By Ian Conner, sophomore

Some students with a variety of disabilities say they are pleased with the overall accessibility of Friends University and the accommodations that are provided. However, several of them had a few ideas for improvement.

Employee Jaclyn Hugg also had some ideas. Hugg oversees Americans with Disabilities Act services, and also supervises the international student program, as well as community service and diversity programming. She has worked at Friends since 2005 and in her current position since 2007. She will continue to manage ADA services until Allen Eberwein takes over in July, when Hugg goes to receive her master’s degree in San Diego.

The number of students requesting ADA services has significantly increased since Hugg began working at Friends, from seven to around 20 to 25. She said this is likely because Friends has done a better job of notifying students about the services at places like orientation.

“High school recruiters are starting to have a better knowledge of our program,” Hugg said. This is another reason for the increase.

Under ADA, universities are required to provide “reasonable” accommodations for students with disabilities. The ADA defines disabilities as conditions that substantially limit one or more life activities of an individual. Hugg said the ADA compiles a list of these activities that even includes things like thinking and concentrating. It defines reasonable accommodations as a change in the environment or in the ways things are normally done that would enable a disabled individual to enjoy equal access to the program, service, or activity, that would not fundamentally alter it or be an undue burden. This is determined on a case-by-case basis.

When it comes to disability services, Hugg primarily works with classroom accommodations. These accommodations include things like extended time on tests, tests taken orally, books on CD, note takers or, in the past, sign language interpreters and books in Braille.

 Hugg does try to watch for problems relating to building access for students with disabilities. When such issues occur she usually refers them to physical plant director Paul Winchester, who is now in his 35th year working at Friends.
A student who is happy with the services is Shayn Guillemette, a sophomore English drama major with paranoid schizophrenia who recently ran for student Senate.

Because stress affects Guillemette more adversely than others, he is allowed extra time on tests and assignments when he chooses to take breaks. He is happy with the services he is receiving and sees no room for improvement. He also finds the teachers at Friends to be supportive and is glad the government implemented ADA services.

One student who is aware of some changes she would like to see implemented is Casey Thomas, a senior Spanish major who has cerebral palsy and uses a wheelchair.

Thomas has already brought about changes at the Casado Campus Center. Because Thomas has some trouble with vision she had a close call with the curb. She worried she or other students might fall off the sidewalk. She brought her concern to Student Affairs director Carole Obermeyer and thought a yellow line should be painted as a warning.

Thomas said the physical plant was out painting within a week.

Thomas also requested pushbuttons to open the doors outside Casado and they, too, were installed.

Most of the buildings at Friends have buttons, but some do not such as the Garvey Art Building and the Riney Fine Arts Center. Some buildings like the Davis Administration Building only have a button at one entrance. In the Business and Technology Building, the entrance nearest the elevator lacks a button. People with more serious conditions would not be able to use these buttons. For everyone to be able to open doors, the doors would either have to open automatically or buttons would have to be used that could work with hand-held remotes that certain students would carry with them, a technology that already exists.

Another idea that Thomas has is to make Adair-Austin Stadium more accessible, so that students could sit higher near their fellow students.

“I would like to be instrumental in making additional changes, while I’m still here,” Thomas said.

 In the past the coach has let her sit on the sideline at football games.

 “It’s a great seat to watch the game, but you don’t have all the camaraderie of being in the stands with your classmates,” Thomas said.

Winchester, the Physical Plant director, said a ramp that would meet ADA specifications would be too long to be practical, but some type of mechanical lift would be possible. Winchester said when officials looked at the cost of a lift it was expensive, but he admits they haven’t looked recently. He wasn’t able to find out the current price by publication time and was not sure about a grant to cover it.

Thomas’ second idea was in regard to the restrooms. She said in some cases the stalls are not large enough to bring her chair into and have room to shut the door. In some cases to widen the stalls, extensive renovations would need to be done, such as moving an entire stairwell, Winchester said.

On a side note, Winchester said it had been considered to make the ramps in the Davis building less steep, but they would get in the way of doorways as well as stairs.

Thomas’ final suggestion would be to place indentations in the rows of the auditoriums where she and others in wheelchairs could sit on level ground. Now she is either forced to sit in the back or on a slant in the aisles.

Before coming to Friends, Thomas spent two years at nearby Newman University and did not enjoy it nearly as much as she enjoys Friends.

“The difference in accessibility between friends and Newman is like night and day, Thomas said.”
For example, Thomas said, Newman had few buttons to open doors.

Another student who wants to remain anonymous is biology major with attention deficit disorder taking classes at both Friends and Newman. He is not as impressed with his Newman experience. While he is happy with his services at Friends and says he “wouldn’t change anything,” he describes his ADA services at Newman as “a complete headache.” He finds he must be persistent in his requests to get the services he needs.

At Friends, Hugg has several ideas in regard to accommodations and accessibility. Something Hugg would like to have done is to make sure accessibility is a key consideration in the planning and construction of buildings on campus. She wants to make sure that no one is turned away from Friends because of an accessibility issue.

Something else Hugg would like to see is a resource center possibly in conjunction with the library, where all students could go to be tutored and where students receiving special accommodations could take their tests when teachers cannot meet with them. Currently some students need to take tests in Hugg’s office. Students using special software, such as voice recognition, could use it in the resource center. In the past there has been difficulty keeping certain programs on the computer lab computers, Hugg said.

Hugg would also like elevators and automatic doors to be monitored more frequently to make sure they continue to work properly. Finally she would like programming and trips to include everyone, where organizers think about accessibility, so no one is left out. She said it might help if trip organizers were reminded of accessibility and instructed how to make trips accessible.

Each of the students interviewed thinks Hugg is good at what she does.

“Jaclyn is great; she’s very understanding and helpful, too,” said Guillemette.