Manager, Program Access Compliance
Derek Coates is the campus Manager of ADA Disability Program Access. From 2019-current, Dr. Coates has managed communication access services (ASL, captions, and electronic access) for all university non-academic events and serves as the campuswide university resource on accessible activities and events. From 2020 to current, Dr. Coates has been the Administrative Lead on the Access2020 Project Self-Evaluation of all university programs, services, and activities (PSA). Dr. Coates currently conducts multiple campuswide training sessions on ADA Title II Technical Manual Sections upon request and assists departments, units and programs in making their PSA’s accessible to people with disabilities.
Dr. Coates has two Master’s Degrees (M.A.) in Sociology from the California State University, at Fullerton and the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. In 2003, Dr. Coates received his Ph.D. in Sociology from Wayne State University and was awarded an Ed Roberts Postdoctoral Fellow in Disability Studies at U.C. Berkeley as part of a National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research grant. Dr. Coates began his career at U.C. Berkeley in 2004 as the campus Disability Resolution Officer responding to discrimination complaints filed by students and the community against UC Berkeley. In 2006, Dr. Coates was awarded a Chancellor’s Outstanding Staff Award. In 2008, Dr. Coates was awarded a U.C. Berkeley Institute for Leadership and Development (BILD) grant to create the Disabled Staff Resource Network, a pre-cursor to the current Staff Alliance for Disability Access (SADA). In 2010, Dr. Coates served as the Discrimination Complaint Resolution Coordinator for Central Human Resources responding to discrimination complaints filed by staff. In 2014, Dr. Coates was appointed to be the campus Interim Disability Compliance Officer and in 2016, Dr. Coates was named the UC Berkeley Disability Compliance Officer. In 2017, Dr. Coates received the Chancellors Outstanding Staff Achievement Award. In 2018, Dr. Coates was awarded a second Staff Appreciation and Recognition SPOT award. Dr. Coates was awarded a Chancellor’s Outstanding Achievement Award in 2018.
Dr. Coates’ statement to undergraduate and graduate students is:
“You were not admitted to UC Berkeley because you have a disability. You were admitted because you successfully competed against your peers. You are Here because the UC Berkeley Admissions Committee believed you to be worthy and capable of earning a college degree from the number one public university in the United States.”
The same statement applies to staff hired at UC Berkeley:
“You were not hired at UC Berkeley because you have a disability. You were hired because you successfully competed against other applicants. You are Here because a UC Berkeley recruitment committee believed you to be worthy, capable, and qualified to be employed and contribute to the pursuit of the university mission of research, teaching and public service at the number one public university in the United States.”