Rick Nelson has to sit in the “crip ghetto,” the handicap- accessible seating that clusters people with disabilities together on the first level, when he attends football and basketball games at the University of Florida.
Nelson, a UF alum and coordinator in the UF Office for Students with Disabilities (OSD), does not consider Ben Hill Griffin Stadium and the Stephen C. O’Connell Center accessible.
“Until [people with disabilities] have seating all around, at several levels, I can’t call it 100 percent accessible,” he said. Nelson suffers from a form of muscular dystrophy and has used a wheelchair for most of his life.
Universities across the United States are grappling with the issue of disability access on campus. “I see problems everywhere — UF, Florida State University, University of Georgia,” said Nelson. “It’s universal.”
The problems at many universities commonly are large campuses, faculty and student attitude and lack of money. But, schools also are coming up with ways to combat them all.
Both UF and Texas A&M have large student bodies, similar to LSU. Texas A&M works hard to make all of its programs accessible, but “the campus is very large and that is usually the problem,” says Anne Reber, A&M’s assistant director of Student Life and head of Student Life’s Services for Students with Disabilities. “If I’m in a wheelchair or I’m blind, it can be a problem because of sheer distance.”
Nelson concurs. “Our number one issue is the size of campus,” he says. “Someone with a mobility limiting disability finds it difficult to get across campus in the 15 minutes between classes.”
Another problem on college campuses isn’t necessarily one that limits physical access. Reber often sees professors’ attitudes about disabilities as an obstacle. “The problem is there are so many professors to deal with,” says Reber. “The professors feel in power, and the students feel that they can’t do anything.”
Reber often finds it necessary to have person-to-person discussions with faculty if students have persistent problems.
Carol Burrowridge, a learning disability specialist in the OSD office at UF, believes professors make assumptions that the OSD is for visible disabilities only. “Sometimes the professors need to be educated,” she says.
Students’ attitudes often run along the same lines as professors’. “When it’s a disability you can see, the attitudes of other students are great,” says Reber. “But, if it’s health impairments or mental illness, it’s different. Students doubt that it exists, and the disabled students have to prove themselves.”
While universities can do little about widespread campuses, many are taking steps to educate faculty members and students.
Almost every university maintains a Web site detailing the services they offer, including Texas A&M, UF, University of Southern California, University of California — Los Angeles, University of Wisconsin — Madison and the University of Arizona, all of which have wide-ranging Web sites covering the difficulties students with disabilities face.
The Web sites have information for faculty, including definitions of all disabilities and strategies for coping with disabilities in the classroom, as well as tips for students with disabilities for dealing with professors, getting classrooms changed, taking tests and applying for scholarships specifically for students with disabilities.
Disability Services offices print pamphlets for students and faculty, hold faculty in-services and speak at freshman orientation to let students know the services are out there and let faculty know they have a place to turn as well.
Many schools have unique programs for students. The UF OSD supplies blind students with books on tape through a program called “Vocal Eyes.” Student volunteers record textbooks in borrowed studios on free studio time while, at USC, students with disabilities act as peer mentors to freshman students with disabilities.
Some universities want students with disabilities to be able to speak up for themselves. At A&M, Reber concentrates on “educating students on how to educate faculty members” and trying to solve problems without relying solely on the Student Affairs office.
Her staff all follow the same philosophy — they are not going to throw students out on their own, but instead give them the power to educate and advocate for themselves. She often sees students whose parents have done all their advocating for them and haven’t learned to do it on their own.
The Tulane Office of Disability Services’ Web site supports the same idea. “In the college environment, communication is the responsibility of the student,” the site reports. “At ODS, we view the process of accommodating as a collaborative process between the student and the University.”
The offices that serve students with disabilities have seen positive results as a product of increased awareness. At UF, Burrowridge has witnessed a sharp increase in the number of students using the OSD services in the past six years, from 385 students in 1994-95 to 931 students in 2000-01.
Burrowridge attributes the increase trend to the growing number of college students with disabilities. “Students not only know about us and use us, but a number of people with learning disabilities realize that [their disability] doesn’t mean they can’t go to college,” she says.
One innovation several schools, including UF, UCLA and A&M have implemented is the creation of an office specifically for ADA Compliance.
At UF, the problem of ADA compliance used to fall on the shoulders of Ken Osfield when he was an assistant dean in OSD. But, when the job of working with students and facilitating ADA compliance became too much for one person, UF broke the position into two.
Now Osfield is the ADA Coordinator, working in an arm of the University separate from OSD, which falls under the Dean of Students’ office. Osfield works on policy, process and facility design across the University, as well as handling accommodations for employees.
As ADA Coordinator, Osfield has a lot of power at UF. “Nothing gets built unless I approve it,” says Osfield. “All the recommendations I have made are done. If they don’t, the building doesn’t get built.”
UF has construction standards that go beyond ADA compliance, such as automatic door openers. UF policy states all buildings must have an automatic door opener, where ADA says only that the door must open at a certain weight per foot.
“We’ve got contractors who can’t seem to build a handicapped restroom, so they have to redo it when [the ADA Compliance office] goes in and says it’s not right, at no cost to us,” says Osfield.
Large universities often run into financing problems when it comes to making campus accessible, but Osfield has found a way around that by threatening to shut down buildings not renovated to obey ADA compliance. “We are extremely wealthy on paper,” says Osfield. “Money is never an issue when doing renovations. If something is going to be cut, then cut the fancy rug in the dean’s office.”
Although the UF Board of Regents has told him it would cost $250 million to fix everything on campus, Osfield believes he could do it with $7 million. “What you have to look at is public space,” Osfield says. “You don’t have to make the closet in a private office accessible.”
Osfield believes all universities should be able to find the money for compliance. “If someone says LSU or UF has no money to do ADA compliance, they are out of their mind,” says Osfield.
Osfield gives the example that the UF Foundation is worth $850 million, and anyone who sued the University could pull apart every part of the Foundation budget and find the money for compliance.
UCLA’s Chancellor’s ADA and 504 Compliance Office has been operating since 1986.
One of the things it does is coordinate the Reasonable Accommodation Program, a financing source designed to help a campus department provide accommodation to an employee with a disability.
The ADA and 504 office also has worked to create disability access to all but two of the 100 buildings on campus. The office is in the planning stages for future renovations to the interior of buildings.
Although many universities have made significant progress in the struggle for full disability access, many believe no institution will be able to provide total physical access.
“There is always something,” Reber says. “I don’t know if [A&M] will ever be 100 percent accessible.”
Osfield agrees. “If you look at top public institutions, we are probably all the same,” he says. “If they don’t have a goal of making everything 100 percent accessible, they are off whack. But there is always something to be done. No one is 100 percent accessible.”