Group members: Danielle Horneff, Jeannette Karam, Jessica Speese and Daniela Chica
As part of a Service Learning project, we were instructed to amplify the voices of those who often fall silent. Being aware that students with disabilities are overwhelmingly underrepresented on college campuses, we decided to hand them the microphone and listen to some of the concerns they may have with the accessibility of our campus.
The idea for this project began through curiosity: we wanted to reach out to students who require extra accessibility options, and learn if those options are helping, or hurting them from making their way around campus with relative ease. If improvements could be made to the campus, we wanted to hear it from them.
One of the first students we talked to was Megan Grannan, she is in her junior year at Stockton and is a Liberal Studies major with a concentration in Education and minoring in Digital Literacy and Childhood Studies. Megan lives on campus in the Housing 5 apartments.
Megan Grannan
Students who require special accessibility features are encouraged to live in Housing 5 because the apartments are more accommodating to students with a disability. While Megan expressed that she is very grateful that Stockton made adjustments so that living on campus became easy for her, she wishes that Housing 5 didn’t require a meal plan. “If I lived in Housing 1 or 4 I wouldn’t have to take a meal plan, but with Housing 5, I do and they are so expensive. I don’t eat that much and I kind of end up, not [necessarily] wasting money, but I waste money on a meal plan that I didn’t have to have.”
Steph Boal, the second student we spoke to, is currently a senior majoring in health science with a concentration in communications disorders. Steph also lives on campus in housing 5 and expressed the same dissatisfaction with the required, expensive meal plan.
Steph Boal
One of Steph’s greatest concerns that she conveyed was with Stockton’s shuttle service. Not all of the Stockton shuttles are wheelchair accessible which, on occasion, can leave students stranded until another shuttle can transport them. While most of the on-campus activities ensure students are able to use the accessible shuttle, Steph told us that not all events have been inclusive for her, “Sometimes off campus activities don’t have transportation if they get an outside company to shuttle and they don’t have a lift unless you ask them weeks in advance”.
Senior social work major, Stephany Piermattei, appreciates that the faculty at the university work with disabled students to make sure accommodations are made, but commented on many of the structural issues that could be resolved.
Stephany Piermattei
She mentioned that near West Quad there are several wide and deep cracks in the pavement that her wheels have trouble rolling over without getting jammed. One of her other concerns was the state of the campus during snow storms.
One of the pavement cracks near West Quad
“Sometimes it’s hard to get around when it’s snowing outside because around the main campus [the pavement] is clear, but near the dorms it’s not plowed away right or it’s iced over. I have friends in wheelchairs who said that they’ve broken their front wheels because of black ice and they had to miss classes because they couldn’t get through”.
In 2013, the Task Force on Campus Accessibility was commissioned by the Faculty Senate and their purpose was to identify and address accessibility problems that students and faculty experience while on campus. The task force held two campus-wide events to create discussion around campus accessibility within the disabled community. In their report, they highlighted several problems that the university needed to focus on. The task force ended in May of 2014, but they recommended that the awareness campaign be continued, especially through posters that would “be designed to encourage proper door etiquette, including allowing disabled persons into the stream of pedestrian traffic when there is a line of individuals traveling through a door…to hold doors open for disabled persons and to decrease casual usage of the automatic door openers by individuals who do not need them to access the door”. Although the task force was created with the intent to help disabled students and faculty, students are still discussing problems that were already stated in the report that was published almost two years prior.
Stephany and Megan both mentioned that some of the doors are too heavy and that sometimes they have to wait at doors until another student comes that can help them out which was an issue written in the report. Additionally, Megan told us of when she went to the Experimental Theatre and she almost missed seeing her friend in a show because they couldn’t figure out how to work the lift, which again, was indicated in the report that there needed to be better access to the Experimental Theatre.
The task force further expressed that the college needed to use proper signage that used fonts that accommodate the visually impaired and alert disabled students when an elevator is out of service. Stephany said that sometimes she would find herself late to class because she wasn’t forewarned of renovations happening to an elevator and she had to spend time trying to find an operating one. She informed Learning Access of the problem and was placed on an email alert list for future renovations, but other students who don’t ask to be placed on the list won’t receive these notices– which Stephany has demonstrated can be problematic.
The task force that met two years ago did help create discussion on the accessibility within the disabled community and their efforts are valued by the community, but there is still much that can be done.
All of the girls shared an appreciation for what the university does for them, “Even though a lot of times you have to seek out the help, once you do you’re not viewed as a burden; they’ll get right on whatever it is and make sure you get whatever you need, which is very rare to find not just in education facilities” said Stephany.
Creating communication between the different departments, faculty, and students could help make the campus more accessible for students. Stephany wished that when she entered the school they would have an orientation strictly on accommodations that Stockton offers, because while they may have solutions to problems, often the students aren’t informed unless they purposely seek out help. Letting students with a disability speak up about campus accessibility can help battle the stigmatization that they face.
“I just wish that society would see more of the ability in me than the disability.”- Steph.
Our hopes for this project are that these students’ voices be heard, and their issues be addressed. Their individual voices can be the motivation for change; change that will not only positively affect students, but other members of the Stockton community.
For more information and complete interviews please visit our website.