Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012, December 04, 1997, Page 7, Image 7

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    Accessibility: Businesses try to accommodate students
m Continued from Page 1
volved a student getting stuck on
a wheelchair lift in the stairwell
adjacent to the International
Lounge in the EMU last year. Be
cause of the incident, the wheel
chair lift was officially decommis
sioned, Gerdes said.
This had a substantial effect on
the International Lounge and the
EMU as a whole. EMU director
Dusty Miller said that with the de
commissioned wheelchair lift, the
mezzanine level, which includes
the International Lounge, and the
north edge of the original EMU,
including the art gallery level, at
least seven student organization
offices and the Emerald offices
are inaccessible to students with
disabilities.
Programs in the EMU that are
no longer accessible have to move
to a more accessible space, or stu
dents have to make prior arrange
ments with the program to receive
help to follow regulations, Miller
said.
“If a student wishes to be in
volved, which they have every
right to do, we need to move the
service to the student,” he said.
To help ease the problem of ac
cessibility in the EMU, Miller said
an elevator will eventually be in
stalled to serve the International
Lounge and the upper levels of
the EMU. An architect was hired
to design plans for an elevator.
Renovations would include the
installation of the elevator and
renovation of the International
Lounge. The cost of the proposed
elevator renovations alone would
be about $500,000.
“Right now, we’re at the begin
ning edge of fund raising for this,”
Miller said. The EMU board peti
tioned the Oregon State System of
Higher Education for student
building-fee money in November,
and it is working with Public Af
fairs and Development to see if
there are fund-raising opportuni
ties using private donations.
“We are certainly looking at our
own reserves, which unfortunate
ly for us are very depleted be
cause of the many other needs in
this building that we knew about
prior to the University taking
these lifts offline,” he said.
Students who talk to Disability
Services are told to avoid the lifts,
Gerdes said.
“Lifts don't work,” University
planning associate Fred Tepfer
said. “When lifts work, it’s a mira
cle. They don’t work reliably
enough to provide access, so we
try not to encourage people to use
them. They give an erroneous im
pression that they provide acces
sibility.”
“Most students are wary of
them anyway,” Gerdes said. The
keys to the lift are no longer given
out in the EMU.
hi Cranor’s experience, they are
not used very much.
“I don’t know of anyone in my
four years [at the University] who
has ever used them,” she said.
“That’s a statement in itself.”
There are fewer and fewer
places around campus that re
quire the use of lifts, Tepfer said.
Other means of accessibility are
being created to help avoid using
them, including elevators.
“The lifts that were built were
just junk,” he said. “Mechanical
ly, we’re comparing a $10,000 de
vice to a $50,000 device. Well, the
$50,000 device is probably going
to work a little better. On top of
that, everyone uses elevators, so
just the slightest thing wrong with
it, someone is going to call for re
pairs.”
And they do. Since Jan. 1,1997,
27 calls were made about the two
elevators in Prince Lucien Camp
bell, facilities maintenance
manger John Chappell said. There
were 14 calls about the EMU ele
vators, and 14 calls were made
about the elevator in Lawrence,
most because it was stuck be
tween floors.
The second occurrence that
brought accessibility to the Uni
versity’s attention was when a
disabled student had to get out of
his wheelchair and make his way
down a flight of stairs in
Lawrence after the elevator was
turned off for repairs.
“I think it’s damn sad that it
takes an incident like in Lawrence
to bring [accessibility] up." Chap
pell said.
It takes $100,000 to $120,000 a
year to maintain the elevators.
This includes cleaning the pit un
derneath the car and the car itself,
oiling different parts and keeping
up the machine room that runs it.
ne saia.
“We pay at
tention to
them,” he said.
“They’re costly
items and re
placement
costs are hor
rendous."
Many reno
vation projects
to help with ac
c e ssibi1it y
would be ideal,
Tepfer said.
However, the
price of getting
new elevators
— around
$1 20,1)00 — holds them back.
“Assuming we ever get state
funding again ... we need an ele
vator project in Fenton, we need
an elevator project in Friendly,
and we need to Fix about 10 mil
lion nasty places around cam
pus.”
The University will continue to
work on the barriers around cam
pus, Tepfer said.
Cranor said as long as she can
get to where she’s supposed to be,
the University is doing well.
“I’m still kind of new in a
chair, so I’m willing to go through
the basement or the boiler room as
long as I’m in the same place as
my peers,” she said.
As the University helps stu
dents with disabilities get around
campus, business owners on 13th
Avenue also help students with
physical disabilities. The building
that houses Student Projects, Inc.,
Sigmunds Cleaners and Campus
Shoe Shop has a step in front of
the businesses. But that doesn’t
stop services.
Journalism major Ed Hartley
tapped on the window of SPI at
the beginning of the term and re
ceived more than just curbside
service. In his Economics 101
class, note-taker Stacey Wolfe de
livers notes to him in class instead
of having him go to SPI to pick
them up.
Assuming we ever get
state funding again... we
need an elevator project
in Fenton, we need an
elevator project in
Friendly, and we need to
J'ix about 10 million
nasty places around
campus.
Fred Tepfer
University Planning Associate
“They really
understand the
situation,” he
said.
Craig Van
houtte, chair
man of the SPI
board of direc
tors, said the
board recog
nized the prob
lem and has
told workers to
be alert for any
one who needs
curbside ser
vice.
SPI has a
back door on
the ground floor, but it’s not very
accommodating, he said.
The landlord of the building,
Jerry Martin, said the building is
so old that any major renovations
would cost more than could be af
forded.
“[Access] could be better, but
the building was built something
like 100 years ago,” he said.
“There’s nothing we can really do
except tear the whole building
down and start over. We try to ser
vice people as well as we can
with what we have.”
Under Title III of the Americans
with Disabilities Act of 1992,
businesses are required to give in
dividuals with disabilities full
and equal employment of the
goods, services, facilities and
privileges they offer. All newly
constructed or renovated facilities
must be barrier-free; however.
older buildings that were stand
ing before the ADA passed don’t
necessarily have to be renovated,
Karla Rutherford of the Northwest
Disability Business Technical As
sistance Center said.
“There are some very gray areas
where the ADA comes in,” she
said.
As long as a way to serve dis
abled patrons is established, such
as the curbside service Student
Projects, Inc., provides, major ren
ovations don’t need to be made,
she said.
Two other defenses businesses
have are undue financial hard
ship on the business or the health
and safety hazard to people with
in the business or people using
the business.
The University must uphold
the same guidelines under Title
III of the ADA, and it has the same
defenses. To accommodate dis
abled students who have classes
in buildings that are not readily
accessible, Gerdes flags the class
es that disabled students are plan
ning to attend and gives the list to
the Registrar’s Office to move
those classes before the term be
gins.
This has made getting to class
easier for Cranor.
“Out of the fours years here,
I’ve only had three classes moved,
and they were because there were
no available elevators in the edu
cation building upstairs, or the
routes between classes were up
hill," she said.
The University has done a
good job at making campus acces
sible to students, Cranor said. The
only two buildings on campus
that don’t have immediate access
are Fenton and Friendly.
“It’s not the actual access I have
a major problem with, but if I get
up to a physical barrier and need
help, people are always willing to
help,” she said. “The attitudes of
people on campus are so great.
The saving face of the University
is the people. ”
Tell your family and friends
to read the Oregon Daily Emerald
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