With Brown having renovated most major buildings to be more accessible to community members with disabilities, Disability Support Services is now focusing on smaller steps to make life at the University easier for those people.
DSS is continuing to make the campus more accessible for students with disabilities beyond the improvements specified by the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. The ADA mandates that Brown provide equal educational opportunities and reasonable accommodations for students with disabilities.
According to Cathie Axe, coordinator of Disability Support Services, there are many ongoing improvements taking place on campus, including the installation of more curb cuts, automatic door openers and accurate signage.
Buttons that open doors for wheelchair access are being added to many buildings throughout campus, including Sayles Hall, List Art Center, the Center for Information Technology, the Salomon Center and Andrews House. Remote door access has also been added to buildings and private rooms throughout the campus, allowing students with disabilities to open doors by remote control.
DSS is also working on re-keying wheelchair lifts, which allow a person in a wheelchair to be raised up to the level of the steps in buildings that have steps at the front door or lack elevators. In the past, numerous keys were needed for different lifts across campus, but this year, DSS created one key that universally operates the lifts, Axe said.
In some cases, DSS is looking at things as simple as door handles. For example, Axe said, levered door handles are much easier for people to operate.
"In many, cases a lot of the things we're talking about make it easier for everybody. It's a major plus for the campus at large," Axe said.
"Brown has definitely come a long way," said Tommy Gimbel '07, a student with a disability that requires the use of a wheelchair.
Gimbel said he has found Brown to be very accommodating to his needs, especially compared to other universities and their policies at the time that he was looking at colleges. At Wesleyan University, Gimbel said he might have been the first student in a wheelchair to attend and would have had access to only one of the freshman dorms.
At Harvard University, Gimbel also ran into difficulties because the school's stringent policies and required background checks for external aides would have made it difficult for him to obtain such assistance.
But Brown has provided accommodations for a privately employed aide to live across the hall from Gimbel, who needs help on a day-to-day basis. "Brown was different and more easygoing," Gimbel said. "They put more trust in the student."
Despite the improvements and the efforts of DSS, making all buildings accessible remains a goal. One challenge that DSS faces in increasing accessibility for people with disabilities is Brown's historic campus. Many of the older buildings on campus are not accessible, but they also are not necessarily non-compliant with the ADA because older buildings do not face as stringent requirements, Axe said. Still, she said, a building that is undergoing major renovations must be brought into compliance with the 1990 regulations.
Another new feature created by DSS this year is a Web-based access map, which is especially helpful for people who are new to the campus. It has color-coding and numbers on all the different buildings on campus to indicate their individual levels of wheelchair access.
According to Axe, there are 515 students registered with DSS, which coordinates services for students with physical, psychological and learning disabilities. Within this number, there are 12 students registered that are wheelchair users or otherwise are not able to use stairs. The Office of Equal Employment Opportunity serves faculty and staff members.
Axe said the Campus Access Advisory Committee focused on physical access last year like curb cuts, automatic doors and more accommodating bathrooms. According to Axe, this year the committee is focused on Web accessibility and looking at how students with different kinds of disabilities are able to use various tools on campus, such as electronic library resources.
"A lot of this is not going to be apparent to someone just walking through the library, so it's harder to detect," Axe said. "But the people behind the scenes who need it are the ones who would know about and would be more inclined to have sought out those resources in the first place."
While there are always improvements to be made, especially on a campus with many historical buildings, Gimbel said he only ever has minor complaints. DSS is helpful in getting his classes moved to more accessible locations and clearing the sidewalks thoroughly when it snows. It also provides a shuttle to help students with disabilities get around on campus.
Some less accessible buildings, like the Sharpe Refectory, which requires students in wheelchairs to use a large service elevator in the back, are slated for renovation sometime in the future.
But Gimbel said the fact that the Ratty and Faunce House, among other locations, are only partially accessible to him doesn't diminish his experience.
"The world isn't a completely accessible place. Neither is Brown," Gimbel said.
