Fredonia vs. Disabilities

  As an able bodied person, I don't often think about how 'great' or 'bad' Fredonia might be when it comes to accessibility and people who may be considered disabled. I have the privilege to walk around campus and go through any door that is close to me or convenient. After talking about disabilities in class and bringing it to the front of my mind, I started to think about how Fredonia is built and how it might help or hinder a disabled person on campus.

 The first thing I immediately noticed are the doors and their 'handicapped' buttons that people can push to have the doors open freely for them. I have often used these buttons - usually to keep the door open for whoever is behind me or sometimes if I have too many thing in my hands. When I have used the buttons for those moments when I don't quite have a free hand, I noticed that it becomes quite annoying to have to sit there and wait for them to open. Some of the doors are very slow when opening and some might not even open on the first try. If I had to use them all of the time for reasons beyond my control, I would find that I would probably have to be way more patient, since I would be going much more slow than I can right now as I am. Also, not all doors have these buttons - which make us run into other accessibility problems.

 

 Another problem I started to notice was the accessibility to the elevators/lecture halls. For anyone (probably every able bodied person in this class) who has had a class or event in McEwen  G24/26, you will know that when you go in the doors by the McEwen Cafe, you have to immediately go left or right down a set of stairs to get to the seats. You probably never thought about how someone who may not be able to walk/walk well would get to their seat in these rooms. Well instead of going through those initial doors, you have to go around to the other side of the building (to the right of the entrance that comes from under the bridge), then go down this long sketchy hall, following the signs that have the little wheelchair figure saying "Lecture Hall This Way" until you reach the sign above - McEwen Hall Recycling Collection Point - aka where the elevator is. Mind you, I did not purposefully follow the signs to find this 'wheelchair accessible' place. I was simply going to take the elevator because I'm super lazy and my girlfriend already knew where the elevator was. (There are also doors that can be found facing Jewet and some close to the elevators that are on the right while under the bridge.) I personally found it a little uncomfortable that the 'handicapped accessible' elevator was lumped in with the recycling center. Not to mention, I did not even notice if there was any braille or anything to help those who need it.

 Fredonia is a rather large campus, so I can not imagine trying to navigate it with some sort of disability - especially if that disability is physical. This post only touched on a couple examples (mostly some physical things) and since I have the privilege of not having to deal with any of these examples, I am not sure of many more problems or solutions Fredonia might have. I can list a couple more that I can think of that might be present in Fredonia:

-Having to live in certain places on campus (convenient or hindering?)
-Having "Echo" systems, but only in a few choice class rooms
-Not many elevators/isolated places
-No braille in some places
-Not a lot of classes/education about disabilities - need inclusion
-Probably crappy parking (which sucks to begin with)
-How efficient is LoGrasso with these issues?
-Accessibility to classrooms
-Accessibility to buildings
-Working on computers/dealing with FredMail/Angel. Is it more difficult for some?
-Construction - even more inconvenient to people with disabilities?