S. L. FULLER
News Editor
This winter has been cold and snowy with an emphasis on “cold.” The chill has been undeniably felt by everyone on campus, and the Fredonia staff is doing everything it can to keep any negative environmental effects to a minimum.
Sometimes, wintry precipitation accumulates so much that it becomes nearly impossible to keep up with maintenance. It’s not unusual to see a student walk through a large pile of snow, or to see a student slip on a patch of ice on the sidewalk. But all of the adverse effects that winter weather causes are, perhaps, felt most by those with disabilities.
“The main problem [of living on campus while being disabled] that comes to mind is getting through the snow,” said Burgandi Rakoska, junior early childhood education major, in an interview published in last week’s issue of The Leader. “I personally have a hard time getting the wheelchair through the snow when it piles up.”
Hardships like this do not go unnoticed. Making the campus accessible for every student is at the top of everyone’s list — from Facilities Services to the Student Association.
Just recently, Student Association president — sophomore adolescent education and history double major — Jefferson Dedrick helped a student in a wheelchair get unstuck from a snowbank. He mentioned in a recent interview that he can only imagine how tough it must be for people with disabilities in the winter .
“It’s crazy out there sometimes,” said Dedrick. “I know the maintenance crews do the best job that they can, but sometimes, it would be impossible to get around [in a wheelchair].”
Kevin Cloos, director of Facilities Services, knows first hand how hard his staff works during the winter. According to Cloos, this current winter season has proven to be more difficult than previous years. This is not only due to the weather, but also because of new additions to the campus, such as the Science Center and University Village.
“I think it’s been one of the more challenging winters. I think it’s been colder — I know it’s been colder — and there’s been more snow,” said Cloos. “And of course, the campus has gotten bigger. There are more buildings, more entrances, and there [are] more sidewalks.”
The different buildings also make for differences in the handicap push plates for automatic doors. Some students have reported noticing that not all push plates are functioning at all times. Cloos explained that when buildings close and are locked down for the night, the push plates deactivate, so that might be a source of confusion.
There are also buildings, such as the Williams Center, that require different push plates than the other buildings because of the building design. This has been a source of major inconvenience and has required maintenance assistance from companies outside of the campus. But other than that, Cloos says the maintenance staff tries to repair any malfunctions as soon as they know about them.
“I don’t know that [the push plates] are on a specific program for being checked. They’re used so frequently that most of the time, we find out when they’re broken because they are used so often,” said Cloos. “We don’t actually go through and do a preventative maintenance (PM) on them to make sure everything’s operational.”
If it does happen that something is malfunctioning and the staff hasn’t fixed it yet, Cloos said that students can go online and fill out a maintenance request, or even email him personally.
New buildings and more entrances and sidewalks also means that maintenance staff must tend to a larger area. With so much ground to cover, the staff is forced to prioritize when the conditions start to worsen.
According to Cloos, the first priority for the maintenance staff is to make sure the roads are open and safe to drive on for the sake of emergency vehicles, as well as the drivers on campus. Next on the list of priorities is the commuter parking lots, then sidewalks from the parking lots to building entrances and lastly, the overnight lots.
Also on that list lies the needs of students with disabilities. Adam Hino, the coordinator of Disability Support Services for Students, works with Facilities Services to make sure that the students can get where they need to go when the weather conditions are less than optimal.
“Typically, we provide schedules [of students with disabilities] to the grounds staff so that they are aware of the areas that need priority and maybe additional snow removal,” said Hino. “But there are some times, like in the past couple of weeks, where we just get so much snow and … sometimes it becomes a challenge. So we work with those students to find the best solution in terms of addressing those sorts of needs.”
Another common way that students travel in the winter is the Campus-Community bus. However, the bus is also a source of inconvenience for students with disabilities. One issue that Rakoska highlighted in last week’s issue of The Leader was the fact that the Campus-Community bus only accommodates handicapped people a few times during the week. If Rakoska wanted to take the bus into town on the weekends, that option would not be available.
The Campus-Community bus comes under the jurisdiction of the Student Association, and Dedrick says that he, and the rest of the office, is well aware and working to fix that inconvenience.
“It’s something that we obviously take very seriously: to be able to serve all of our students and to comply to the legal requirements,” said Dedrick. “We are aware of [the bus situation], and we have been fighting an uphill battle with the folks that we contract the bus out with.”
According to Dedrick, ideally, the Campus-Community bus would be accessible to every student every day of the week. However, the current company that SA contracts the bus from, Butler Motor Transit, Inc – Coach USA, does not have the resources to make that a reality. In a cyclic pattern, each bus gets taken away for maintenance and refurbishing and, in its place, the campus is supplied with a different bus. However, not all of the busses that get cycled in and out are able to carry wheelchairs and are, therefore, not accessible to students with disabilities. And, due to the fact that the contract between the company and SA ends when the semester does, the company is not willing to build, or supply a handicap-accessible bus. But Dedrick said there are already plans to build a new contract for next semester.
“Vince [Gugino] is already going to add language [to the contract] that says that … whenever we are running the bus, it needs to be able to be accessible to handicapped [people],” said Dedrick. “We want to go all the way to say in our contract that it’s going to be required whenever we have a bus running. If it takes another bus company, that’s what it will take.”
Dedrick and the rest of SA are making conscious efforts to accommodate students with disabilities directly within the organization, as well. Rakoska was just recently appointed, by Dedrick, to his executive cabinet. As the new Students with Disabilities representative, Rakoska will now have the ability to give a strong voice to the students she represents.
Even if there are still flaws with Fredonia’s attempts to accommodate students with disabilities, Cloos, Hino and Dedrick have made it obvious that the university is genuinely trying. And come blizzard or high snowbanks, the university will continue to try.
“Everyone’s trying just to give 110 percent, doing everything they can,” said Cloos of his maintenance staff. “[I] ask for a little patience from everybody, because it has become so much of a burden day in and day out having to keep up with [the weather]. We want to do what we can, and, certainly with our students with disabilities, we try to make those areas a priority as best we can.”