Vassar facilities present obstacles for disabled students

Sara Wilf Guest Writer

When Laura Sousa ’10 came back to Vassar in Spring 2008, she was in a wheelchair because of a recent leg surgery that had left her in bed for three months. On the first day of classes she called Security at 2:45 p.m. to pick her up for a 3:10 p.m. class in Skinner Hall. She waited for over 20 minutes until the Security van finally came at 3:10.

“He drove me over to Skinner,” Sousa explained. “I get in the building, already worried because I knew the class had already started, and the class was on the fourth floor. The elevator was broken. This was a week after I had stopped using the wheelchair, and my leg was not strong enough to go up stairs.”

Because there was no alternative, Sousa painstakingly worked her way up four flights of stairs with all of her books, only to arrive in a packed classroom where the professor was already lecturing.

“So much for making a subtle entrance,” said Sousa. “Obviously the entire class noticed I was late and there were no seats left, so some really nice person got up to give me her seat.

People had to get up and go and find another seat. I interrupted the entire class, had to stop the professor’s lecture and I was the person who was late on the first day of class,” she said.

Sousa grew even more frustrated when she found that Security was consistently unreliable in getting her to classes and meetings on time. “I understand it’s not Security’s primary job to escort students, but if they tell students that they can provide medical transport, they should be able to within a reasonable amount of time,” she said.

Jennie Msall ’10, who broke her leg last October and was on crutches until January, also had difficulties accessing the buildings on Vassar’s campus.

“They decided to shut down the elevator in Main Building the last month I was on crutches here, which meant I had to go in by the Student Employment Office, just farther to go on crutches,” said Msall. “I had to get classrooms changed from New England Building to be in Rockefeller Hall, where there’s an elevator,” she said.

“The major issue is that there are so many buildings without elevators, like the dorms have no elevators,” explained Jessica Belasco ’10. “That means that someone who can’t climb stairs cannot visit their friends in those dorms at all. There have been times that I’ve had to go to someone’s room on the fourth floor, and I’m huffing and puffing trying to get up there.”

Belasco uses a motorized scooter because walking tires her easily, and she has also found it difficult to get around campus—one time she was stuck in the bookstore after the elevator broke down.

Director of the Office of Disability and Support Services (DSS) Belinda Guthrie explained that even though the American with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1992 established certain regulations that college campuses must meet, “There’s a huge difference between ADA compliance and accessible design.”

For example, the DSS Web page (disabilityandsupportservices.vassar.edu) says that “The ADA requires all events and programs sponsored by the College and open to the public to be fully accessible.” However, the David Neil lecture last Monday, April 28, was held in New England Building, which is not accessible to physically disabled students, and countless student activities, such as a cappella concerts, plays and meetings, are held in the parlors of the dorms that have no elevators for physically disabled students.

Of the six students with disabilities interviewed for this article, none had complaints about Guthrie, and problems with DSS were minor if they existed at all.

“Guthrie is wonderful,” said Oren Rosenthal ’09, who has learning disabilities.

Rosenthal believes that the lack of dialogue on campus about Vassar’s issues relating to students with physical and other disabilities “is definitely not the fault of DSS, not at all. I think if there was a little more attention brought to the forefront, then it might help accelerate some of the modifications that need to be done.”

Guthrie thinks that Vassar should work toward a system of Universal Design, which is an effort to design buildings that allow accessibility for the widest possible range of people. She cited the Library entrance across from Chicago Hall as an example of how Vassar does not follow the principals of Universal Design.

“A couple of years ago, I was so fed up with the Library that we just modified an entrance on the Raymond House side of the Library, and I’m viewing that now as the accessible entrance.

It’s locked unless a member of our community has card access; they cannot enter that unless they use a buzzer system, and there is a lift that goes up an entire flight of stairs.”

Guthrie explained that, for safety code reasons, the lift can only be fully operational when a person has depressed the lift button completely, and then held it down as the lift rises to the second floor.

When they leave, they must swipe their card, depress the button and exit the lift before the alarm goes off.

“The Library access was out of the way from the main entrance,” said Msall. “It was another situation where I learned to go up and down stairs on crutches because it was easier than finding the handicap-accessible spot.”

Guthrie wants to correct this problem by putting the handicap-accessible entrance near the regular Library entrance, but she has encountered administrative difficulties in carrying out this plan.

“Until we have a campus master plan for ADA improvements, it will be very difficult for us to effect change with respect to budgets, project management and to ensure that if a major building renovation is taking place. There’s no one who is intentionally setting out to create barriers, but I don’t think it has always been at the forefront of the discussion,” said Guthrie, adding that many of the problems are due to DSS not having its own funding for the extremely expensive renovations.

“There are times when [DSS] is engaged at the very front end of discussions about what we need, and then decisions are made down the road and things we thought were on the table get value-engineered out,” Guthrie explained.

“Creating the more Universal Design aspect of renovating a building begins to compete with other interests. That’s where I’ve seen many of the challenges for people on this campus: What meets code may not be as accessible in actual use,” said Guthrie.

Fortunately, Guthrie and the DSS have been making some positive changes. Guthrie said that after years of pushing for the College to purchase a wheelchair-accessible van, a van will finally be purchased by the end of April.

Vassar is indeed making progress with accessibility, as evidenced by changes to the Vogelstein Center for Drama and Film, Kenyon Hall and Jewett House, as well as the new accessible entrance to Olmsted Hall, renovations to bathrooms in Main, upgrades to elevators and accessible bathrooms in Powerhouse Theater and Josselyn House. More accesible features will also be incorporated into the new Terrace Apartments and Town Houses. “The new Town Houses being built this summer will be accessible. Davision House will be fully accessible once completed, as will the Old Observatory,” said Guthrie. There is also a project in the works to show the accessible travel paths within buildings on all fire safety maps.

But in order to continue this trend of improvement, Guthrie believes that the Vassar community needs to come together on this issue and work from a “grassroots level.” Many students agreed.

“My number one frustration here is that there’s no community for disabled students,” Belasco explained. “Imagine being gay at Vassar with no gay community, or black with no black community, or a member of a minority with no way to connect with anyone else. It makes me feel isolated, and it makes me feel unrecognized in a way. I think my issues are in many ways very similar to issues of other minorities, but that isn’t seen by other people,” she said.

“The more voices there are that are arguing the better,” said Guthrie. “If it’s just the few students on campus who use wheelchairs or have mobility impairments, it’s not going to have the same effect as if students are saying, ‘We’re not going to hold an event in Cushing House because there are some members of our community that cannot come. There should be no public lectures in New England Building. We want Blegen House to have a ramp and an accessible bathroom,’” she said.

Felicia Minchin ’09, who had a stroke last summer that caused her left side to “not work properly,” said, “It never even occurred to me how unpleasant it is to be at school and have disabilities until I had to do it myself.”

Christopher Binetti ’09, who has learning disabilities, agreed. “People are ignorant of disability issues. There is no real group for disability issues and the Vassar Student Association has no interest in having any group that looks after the interests of the disabled. Race, gender, sexual orientation, all of that—but not disability,” he said.

“It is something that we do need to discuss, that very question,” said Rosenthal. “What is normal? To me, normal is—I don’t know if oxymoronic is the right word—but it’s basically just loaded in all the wrong ways, because what’s normal to one person is not normal for someone else. What’s normal for each person is different,” he said.

“It’s a problem with society,” said Guthrie. “We have a long way to go, and I think that Vassar needs to put more commitment and resources into addressing disability barriers on its campus,” she said.