From the Hopkins News-Letter, its student newspaper:In the second round of examinations by the Sociology of Disability class, students researched the extent of disability access in six different areas of Hopkins life - admissions, housing and dining, student activities, athletics, special events and transportation - and came to the same conclusion as before: the Homewood campus is still largely inaccessible to the disabled.
While last year's Sociology of Disability class, led by graduate student Christian Villenas, examined the accessibility of the most frequently used buildings on campus, this semester's class took a different approach.
Rather than focusing on how a disabled person would be able to enter a building, students, in teams of five or six, were asked to delve deeper and to assess not just the physical barriers of the different areas but the social barriers as well.
The groups approached the task from the perspective of someone who had a physical, sensory or learning disability to determine whether Hopkins buildings
were compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), which ensures equal opportunity for people with disabilities.
"I wanted students to learn that a disability is not just a medical phenomenon. Disability comes from the barriers imposed on by society and not so much by the medical condition itself. Disability is predominantly a social structure and not a physical one," Villenas said.
Junior Natalie Draisin, who participated in the admissions group, explained in an e-mail to the News-Letter that Hopkins's inaccessibility begins with the admissions process.
According to Draisin, prospective students with disabilities may encounter several obstacles even before they arrive on campus, beginning with the admissions Web site, which does not readily offer information about disability accommodations, and the application itself, which is not offered in Braille or audio files for those with sensory impairments.
Although the admissions office accommodates students with disabilities on a
case-by-case basis, the small number of disabled students at Hopkins, Draison
suggested, reflects the need for more improvements in the admissions process."By not providing an equal opportunity for all students to access the admissions process, the University unintentionally excludes students with disabilities," she said. "There are many different affordable options to increase the accessibility of the admissions process, and they need to be implemented to increase the diversity of this campus."
Senior Lindsay Bynum, a student in the special events group, echoed Draisin's findings. While commencement was found to be relatively accessible, with increased handicapped parking, golf carts available for the mobility impaired and a signer for the hearing impaired, many accommodations are only given based on request.
"Commencement 2009 will [accommodate the disabled], but those things vary from year to year, so next year students will have to ask for [accommodations] beforehand," she said. "Disabled students must take the initiative to receive accommodations. In order to be able to go here, [students with disabilities] need to be their own advocates and say, Hello my name is . . . I need xyz."
Groups also broke down their assigned areas into smaller components and assessed their specific functions. The Student Activities group evaluated the degree to which Hopkins's student organizations were accessible within five sectors: academic, performance arts, Center for Social Concern, cultural and Greek groups.
Students found that most on-campus student groups strongly encouraged
active participation and were generally "very welcoming" to all students. However, the meeting locations - most of them cluttered practice rooms - proved to be inconvenient and difficult to navigate for anyone who may use a wheelchair or crutches.
Similarly, junior Nick Kosik, a member of the Student Activities group, noted a willingness to encourage all students to participate but also an uncertainty about how to make accommodations for students with disabilities.
"A lot of groups were willing but didn't have the resources [to accommodate disabled students]. A lot of different organizations didn't even know about the existence or the policies of the Office of Disability Services," Kosik said. "The school as a whole needs to train members and officers to make them more aware of disability, so everyone can participate."
The accessibility of certain buildings or groups varied within and among the groups for someone with limited mobility, with some places, like the Levering Food Court, categorized as "largely accessible" and others, like the Center for Social Concern, scoring a "completely inaccessible."
Most found employees and University personnel to be easy to talk to, but some participants reported that they found the experience frustrating in terms of not being able to gain access to particular services.
Senior Kevin Roach, a member of the parking and transportation group, found the experience isolating. A member of his group rode on the JHMI shuttle and in Hopkins's Escort Vans in a wheelchair and found that setting up a shuttle to go to the medical campus took almost 40 minutes. Even then, the driver was reluctant to allow other passengers onto the same shuttle.
Similarly, junior Anna Johnston of the Housing and Dining group found freshmen dorms, aside from Wolman, to be very inaccessible, since only the main floors could be reached by a student with limited mobility, except for the basement of Building A.
"This creates a very unfriendly environment as someone with a mobility impairment would not be able to visit any of their friends who were on upper floors," Johnston said.
The University is aware of the inaccessibility of some of its facilities and has "increased the amount of financial support for ADA projects each year over the past several years and going forward additional increases are planned in the five year financial plan," according to Dean of Undergraduate Education Paula Burger.
While some changes, such as constructing a ramp or elevator, require funding and a significant amount of time to implement, the students concluded that there are numerous smaller, less costly changes that could be effected that would greatly reduce both physical and social barriers.