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The independent student press of Virginia Commonwealth University commonwealthtimes.org

Monday, April 1, 2013 Vol. 53 No. 51

The EqualizerStudents, university address Americans with Disabilities Act compliance • 4Part one in a two-part series

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Monday, April 1, 20134 NEWS

Mechelle HankersonExecutive Editor

In 2011, VCU student Jenson Larri-more rolled down Cherry Street between Main Street and Floyd Avenue in his manual wheelchair. As usual, he found himself confronting one of the more difficult parts of his daily commute: the sidewalks on Cherry Street between Main Street and Floyd Avenue.

For years, tree roots had gnarled the sidewalk until Larrimore, a fourth-year VCU student, found it easier to roll his wheelchair down the street than to stay on the sidewalk.

Like many VCU students with dis-abilities, Larrimore has more on his mind than classes and tests. He has to face the daily rigors of simply getting to class on a campus that sometimes seems designed to defeat him.

“It’s little stuff like that,” Larrimore said. “Unless you’re in a wheelchair and live it on a daily basis, it's hard to get a sense of it.”

With blocks of historic buildings and city property spread throughout the middle of campus, VCU creates special challenges for administrators trying to

comply with the Americans with Dis-abilities Act and for students with dis-abilities trying to navigate the campus.

About 900 students on the Monroe Park Campus have some form of dis-ability, says Joyce Knight, director of VCU’s Disability Support Services. On the MCV Campus, there are about 500 students with disabilities.

The figures are estimates because under federal law, the university cannot ask if a student has a disability during the admis-sions process or when the student enrolls. Estimations are based on the number of students who choose to seek regular assis-tance and services from the various offices that help with accommodations.

To help the university identify acces-sibility issues around campus, Larrimore created Students for Disability Advocacy and Awareness (SDAA) to brainstorm possible solutions to problems students with disabilities face.

“(The university wants) to help us in any way that they can but they don’t know what our needs are unless we voice them,” Larrimore said. “A lot of times

people with disabilities, when they’re on their own, they don’t want to cause waves (and) they don’t want to set them-selves apart so a lot of times they wont voice what they really need.”

Regardless of how many students, faculty or staff who may need it, there is no central fund to pay for projects that make it easier for people with disabilities to move around campus.

After the federal government passed the Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990, government institutions, like uni-versities, were supposed to have been renovated to make them more accessible for people with disabilities.

Most of the act focused on physical accessibility, to make it easier for peo-ple with needs similar to Larrimore’s, but there are provisions for all types of disabilities. Even though the ADA has been in effect for almost 22 years and the state previously funded ADA compliancy projects, there’s still more to be done. Funding from the government ran out in 2000 and since then, VCU has had to take on the full financial responsibility of

compliancy projects.It’s not an easy task — the urban

campus requires cooperation from the city, which is already strapped for mon-ey and whose communication with the university has been irregular. Without a designated fund for ADA compliancy projects, VCU’s completion of projects is not always guaranteed. Departments usually fund ADA projects. VCU’s Facili-ties Management division keeps a con-tingency fund ready for emergencies and in the context of ADA, critical projects that can’t wait.

But ADA compliancy projects aren't cheap. The university is mostly called upon to fix roads and install lifts, which can cost anywhere from $40,000 to $250,000, de-pending on the size and location.

The most expensive ADA projects often go unnoticed by able-bodied stu-dents, faculty and staff, but the ADA also calls for accommodations for people with temporary disabilities.

•

The chair lift on the third floor of Hibbs Hall broke down on Jenson Larrimore four times in one semester. He asked the university to fix the problem so other students with mobility issues could get to class easily. Facilities Management replaced the lift over winter break.

Student prompts accessibility upgrades

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Monday, April 1, 2013 5NEWS

ADVerTisemeNT

When the ADA was first passed in 1990, states granted certain agencies and institutions blocks of money to fulfill specific ADA-related projects that were considered priorities.

According to Mary Cox, a univer-sity architect who has worked with the school since 1992, there were five catego-ries of projects Virginia funded: creating accessible routes; providing entrances to buildings; making sure there were exits; creating adequate rescue room in case of an emergency; and projects that allowed people with disabilities to function in-dependently, such as creating access to bathrooms.

After those necessary projects were finished, Cox said any other compliancy projects are done when requested.

Cox said the amount the state granted the school varied year to year, but it was generally around $1 million. That money had to fund ongoing projects as well as smaller, discrete ones.

Money from the state to complete ADA projects stopped coming around 2000, when it was presumed most insti-tutions would be updated and in compli-ance with the act’s guidelines.

By the time the university stopped receiving state funds, administrators had also created a transition plan that fo-cused on organizational processes, such as hiring practices.

Even though VCU has money within its capital budget (the money used for construction projects, usually made up

of state funds and private donations) for any unforeseen projects, like ADA com-pliancy projects, they don’t have enough to take on all the projects requested by VCU community members.

The most common projects Facili-ties Management now handles are re-quests for wheelchair lifts’ maintenance and installation and repairs to sidewalks. They are also called upon to try to fix the worn city property that is interspersed through VCU’s campus.

Larrimore has lived in Richmond all his life and spent time on the VCU cam-pus before — but as an able-bodied teen-ager passing time. After a car accident in 2005 left him paralyzed from the waist down at age 16, he had to navigate VCU from a new, much more difficult position.

Harrison Street’s bumpy surface was bad enough when he could walk. Now he avoids it because it is too dangerous to roll on, with tree roots creating bumps in the sidewalk and old curb cuts that make it difficult to get off the sidewalk and into the designated crosswalk.

“The problem areas for me that are the most difficult just to get around cam-pus are the city sidewalks,” Larrimore said. Because city roads and sidewalks run through VCU’s core campus but are not technically VCU’s property, the uni-versity doesn’t have direct control over sidewalk or road projects.

VCU is only responsible for its own property, which doesn’t include side-walks or streets. The city of Richmond is legally and financially responsible for all sidewalks and streets that run through

VCU’s campus, Cox said. For students like Larrimore, this means dealing with worn-down curb cuts and bumps is a challenge that is not going away.

“The clear line of demarcation is the property line. Anything that is inside VCU’s property line, we are clearly re-sponsible for,” she said. “That’s usually right at the building face. ... The city’s property starts at the sidewalk.”

Despite where the property lines lie, Cox said the city doesn’t always get around to completing requested proj-ects. They usually say they don’t have enough money or add it to a growing list of projects, where they often are forgot-ten. When this happens, Cox said VCU usually steps in with their own money to complete projects.

VCU has repaired many roads and al-leys that were previously difficult to use. Cox said the city has never offered to re-imburse the university for the work they do on city property. Most recently, VCU repaved the alley behind the new West Grace South dorm.

Though the projects can take a long time to be completed, Cox said she rec-ognizes that city officials have more than just VCU to provide for.

Katy Rosemond, the executive di-rector of health sciences resources and planning on the MCV campus, agreed. “It’s just like with the state and what we face everyday, there’s so much more that needs to be done than there is money,” she said.

She acknowledged that Richmond could do more to partner with the uni-

versity on accessibility.“The campus coordinators do ... at-

tend regular meetings with the city and that sort of thing. They do that to im-prove communication and to help the city understand the university’s issues and needs and what we might be doing,” she said. “Often, at least from what I hear … it sounds like it’s kind of one-sid-ed, that VCU provides more information than they come back with.”

The city did not respond to three interview requests about its work with VCU. Messages left with the city’s hu-man resources office, press office and Department of Public Works were not returned.

Larrimore said he was recently put in touch with city’s Department of Pub-lic Works; a representative told him he would survey key places Larrimore point-ed out as problem areas. CT

Part one in a two-part series on ADA compliance at VCU.

900+5001400

23 years agO

$40,000 $250,000

approximate number of students on the Monroe Park Campus who have a disability

approximate number of students on the MCV Campus who have a disability

approximate number of students with disabilities on both cam-puses.

range of cost for ADA compliancy projects at VCU, based on the scale and location of the project.

The Americans with Disabilities Act was signed into law in July 1990.

Continued from page 4

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Thursday, April 4, 20134 NEWS

Part two in a two-part series on ADA at VCU

Mechelle HankersonExecutive Editor

Ray Bonis, the archives coordinator at James Branch Cabell Library, was a student at VCU in the early ’80s before he began working at the university in 1989. He’s been a wheelchair user since he injured his spine in an accident at 16 and has seen the university before the Americans with Disabilities act was passed and after the ADA was passed.

“It’s better than it was, but it could be a whole lot better,” he said. “VCU was always improving, things were get-ting better, but it’s just taking so long.”

When Bonis was a student, he recalls offices and departments on Franklin Street were particularly difficult to ac-cess. He said he remembers one of his friends, also a wheelchair user, had to complete her last two years of her art program during her freshman and soph-omore years and then go back to do the introductory art foundations program during the end of her college career. Art foundation classes were held in Franklin Terrace and during her first two years, the building had no way for students with disabilities requiring the use of a wheelchair to enter the building.

Now, most of the buildings on Franklin Street are accessible either by a ramp or a lift, but not all floors of all the houses are accessible.

According to the ADA, historic buildings are exempt from all the expec-tations and policies in the act. As a way to preserve the history of buildings, the

ADA only requires historic buildings to be as accessible as possible without compromising the historical aesthetic of the building.

“I don’t want them to destroy the buildings on Franklin Street,” Bonis said. But he added there are still prob-lems with accessing other floors of those historic buildings because not all have been outfitted with an elevator.

Bonis said the ADA has helped people with disabilities have access to the same college experience as everyone else. When he was a student at VCU, he recalled there were advising offices and student lounges that he couldn’t get to. Now, many major buildings are more ac-cessible because of the implementation of the ADA.

But barriers remain.Bonis attended a Students for Dis-

ability Advocacy and Awareness meeting last semester and was surprised to find that current students deal with some of the same challenges he had when he was a student in the early ’80s.

“I’m 20 years older than these people and I felt sorry for them,” he said. “They were talking about some of the same problems I had back in the ’80s, which is just crazy.”

-----Without much help from the city

and no federal or state funding, VCU is more or less on its own trying to take care of ADA compliancy issues.

The school doesn't have a designated fund for ADA projects anymore and has to turn to individual departments for funding when projects need to be completed.

Some projects that have long been

troublesome for students with dis-abilities have been addressed, university officials say.

For example: two chair lifts outside the corner classrooms in Hibbs Hall. On the third and fourth floors of Hibbs, large circular classrooms have steps at their entrances. The building has wheel-chair lifts, but they tend to break down.

Margaret Kelland, who as Monroe Park Campus coordinator is responsible for fixing problems on the campus, said Facilities Management fixed those lifts over winter break.

Facilities Management has begun taking the lead on such projects rather than the previous policy of having departments handle them individually, she said.

Kelland also said Facilities Manage-ment will begin taking all requests for assistance with any chair lifts or other accessibility issues. The department has a functioning phone number for all requests, although they have not yet dis-tributed the number. Currently, people seeking assistance on accessibility issues often go through a long line of depart-ments before finally getting to Facili-ties Management. VCU will be able to use the accessibility hotline as soon as Kelland’s office finishes designing and printing informational cards with the number on it.

Facilities Management also brought on a student worker who checks the campus’s automatic doors and chair lifts every week. Kelland said they are also talking about implementing a program for lift users to learn how to properly use them. Lifts are in place for student, faculty and staff with permanent dis-

abilities who may have encountered lifts before, but students with temporary disabilities — like a broken leg, for ex-ample—may not know how to properly use a lift.

To help consolidate some of the responsibilities of various disability of-fices and oversee any issues with ADA compliance, in September 2012, VCU announced the appointment of Wanda Mitchell, the university’s first vice presi-dent for equity and diversity. She’ll be responsible for making sure university offices work together to more efficiently address students’ needs.

In an interview, Mitchell said that as a founding vice president, she’ll have to build a staff. She made one of her first major hires this semester, making Paula McMahon VCU’s new ADA coordi-nator. McMahon took her position on April 1, coming from J. Sargeant Reynolds Community College as their Coordinator for Adults in Vocational Education.

“(The ADA coordinator) will be the person who walks around and assesses the campus, talks with students, talks with faculty and staff and (makes sure) we're proactive about some things,” Mitchell explained.

Even still, Larrimore said, people with disabilities must know how to help the university.

“The university itself is very under-standing and they want to help us in any way that they can, but they don’t know what our needs are unless we voice them.” CT

VCU struggles to make progress with ADA compliance

ADA ProjeCts 1992-1998

When the Americans with Disabilities Act was passed in 1990, the state was able to grant public institutions like Virginia Commonwealth University money each year to complete compliancy projects. This map shows the projects the school com-pleted between 1992 and 1998. Black placemarks show projects completed between 1992-1994, grey placemarks show projects from 1994-1996 and white marks show projects completed in 1998. After about 10 years, the state stopped providing fund-ing and the financial burden fell to the university and the city of Richmond.m

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MONROe PARK CAMPUS MCV CAMPUS

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