Nickie Coby

Building Access Project

This project contains two components. The first is a short memo to the St. Catherine’s
student senate summarizing my recommendations for an accessibility policy. The second
is a more in depth look at last year’s accessibility advocacy as well as some background
on laws and more in depth solutions.
To: St. Catherine University Student Senate
From: Nickie Coby a concerned student and accessibility advocate
Re: Access to University programs, services and buildings

I am deeply concerned about the unequal experiences of students with disabilities at St.
Kate’s. Currently, accessibility is not a highly valued goal in regards to programs,
services and buildings which create our college experience. Current problems include
inaccessibility of web sites, a lack of access to classrooms, offices and materials provided
in inaccessible locations or formats and an overall attitude that accessibility is to be
provided when it is convenient or whenever the University decides to increase access.

Currently, there is very little commitment to accessibility, except by some concerned

students, faculty and the O’Neill Learning Center staff who work specifically with people
with disabilities. While we have wonderful advocates, I have observed that we have few
standards for how to address disability issues. For example, St. Kate’s has made no effort
to make Fontbonne accessible to students with mobility or visual impairments. Students
who use mobility aids cannot access the building easily. Social work students, for
example, cannot go to the Social Work office or library because there is no way to enter
the building without using stairs. Further, the attitude often places the responsibility of
meeting access needs on the students or the O’Neill Center. Nothing short of a school
wide commitment to accessibility will adequately insure the rights of students and faculty
with disabilities.

Proposed Policy
I propose the following components of a policy to make accessibility a priority in our
school:
Language explaining that discussion of accommodations will not impact the University’s
admission decisions.
Assurance that accessibility of class rooms is a priority, especially when a student with a
disability is in a class. The University should consider access to the class room to be a
requirement. This language is needed only as long as we have inaccessible buildings.
The policy should also specify that a committee be created to plan for the accessibility of
buildings. This would insure that the school become more accessible but not at the
expense of creating an undue burden on the University.
An accessibility monitoring committee with a diverse group of stakeholders and service
providers to monitor the accessibility and barriers facing people with disabilities.
Finally, the policy should state strongly that accessibility of all services and programs is a
high priority for everyone. This will insure that barriers are not overlooked because fixing
them is difficult and it will clearly state that the burden of access not be placed upon
those who need it most.

Benefits: Increased opportunities for students with disabilities, awareness and education
of the entire University community surrounding issues of accessibility and removal of
physical and attitudinal barriers.
Potential pitfalls: The main problem with this policy could be cost. Making these changes
could increase costs and resources needed.
 Nickie Coby
Get To Class… Or Not

Most students do not worry about how they will get to class each day. If they do,
they are most likely concerned about traffic and whether they will be late for class.
Unfortunately, for me and other students with disabilities, getting to class is not a given.
While St. Kate’s has improved accessibility in some areas, there is still a lack of attention
to accessibility in many areas of campus life. Last year, the School of Social Work,
Disability Services and other stakeholders began work to advocate for increased
accessibility to the campus and increased accessibility in the social work program. I was
fortunate to be able to be a part of the advocacy for greater access. I will describe my
experiences surrounding this issue and our advocacy.

The Problem:
While St. Kate’s has made some efforts to increase accessibility for students with
disabilities, there are still many issues which cause barriers for students, faculty and other
members of the St. Kate’s community who happen to have disabilities. Certainly, the
Disability Services staff members are passionate about helping to remove as many
disability related barriers as possible, but two people cannot remove all barriers,
especially when these barriers are so unintentionally engrained in society. One of the
largest barriers which is often the most difficult to resolve is that of physical accessibility
of a building, street crossing or other physical location. St. Kate’s has many of these
physical barriers which are made even greater through attitudinal barriers. For example,
last year when the new apartments and suites opened up, the building included eight
accessible units to meet the needs of residents with disabilities and satisfy the Americans
with Disabilities Act. This is a great improvement in the accessibility of residence halls,
but it still had problems. The main problem was that there was no way to leave the
building safely to go anywhere because of the design of the crossings near the building. I
asked a few professionals to look at the crossing and the consensus was that there was no
safe way for me as a blind person to cross the street. Even so, it took significant advocacy
on the part of Residence Life and Disability Services to convince St. Kate’s to put a
sidewalk in to create a safer crossing. Even after that, the crossing is challenging, but
what compounds the barrier is the attitude of students and staff who just don’t get it. I
have had students approach me, angry that the college spent that money just so I could
cross that street. I mention this scenario to explain how an issue which may seem simple
on its surface can actually be complicated because of the many types of barriers which
individuals with disabilities face at St. Kate’s.

The problem which the school of Social Work decided to take on is even larger
and will ultimately take more effort to achieve a resolution. The School of Social Work
offices and classrooms are mostly housed in the Fontbonne building. This building is
almost completely inaccessible. The main entrance has a large set of stairs which are
outdoors and would be challenging for anyone with any type of mobility impairment.
There is an entrance which is labeled as an accessible entrance. That entrance does have a
push plate to open the door, but that is the only accessible feature. Once inside that door,
the individual must go up a flight of stairs. This has been extremely problematic for many
of us, a student in a wheelchair, a former student who has cerebral palsy and uses forearm
crutches and me using a walker and a Guide Dog. I rarely have help to get up those stairs
and am often late because I must wrestle my walker up the stairs. This feels unsafe to me.
Going down is impossible without help. Once in the building, there is no elevator to go to
other floors. Further, there are no Braille signs which complicate finding a class room.

Another large barrier is that of current attitudes toward disability. Currently, when
there is an access issue and sacrifices need to be made, it falls to the student with the
disability to sacrifice. For example, not all of the school’s web sites are accessible. When
I raise that concern with the Computing Services staff, they do not seem concerned for
the most part. To them, it is my problem that I cannot access some parts of the school
web site. For example, I cannot actually check my college email account because the web
mail site is very inaccessible to my screen reading software. Instead of addressing the
access issues when I make them aware of these problems, one of their staff members cuts
me off and tells me to go to disability services, even though the access issue is really
something they should take responsibility for. This attitude can be common because there
is no specific policy that makes accessibility a priority. The school does have a non-
discrimination policy, but mostly it puts the responsibility for accommodations onto
Disability Services.

Applicable Laws
There are two federal laws which could apply to this problem. The most well-
known law is currently the Americans with Disabilities Act which was passed in 1990.
This law defines disability and gives legal guidelines in regards to accommodations. For
example, it is illegal to discriminate on the basis of disability alone either in employment,
provision of services or access. If a building is built after 1992, the building must be
designed in such a way as to be accessible to someone with a disability. This can also
apply when renovations are made. The challenge in the case of Fontbonne is that it was
built long before the ADA took effect. It is very difficult to legally use the ADA to make
Fontbonne accessible. Based upon my research, the college is required to make
reasonable accommodations. However, to my knowledge, there has been no cost/benefit
analysis in regards to making Fontbonne more accessible. Depending upon the cost, it
seems unlikely that St. Kate’s would consider remodeling Fontbonne to be a reasonable
accommodation. In fact, that seemed to be their argument last year.

The next law which could potentially apply to this situation is section 504 of the
Rehabilitation Act. This law passed in 1973 states that any program or service which
receives federal funding cannot discriminate based on disability alone. This is the law
which created the need for Disability Services to provide the accommodations students
need. Here, to, we run into the reasonable accommodation problem. However, in Section
C which addresses accessibility, it states that institutions must implement a plan to make
their existing facilities accessible to people with disabilities. This was to occur within
three years; it has been much longer than that. If St. Kate’s has made such a plan, I am
unaware of it.

While the Disability Services office works closely with students during
registration and throughout the year to manage accessibility concerns early, there are still
problems. For example, in my Social Work with Groups class last year, we had two
students with some type of mobility impairment. The class was scheduled to be taught in
Fontbonne, but the stairs were problematic for the other student and me. Even with the
efforts of Disability Services, our instructor and the registrar’s office, we never found an
accessible location. The one potential room which was offered could not be set up in a
format conducive to group participation. My understanding was that students could not
see each other. For me, this created an awkward dilemma, on one hand, I felt awkward
asking that the whole class make due with a room which was less than ideal for visual
reasons. On the other hand, I felt frustrated because I never have the benefit of eye
contact and I knew that the stairs would pose a big problem for my friend and me.

What Happened
Last year in March or April a group of senior Social Work students decided to
address the issue of accessibility to Fontbonne. They staged a demonstration and asked
me as well as another student to speak. In addition, faculty and staff spoke on the subject
of disability. The Wheel covered the event with a photograph with all of the other
students standing on the stairs and the other student who uses a wheelchair and I
remaining on the ground, symbolically enacting the accessibility problem. While this
demonstration certainly raised awareness of the problem, it did not change Fontbonne. It
will take continued advocacy on the part of all who care about accessibility to continue
and win this battle.

Suggestions for Change

After last year’s experiences and many other access issues I have faced at St.
Kate’s, I strongly believe that the school needs a more acceptable publically available
written policy to address these accessibility concerns. This policy should directly address
all areas of access, not just building accessibility. Even with two federal laws which
provide clear guidelines about the University’s obligations in regards to accessibility, I
find that many of the accommodations I receive are created because I pushed for them. I
am fortunate to have a great deal of experience in advocacy and communication skills,
but not all students are so comfortable with their disability and able to be their own
fulltime advocate. My suggestions for specific areas the public policy should address are
as follows:
Admission: The policy should include language which states that the college will not
discriminate on the basis of accessibility. It should also be clear that students can
ask questions in regard to their accommodations without worrying about impact
on their admission to the college. These discussions are important to have before
making a final decision about which college to attend but should not have a
bearing on whether the student is offered admission.
Registration: Disability Services can assist students in early registration if this is
appropriate. It might be helpful for the policy to include language stating that
accessibility of the class room is a priority. Until and unless every building is
completely accessible to someone with a disability, it should be a priority that
classes with students with disabilities be held in a location which is accessible to
all students. Safety should be a high priority since walkers and wheelchairs are
unsafe on stairs.
Building accessibility: The policy should include language addressing a plan to make the
college’s buildings more accessible. It should require that an appropriate
committee of stakeholders be created to specifically create a reasonable plan to
deal with accessibility barriers in buildings. It is vital that someone with a
disability be a part of this committee to insure that the suggested accommodations
will actually address barriers and be usable by people with disabilities. I do not
feel qualified to suggest a specific plan in this area since knowledge of the
college’s budget as well as costs of construction and remodeling would be vital
for creating a successful plan.

Monitoring: I would recommend that the policy specify a college accessibility committee
with students with disabilities representing sensory, mobility, learning and
medical or psychiatric disabilities; at least one representative from the Disability
Services office, at least one faculty member who has an interest in accessibility, a
representative from Health and Wellness, a representative from the Counseling
Center and a member from academic advising. This committee would be
 responsible for monitoring compliance with this policy as well as raising other
accessibility concerns as they become aware of them.

Service and Program Access: Finally, the policy should make access to services and
programs a priority. Specific barriers include accessibility problems with the web
site, activities which are not inclusive of students with disabilities and
accessibility of information and resources provided by the University. One
example of information which is not currently is that at one point the School of
Social Work had a library of information. All of the books are in print so I wasn’t
able to access them and the books were located in Fontbonne. Specific language
might state that “Whenever possible, the University will make all information
available in an accessible format at the same time and location as students without
a disability would receive such information. If this is not possible, the student and
the provider of such information may agree on a time, method and location for
distribution of the information in an accessible manner.”

While this policy does not address all issues of concern to students with a
disability, I believe that it would go a long way toward addressing barriers, both physical
and attitudinal. I feel that this policy would create additional opportunities for leadership
on the part of students with disabilities as well as greater equality in opportunity.