Improve disability access

The issues with Disability Services do not directly concern most people who use Columbia’s Morningside Heights campus. Yet as a recent Spectator article ("For some, campus disability access not enough," Jan. 26) points out, its problems are intimately relevant to some in their day-to-day lives in Morningside Heights.

For the most part, the various Disability Services offices at Columbia seem to serve their functions well. The existing system provides housing and testing accommodations, as well as support services that include note-taking, assistive technology, and alternate-format materials for students with disabilities. Unlike many administrative offices on campus, the Disability Services offices at the various schools are seldom subject to heavy criticism and seem to be fulfilling their missions well.

Although the University provides reasonable services with regard to academic accommodations, it often ignores more basic issues of physical space. Columbia’s McKim, Mead and White campus was designed in a different time with a geographic space that makes it difficult for the physically disabled to access. Though we acknowledge that the University has inherited problems of physical space from the past, Columbia must improve disability access in Morningside Heights. It does not seem unreasonable to expect the University to install more ramps or to provide easier access for the physically disabled—accessibility maps, for example, already exist, but they should be displayed more prominently at building entrances. Nor does it seem overly burdensome for the University to centralize information regarding Disability Services so that faculty and staff can understand the needs of the disabled. It is especially important for staff like security guards to understand this information, as they are crucial points of contact for people who need disability access.

It is encouraging to see professor Rachel Adams push for these changes in her project, “The Future of Disability Studies.” We applaud her work and recognize the need for the University as a whole to facilitate improvements to disability access.

Though we recognize the difficulties that Columbia faces on a campus that is more than a century old, there are obvious and simple measures that the University can and should implement. At the very least, Columbia should learn from the problems that it currently faces in Morningside Heights and be especially conscious of disability access as it plans its new campus in Manhattanville.