Spotlight
Summer 2008 Back to Spotlight home page
A promise of accessibility
| See the story's historical photographs in pages 16-21 of the magazine! |
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ESU's historical commitment to accessibility
The cracks in the pavement were the first-down markers. Five
wheelchairs against five wheelchairs, making up the rules as they
went. In these regular after-dinner football games organized by
the Vigilantes, a group of Emporia State students in the late 1960s
and early 1970s, there was a tremendous sense of camaraderie.
For some of the students, like the 1969 Vigilantes president Larry
Schmidt, coming to college in Emporia put them around others
who also faced impaired mobility – for the very first time.
“We grew up together, we played together, we cried together,” said Schmidt, who now lives in Moundridge, Kan. “All kinds of experiences. It was a neat opportunity. We had so much fun just being ourselves and learning what we could and couldn’t do.”
All this happened at
Emporia State University
for one reason – accessibility. As
early as the 1950s, before state or federal
laws began to require equal accommodations for
those with mobility impairments, ESU was remaking its
physical spaces to offer equal access to higher education.
And the reputation ESU earned is still with us today,
although a need for continued vigilance remains.
It was Dr. John King, the ESU president from 1953 to 1966, who jumpstarted the transformation toward accessibility, said Dr. Harry Stephens, former vice president for student affairs. In the late 1950s, King met Olpe High School student Mary Greenwood, who was confined to a wheelchair, and brought her to campus. Ramps were built before her first day and football players volunteered to carry her up stairs. King recognized the physical limitations on college campuses, and saw an opportunity to make KSTC a uniquely accessible institution. On a small campus, King foresaw big changes, Stephens said, not just for physical access to higher education but also access for students from different ethnic backgrounds.
The vision carried over into later university administrations, such as President John Visser, who saw the impact it made. The vision carried over to the students. Bill Scales (BSE 1959, MS 1962), a native of Gridley, was active in disability issues as a student, then he became ESU’s coordinator of rehabilitation services, and eventually became the director of disability services at the University of Maryland in College Park. (Attempts to reach him were unsuccessful.) Stephens also noted that the late Howard Moses (BGS 1979) lobbied the Kansas governor for extra accessibility funding at KSTC, and then worked in disability services for the Carter administration. And William Greene, Jr. (BSB 1970, MS 1971) was named an ESU Distinguished Alumnus in 2005 for his founding of New Life, Inc., which provides sports programs, peer counseling and coaching in the Wheelchair Sports USA races. Greene received the Humanitarian Certificate from President Richard Nixon and was inducted into the Wheelchair Sports USA Hall of Fame.
“That was the environment here,” Stephens said. “It was
not uncommon to see eight to 12 students in the cafeteria
at any one time. In the ‘60s, the culture of campus was
clearly accessible.”
That’s when wheelchair basketball and football really caught on. The Vigilantes’ five-on-five games after dinner were just the beginning. The sense of belonging in the group, which included some Vietnam veterans, produced some bold moves. The university asked if they’d consider changing their name, but they said no – jerseys were already printed. They organized the state’s first wheelchair basketball tournament, and successfully petitioned the school for the right to use the athletic bus for an away game at the University of Illinois, Schmidt said.
On campus, they became close to the ESU football and
basketball teams. Kinesiology students would carry the
heavy electric wheelchairs up staircases in the old gym,
and football players would also get in on the football
games – although they’d be in wheelchairs. “They were
hard on the chairs – they were big boys,” Schmidt said
with a laugh. “We usually gave them the chairs that didn’t
work very good – the used chairs.”
Schmidt, a native of Buhler, near Hutchinson, came to
ESU on his high school counselor’s recommendation. After
qualifying academically, he also received tuition support
from the Kansas Department of Social and Rehabilitation
Services, as did other students with disabilities, and even
roommates assigned to work with the students. Schmidt
recalled how eye-opening it was for him, from a small
town, to develop close friendships with all the residents
of the residence halls’ bottom floors, which were filled by
students with mobility impairments.
But it wasn’t all fun and games. The library, for one,
was hard to enter and exit. They had to ring a bell and
wait outside in the elements until it was opened. “We had
some challenges,” Schmidt acknowledged. “Sometimes
we used it as an excuse not to show up for class! But there
was a lot of support, too. Teachers were always willing to
help.” The police helped, too, sometimes driving them
back to campus: after a night on the town, electric
wheelchairs would run out of juice and
couldn’t make the six- or eightblock
trek back to campus
(through the back
alleys,
which were smoother than the intersections on
Commercial Street).
Breezing through past editions of the alumni magazine
and the yearbook, one can find plenty of anecdotes. The
1971 yearbook carries a photo spread of students with
mobility impairments ironing, fishing in Wooster Lake
and more. It’s titled “Just People,” ostensibly aiming to
show the normalcy of their college lives.
Ann Wilgus (MS 1975) was featured in a 1973 edition
of the KSTC “Alumni News” for coming to Emporia from
Delaware “because a friend told her the college had
excellent facilities for handicapped students.” Wilgus
found the facilities to be outstanding: “They are far
better than I dreamed. At home I’m rather isolated in
my apartment in the winter especially. But here I can go
anywhere I want. I can even go downtown very easily.”
In 1973, the article says, “KSTC was one of the first
colleges or universities in the country to equip its campus
for handicapped students. Ramps lead to every building.
All buildings are equipped with elevators and the residence
halls and academic buildings have restroom facilities.
Doors on buildings have been widened and drinking
fountains and pencil sharpeners lowered. A student in
a wheelchair or on crutches can move over the entire
campus under his or her own power without meeting
architectural barriers.”
Todd Morando (BFA 1986, MS 1986), featured in the
1985 yearbook as ESU’s only blind student, explained his
reasons for choosing ESU in a way that points to another
way ESU is accessible – its atmosphere. “I wanted a college
small enough to get around but large enough to get lost
in,” Morando said in the yearbook. “I liked the way the
university treated me. My questions were answered and
they gave me lots of cooperation. I also like the atmosphere
of the school. It’s like that of a family or small community.”
Student organizations also played a part. In 1985,
PUSH (People United for Self Help) was credited with
paving the way for several accessibility items on campus
– a chair lift in the planetarium, elevators in the library,
water fountains and parking spaces, and crosswalks and
ramps throughout campus, according to the 1985
yearbook.
Into the 1990s, ESU’s tradition of accessibility was still there. Grady Atwater (BA 2003, MA 2005), who was confined to a wheelchair when he was choosing a college in the late 1990s, toured universities in Kansas and chose ESU – primarily because it was the most accessible campus he visited, he told the Spotlight for a 2007 article.
The work continues today, as accessibility planning
is proactively factored into student-faculty relationships
and physical construction. “That’s not the case at many
universities – it’s often an afterthought,” said Shanti
Ramcharan, director of disability services. “When I go
to the national conferences, people know the reputation
of Emporia State. It comes from a long-standing history.
We made this a priority long before any legislation, long
before we were required to.”
Two primary pieces of legislation guide university
accessibility, Ramcharan said: Section 504 of the 1973
Rehabilitation Act, which prohibits denying access or
services based on disabilities, and Title II of the 1990
Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), which defines
physical spaces. ESU’s office of disability services focuses
equally on physical and programming aspects, flexibly
approaching each student’s needs by looking at the
barriers and dismantling them. “There’s no cookie-cutter
approach,” Ramcharan said.
Ramcharan has found the university quite responsive.
Recently, when a violin-playing student in a wheelchair
couldn’t descend into the orchestra pit to play for a theatre
production, the facilities department realized that a
traditional lift would take up too much space in the pit. So
they located a smaller lift designed for a swimming pool
that runs on water pressure. Water pipes were installed, and the student was able to play the violin to accompany
the production. “In some places, they might’ve said, ‘We just can’t do
that,’” Ramcharan said. “No one here was going to tell the
student no – that was just not an acceptable answer.”
Today’s universities also see a greater diversity of
disabilities in students – those with learning or psychiatric
challenges, or chronic health problems, might not have
attended college in years past. But
the numbers don’t necessarily bear
out – 200 students are registered
with ESU’s office, while the national
average suggests that 8 percent of
ESU students, or 500, have some
form of impairment. It’s a good sign,
Ramcharan said, that students don’t
need as much assistance – they’ve
often acclimated well after the first
year or two, and when they begin
studying in upper-level classes, the
academic departments begin offering
the necessary accommodations.
But the need for advocacy
continues. From the perspective of his wheelchair, Dr.
James Costello, an assistant professor in the department
of counselor education, says the university shouldn’t
rest on its reputation. He sees cracks in the Earl Center
parking lot that are perfectly fine to drive over in a car, but
they’ll stop his wheelchair in its tracks. In the winter, he
sees snow plowed into the corners of parking lots, often
where the accessible parking spaces are located. He sees
minimal consequences for those who illegally use the
accessible spaces.
He also speaks with students who are nervous about
raising problems they’re having. He’s seen students who
have a learning disability in mathematics struggling with
the algebra requirement. They’ll fail the course over and
over, without knowing they can provide documentation
of the disability and move onto a substituted course, and
find themselves left with only the algebra course before
graduating.
“Most students don’t want to volunteer that they have a learning disability,” Costello said, adding that algebra for someone with a learning disability in math is “like asking someone with a spinal cord injury to run the Boston Marathon – it’s not going to happen.”
Although work remains to be done, the university has a history of adapting. Back in Larry Schmidt’s era, the school adapted as the students found their bold voice. “People looked out for us,” Schmidt said. “We became obvious.” Schmidt said he and his friends got to sign up for classes first, to accommodate the time they needed to move between classes. So they’d get together and five or six guys in wheelchairs would show up for a criminal justice class, much to the professor’s surprise. “It was a process of the campus adapting to us,” Schmidt said. “We showed up and said, ‘Here we are!’”
* * *
Editor's note: At ESU, the notion of accessibility isn’t limited to students’ physical access to higher education. Our atmosphere also features a tight-knit campus of friendly faces, a cozy campus undiminished by the sprawl of other universities, a city of ample size, and a favorable student-teacher ratio that spawns strong mentoring relationships. Heather Smith, a May 2008 graduate, interned at the office of University Advancement in the spring, and writes about her experience at ESU:
The comfort of ESU
by Heather Smith
We can all remember our elementary days as if they were yesterday – when we walked into a place where we felt as much a part of the school as the next child. Everyone knew our name, our art work was hanging in the hall, and the counselor was our best friend when we had a problem. Those were the days, when we walked in each morning and sat at our own familiar pencil-marked desk, next to a friend we made back in kindergarten, and we’d talk until we got in trouble.
Then came middle school, where some aspects changed
tremendously but many continued to bring us comfort.
Entering high school was a huge leap for us all, with the
fear of getting shoved in a locker always in the back of
our minds. However, it was typically overshadowed by the
opportunities for enjoyment – coming and going at your
own free will, the chance to be the star of the basketball
team, or being able to eat pizza for lunch every day.
But as it always happens, we come to a point where our
life will move on, and the sense of comfort and familiarity
you have always known will disappear.
The concern of
becoming “just a number” and getting lost in the world
of a million college students starts crossing the minds
of many. Practically everyone goes into a panic as they
wonder how they will ever pass a math class with more
than 200 people in it.
Then somewhere in the college brochures, one stands
out that says “Emporia State University.” It is a college of
less than 7,000 students, a place where you know your
teachers and they know you, where you find comfort in
talking to them about anything. The opportunities to get
involved are tremendous, whether you desire a leadership
position or a fun organization, or a chance to tryout for a
sports team. It is an incredible chance to get involved in
many things, while preparing for a brighter future through
the experiences of ESU.
Emporia State
made my college
selection easier than I ever
thought it would be. After I came on a
visit I could not imagine going anywhere else.
Everything is close together, the campus is beautiful,
and people are always smiling when you pass them. This
place is special to me and has a truly great place in my
heart. I will always value the closeness I have with my
professors, and I’ll remember all the times they assisted
me. I’ll remember the people I’ve met whose friendships
will last a lifetime, and I’ll remember the opportunity to
be involved and grow with experience.
This university has the best accessibility – the
classrooms are small enough that the board can be
seen by everyone, and any question you have will get
answered. Even the parking situation is better than
any other school I have attended. Now with graduation
upon me, I realize how ESU excels at giving students
a remarkable education, in addition to providing
students with a good sense of community. The modest
campus is a nice way to keep students “un-stressed.”
But the best part about coming to a smaller university
is the relationships that are built while here. You’re not
just a name when you attend ESU – for many, teachers
become mentors who not only help with class work, but
also assist with setting up internships and jobs for the
future. When I had a concern or wanted more information
about anything I always felt comfortable going to any of
my teachers. If they did not know the answers right away,
they knew how to find someone who did. The difference
here is that people care. Teachers, staff, friends, as well
as the entire Emporia community – they all care. And if
that’s not enough, keep in mind that you can still eat pizza
every day.