Campus needs wheelchair access
I did not expect to be writing this article from first-hand experience, let me tell you that right off. I had been planning on writing a well-intentioned and most likely ineffective opinion piece regarding wheelchair access and Earlham's lack thereof, trying to make myself feel like a compassionate and involved person ...
The article would have started off with something along the lines of, "Have any of y'all noticed that we have no students in wheelchairs?" I hope that I am still a compassionate and involved person, but the game just got more personal. I am now a student in a wheelchair.
This is a temporary condition, of course. I fell, breaking my ankle and spraining my wrist, the day before classes started. I am already healing, and may even be out and about, chair-free, by the time the semester's first edition of The Word is published. I know that my perspective, therefore, is one of a person who is generally able-bodied. Nonetheless, I have gained an unusual (for here) perspective on the issue of access.
If I were a permanently wheelchair-bound student, I would not consider Earlham for more than a minute. My first visit would have been enough to convince me to apply elsewhere.
Yes, most of the campus is accessible, but only nominally. That is, you can get to many places, but it's quite inconvenient, particularly when it rains. My first day in a wheelchair, it rained. Lots. I mean, the umbrella I had as I was being ferried to my classes really didn't do all that much good.
And let's see ... I am on the 19-meal plan, which means I have breakfast in Saga. Great. My first class is in Runyan! But to get to it, I must exit Runyan Center and get wheeled to the back entrance by the circular driveway. This is because there are stairs between Saga and the Fine Arts department. Instead of budgeting two minutes to get from one place to the other, I need to remember to set aside 10.
Not to mention trying to check my mail. There is indeed a wheelchair entrance to the basement of Runyan Center. More than once I have found it locked. The ramp to the other basement entrance is, like many ramps on campus, at an incline of frightening degree-that is, I am afraid I will fall out of my chair and/or roll too fast and slam into the doors. And thank God that I am a music student, because if I had an applied art class up...
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...o is able to meet a program's admission, academic, and technical standards (i.e., all essential nonacademic admissions criteria) either with or without accommodation.
For a person to qualify as disabled, the disability must "substantially limit" a major life activity. Clearly, "substantial" connotes something more than trivial or minor, but federal courts have disagreed beyond that point. At least four options exist as evidenced by recent case law: "in comparison to most people in the general population"; "in comparison to the average person having comparable training, skills, and abilities"; "in comparison to the average unimpaired student"; and "the disparity between inherent capacity and performance."
Source: Journal of Special Education <jndetail.asp?booleanTerm=%22Journal%20of%20Special%20Education%22&maindatab=Academic%20Search%20Elite&searchTag=JN>, Winter2000, Vol. 33 Issue 4, p248, 10p, 1 chart <resultlist.asp?booleanTerm=JN+%22Journal%20of%20Special%20Education%22+AND+DT+20000101> Author(s): Thomas, Stephen B. <resultlist.asp?booleanTerm=AU+%22Thomas%2c%20Stephen%20B%2e%22>
After I had carried out my checks, I met David as he was just being dropped off at the front doors of the centre. Before David got out of the taxi, I asked to him to unfold his cane so I could examine its stability; which was sturdy and reliable. I then helped him get out of the car and offered him a choice of mobility assistance. I could either arm-guided him, or adopted a technique I use with other visually-impaired service users which involves me clapping and them walking with their cane towards the noise. Due to David’s previously documented ...
“Using Disability Studies Theory to Change Disability Services: A Case Study in Student Activism” outlines Syracuse University struggles with disability-related topics. Some of the university’s students formed a committee called Beyond Compliance Coordinating Committee to be the voice for the disabled students. The article follows their journey in struggles with implementing handicap-accessible areas and study material for a student that was blind (Cory, White, & Stuckey, 2010). This article reminds me of a close friend from my old neighborhood. He got into a really bad car accident that left him paralyzed from the waist down. After the accident some friends and I helped his parent modify their home to accommodate for his wheelchair. When tragic accidents like that help it really makes you put thing into perspective.
Just like in basketball their are people who play that our not disabled and those who are at the end of the day they are both on the same playing field just like students who are not disbaled and those who are should be at college campuses.Rachel Adams wrote a piece called ‘’Bringing down the barriers Seen and unseen’’,which was published on November 6,2011 in the chronicle of education.In this article Adams argues that disabled students are not treated fairly on college campuses despite their being a Disabilties act.*which prevents professors in schools from discriminating against college students.Adams wants all students to be treated fairly and not looked as different.She begins to build a strong effective argument by using her own personal
Stephen has helped to shape society by connecting with able bodied people in an attempt to remove ‘stereotypical’ (Havard, 2014, p.76) values concerning wheelchair users. Stephen Sweetman’s experience provided firm examples of some of the ways in which connections and disconnections ‘produce differences and inequalities’ (Havard, 2014, p.79).
Higbee, J. L., Katz, R. L., & Schultz, J. L. (2010). Disability in higher education: Redefining
Often, students with severe disabilities are considered uneducable due to a variety of factors. Whether it is fear, prejudice, or a distaste for the number of services and accommodations that they need, it can be difficult to convince teacher or administration to switch to an
Some of the disabilities included are vision, hearing, motion, or mental impairments. "Title I of the Americans With Disabilities Act prohibits employers from discriminating against qualified individuals with disabilities in job application procedures, hi...
According to the Anti-Defamation League “ In the 1800s, the disabled were assigned to institutions and asylum for their whole lives.” It is unreasonable to send people that are disabled to a institution
It can be a tough task to correctly diagnosis some students with a high incidence disability. Henley, Roberta, and Algozzine (2009) state “Because there are no standard state criteria,...
After spending about a year volunteering at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center and completing two field placements at local hospitals, I’ve found that my best work is done with the elderly population. These experiences have molded my personal goal to crusade for the civil rights of individuals with disabilities, especially those in the older generation. Additionally, I now have a better understanding of treatments and services that are provided to individuals with disabilities. Many patients at these hospitals were admitted due to an injury or life-threatening illness. There are millions of Americans with disabilities, yet feelings of helplessness, vulnerability, and depression are often evident, as if having a disability isn’t a common occurrence. In 2005, I was in a car accident, and it broke my pelvis, fractured my C1 vertebra and required emergency surgery to remove my spleen. I was unable to sit up or get out of bed for about 2 months and was re...
Physical barriers can happen in many places from offices to health care organisation, this can affect people who may have a disability and may need to use ramps, may need wide doors or may even need lifts in certain areas for example in schools they would need to have wide doors, ramps and lifts. But this can also be a barrier if the building were built from a long time ago but it can be overcome is in school they rearrange the time table and have the lesson in a different area of the school building where the wheelchair can access.
The World Health Organisation, WHO, (1980) defines disability in the medical model as a physical or mental impairment that restricts participation in an activity that a ‘normal’ human being would partake, due to a lack of ability to perform the task . Michigan Disability Rights Coalition (n.d.) states that the medical model emphasizes that there is a problem regarding the abilities of the individual. They argue that the condition of the disabled persons is solely ‘medical’ and as a result the focus is to cure and provide treatment to disabled people (Michigan Disability Rights Coalition, 2014). In the medical model, issues of disability are dealt with according to defined government structures and policies and are seen as a separate issue from ordinary communal concerns (Emmet, 2005: 69). According to Enabling Teachers and Trainers to Improve the Accessibility of Adult Education (2008) people with disabilities largely disa...
While these three authors have different reasons to write their essays, be it media unfairness, ignorance, or ethical disputes, they all share a basic principle: The disabled are not viewed by the public as “normal people,” and they are unfairly cast away from the public eye. The disabled have the same capacity to love, desire and hurt as any other human being, and deserve all of the rights and privileges that we can offer them. They should be able to enter the same buildings, have representation in the media, and certainly be allowed the right to live.
Throughout this course, I am amaze by how much I’m learning about what it was and it is to be disable in today society. But just like any other crisis, it’s crazy what people with disability went through in the passed and how far they have come and. Form perceiving disability as liability to the public and rejecting people with disability in schools, work places and communities, to accepting them open heartily and having laws that helps protect the form discrimination. Staying with the topic of disability, I would like to look at both the positive and negative impact on not only an individual living with a disability but also what the family have to go throw. Many people have views about the disabled but do not have them from first hand experience. As human, it is part of our nature to be judge mental. We sometime judge without even know them or putting ourselves in their predicament, but experiencing disability first hand, I’ll say it has it ups and down.
I ran to my class, but unfortunately I missed my quiz. Similarly, many students miss a few minutes of their classes because they have to go to several parking lots to find a spot. With tight class schedules, the university 's suggestion of parking in Lloyd Noble and then using the bus service is not convenient. Lloyd Noble is 2.0 miles away from the Bizzell Memorial Library (the center of the university). Using the buses at Lloyd Noble is not a good idea because students have to check the schedule of the buses, and they might waste more than 20 minutes of their time waiting for the bus. Moreover, Lloyd Noble buses do not stop; at every bus stop, so students are limited to one stop area. I remember one day my advisor came from Houston to visit me, and he was about one hour late because he said he was struggling with parking. In addition, I have seen shuttles stop at the parking near the Duck Pond (the parking located east of the football stadium) and use it as a drop and pickup area, which makes extra hazards for other car drivers to drive on and cross the roads. All these problems cause delays in students ' schedules. If this situation continues, students will miss more classes, and that might result in a bad performance in the classroom for many. Again, the Lloyd Noble bus services ends at 8p.m., and the text, home page, assumes