Campus not so easily accessible

Melanie Anderson
Staff Writer
Dec. 2, 2004, Page 1

Picture your busiest day here at Doane. Now, take away your legs. How well would you do? Not sure? Neither was I, so I did exactly that- I took my legs right out from underneath me for 12 hours on my busiest day. What I discovered was not only an eye-opening experience, but also a frustrating, humbling and physically exhausting day. A day that left me thankful that I don’t have to spend every day at Doane in a wheelchair, because I don’t think I could do it.
I began my day at eight in the morning. I picked up a wheelchair in Nurse Kelly Jirovec’s office. According to the Jirovec, only one student on campus is currently wheelchair bound and that student has a motorized chair and a full time assistant.
I ran into my first difficulty when I tried to leave the building. There weren’t any buttons to open the doors. Looking around, I asked a person standing nearby to open the door and I was on the way.
My first class was in the Communications Building, on the bottom floor. I wheeled my way towards the one door into the building that isn’t either preceded or followed by a series of steps. I pressed the button to open the door near Heckman Auditorium and wheeled my way into a small hallway with a locked door. A service elevator sits behind that locked door, a service elevator that I only found out about by asking dozens of questions before my experiment.
In order to access the elevator, I had to ask a stranger in the hall to run down to the library and send someone up on the elevator to open the doors. The elevator is run by a key that only a few people have. The elevator is approximately four by five feet. My wheelchair wouldn’t fit going straight in, but turning it made it exceedingly difficult to get back out of it when the doors reopened on the bottom level in the library’s office.
My first class was in a lecture hall. I didn’t have any trouble getting into the class, but I had to remain in the very top row, unable to descend farther into the room because the only access is a set of stairs lining both sides of the room. So I simply plopped a book onto my lap and took my test on it. It was uncomfortable, but doable.
My next class was in Gaylord hall. I wheeled my way across campus on the sidewalks. I never fully appreciated the number of sloping hills between the two halls until that day. After almost ending up swimming with the swans, I finally learned how to control the chair going downhill. Going uphill was another story. If it wasn’t for the thoughtfulness of my fellow students, I never would have made it up several of the hills. Not only did I lack the upper arm strength to propel myself upward, but when I tried I almost tipped over backwards.
Gaylord Hall has a handicap accessible entrance. It is on the back of the building. In front of the door is a handicap parking space. A car was parked in that slot. I couldn’t get by it to get to the door. Other students had to help me get around it by tipping my chair up over the curb.
My next class was back in the Communications building and I made it back only by the good nature of some of my fellow students, especially Ebony Lawrence who gave me a much needed push when I was almost sure I was ready to give up and roll backwards down a hill and right into a tree. My Shakespeare class was in the same lecture hall as my earlier class. I prepared myself for another session of sitting too far away from the twelve students below me to hear the teacher’s voice, but I needn’t have done so; Robert Montgomery was in that class and didn’t feel it was fair for me to sit all that far away, so he came and picked me up and carried me down to a closer seat. This chivalrous and humorous, act left me smiling for quite some time.
By the end of the day I was completely exhausted. I barely made it back up the ramp to the Perry Campus Center at 9:00PM following my last class to turn the chair back in. It was so tempting about halfway across the Communications parking lot to just stand up and push, but I did stick it out to the very end.
There are several laws that are in place to protect individuals from discrimination because of physical ability. The Americans with Disabilities Act “prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability in employment, State and local government, public accommodations, commercial facilities, transportation, and telecommunications,” according to the ADA’s official website, www.ada.gov.
The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, or IDEA, goes beyond that to ensure that all schools that receive federal funds make it possible for every student to learn. Information on that law can be found at www.ed.gov.
The Architectural Barriers Act requires that new buildings must meet federal standards for accessibility, which Doane has done in its newer buildings and renovations like Whitcomb and Hansen. For more information on this act, contact the U.S. Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division.
A few days after my experience I paid a visit to Doane’s vice president of finance, Pappy Khouri, to discuss the difficulties I encountered. After describing my experience to him and outlining the difficulties I had, Khouri went through the problems one at a time with me to explain what the college could or would be willing to do if a student was actually placed in the position I put myself in.
“We are prepared to accommodate students in that situation,” Khouri said. He went on to explain that because we are a small school, we are capable of rearranging schedules of classes to make things easier for students. For example, if a student had a class in the art building, the entire class could be moved into a different building.
There are solutions to the more difficult problems, like the situation in the Communications Building, in the works. Khouri explained that there is a five-year plan for the Communications Building in which a new elevator will be installed in the education workroom and which will go all the way up to the third floor.
Khouri went on to say that the art building situation could be remedied in as soon as two years if the funding comes through on the new education and art building. The college has almost reached the halfway mark on its funding goal for that building. After the new building is constructed the current plan is to raze the old art building.
Smaller issues, like the sidewalk entrances and soap dispensers were acknowledged by Khouri, and he assured me that he will look at it and that they will change it if they find the current situation lacking.
If any student on campus has a problem with access, Khouri is the one to go to. “I’d be the one to ultimately help,” Khouri said.
It isn’t only those in wheelchairs that find Doane to be difficult. Students like Amanda Brakhage, who wound up on crutches after a soccer injury, find the campus to be problematic as well.
“Getting around on crutches was very difficult,” Brakhage said, “Especially living in Sheldon with no elevator. Stairs were very difficult and somewhat dangerous but I really didn’t have a choice. The hills on campus were also very fun, those were always a joy going up while carrying my books. For the most part people were more than willing to help me out, as far as carrying my tray for meals & opening doors.”
It was the spirit of the people at Doane who made it all bearable for Brakhage.
“It was amazing to have complete strangers offer to help me out or just give me words of encouragement throughout the whole time,” Brakhage said.
There are people other than students that could have problems with the handicap accessibility at Doane. Some students have parents who visit and have trouble getting up to their child’s dorm rooms. Khouri said that this really couldn’t be helped right now, although he regrets that it is the way it is.