It takes nothing more than a couple inches of raised ground to make parts of this campus completely inaccessible to handicapped students.
In a school as old and established as Duke, it is no surprise that there are many locations on campus that are inaccessible to people with mobility limitations or physical disabilities. Many of the school’s policies and practices—such as not allowing students with housing accommodations to block with their friends or using elevators as storage closets—seem to push these students away rather than integrate them. Although the school tries to go out of its way to accommodate its few disabled students, there are many things that could be done to improve the accessibility of the campus as a whole.
“The [student disability] office—they’re not on you for things—but if you need something you can ask them for things and they’re generally accommodating,” said senior Charlotte Schwarz.
The Student Disability Accommodations Office, located on Central Campus, is great for working with people one-on-one, Schwarz said, adding that the office has been extremely helpful with any personal problems brought to their attention.
She noted, however, that the office could be more proactive about the little things. There are many automatic doors and entryways on campus that are broken and will remain so until it is brought to the attention of the administration. Likewise, there are many places on campus where the sidewalks are cracked and distorted—or else nonexistent.
“The disability office itself is off the main campus and far away,” said junior Megan Barron. “It’s not an integral part of the Duke community because people don’t see the disability office like they’d see other resources on campus. It’s like a slap in the face that the office is so far away. There are also so many resources on campus that are located in buildings which are completely inaccessible, which means those resources are inaccessible.”
Getting around campus is often an issue for students with disabilities. While the bus drivers are generally very good about being patient with individuals in wheelchairs and willing to wait for a straggler or two who isn’t as quick to board as the rest of the students, there are only so many places one can go with a bus.
There are some places that require you to call the van service to help you get there. Safe Rides is meant to help students with mobility issues—a sprained ankle or a broken foot—get where they need to go. The fact that Duke provides this service is phenomenal and extremely convenient. It has, however, experienced many cutbacks recently, reducing the size of its fleet and the hours it operates.
Many students believe that accessibility on campus is not a problem, and that elevators and automatic doors are generally superfluous. It is because of this mentality that one sometimes finds elevators which double as storage closets, finding anything from mops and buckets to coals upon stepping inside. Likewise, students who require special housing accommodations are kept from being able to block with their friends, even if it’s only one or two people.
“That’s not fair, I agree. I wanted to block with friends, and I couldn’t. I didn’t push it too hard," Schwarz said. "I realized that wasn’t in the policy, so I just let it go.”
The dorms especially aren't very accessible, Barron said. West Campus dorms often have a single step—which prevents individuals with wheelchairs from going inside—or narrow hallways which require very precise handling. Most dorms don’t even have elevators, and those that do—Koehane or Edens—are much farther away than most.
“Accessibility doors are always in the back of a building, the long way around,” Barron said. “They’re generally all the way around back, by the dumpster or parking lot and out of sight. It sends a weird message. You shouldn’t have to go such a roundabout way to get where you need to go.”
Barron, who runs the Duke Disability Alliance, feels that once the students of Duke University are made aware of the problems on campus they too will feel compelled to fix them. Barron invites everyone to attend the DDA for its general body meeting on Sep. 22 at 7:30 in the Center for Multicultural Affairs.
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