number of approved animals has increased minimally.

“We have a little over 400 students that we serve through the office that receive a variety of disability-related services,” Goad said. “And then as far as students who are requesting and receiving and are active, we probably have approximately around twenty or so typically that are students who have qualified for emotional support animal on campus.”

Students who wish to have an emotional support animal must follow an approval process.

First, students request approval through the Disability Services with a diagnosis from a clinical psychologist, Goad said.

“So they would provide us with the diagnosis from their provider and that provider is going to provide us with a typically really clear description of the impact,” Goad said. “And the functional limitations that result from the disability that would require, or provide a reason for having an emotional support animal. But then we have a second step. We also have a subcommittee, a housing committee, that determines if this is a reasonable request or not.”

The year and semester also affect the number of emotional support animals on campus, Goad said.

Emotional support animals are not considered service animals under the law, Goad said.

“A service animal goes wherever that individual goes. It is sort of a part of that person and makes sure they are receiving access to where they need to go. So a service animal does a task,” Goad said. “Emotional support animal doesn’t really do a task per se. It is typically more related to emotion and feeling and anxiety and those types of things.”

The Fair Housing Act protects the use of emotional support animals on campus, but emotional support animals have to stay at the residence.

Goad said over the years Tech has allowed plenty of different emotional support animals.

“We have had rabbits, we have had guinea pigs. We have had dogs, of course, cats and things like that. I’d say dogs and cats are the most common,” Goad said. “In some cases a reptile. There are only two kinds of service animals. It’s a dog or a miniature horse.”