Students with disabilities navigate obstacles

Settling in at the beginning of freshman year is a formidable task--finding your way around a new city, memorizing the arragement of Gothic buildings that at first glance may seem all but identical, learning where to go to accomplish what. But for Yale's students with disabilities, the task can be even more formidable.

COURTESY RESOURCE OFFICE FOR DISABILITIES William L. Harkness Hall is one of Yale's more disability friendly buildings, featuring an elevator and automatic doors.

"It seems to me that for a comparatively small sum, given the millions of dollars spent on recent renovations, the University could install small wooden ramps in all the residential colleges to meet [the Americans with Disabilities Act's] standards," Matan Koch, BK '02, who uses a wheelchair, said. "I think there's something there for a project that's not cheap, but not too expensive either."

Not all the residential colleges are currently wheelchair-accessible. "They are old buildings in many cases, but every college is scheduled for renovation at one point or another," Sally Esposito, director of Yale's Resource Office for Disablities (ROD), explained. She added that unless it's "technologically unfeasible," any planned renovation includes handicapped-accessible facilities in its design. The University has an access subcommittee that looks into the renovations process.

Birkir Gunnarsson, MC '02, who is blind, has been in frequent contact with the Resource Office since he arrived at Yale. "During the first few weeks, Yale provided me with a guide 45 hours a week who gave me a cane and showed me how to cross roads and walk around campus," Gunnarson said. By memorizing his surroundings and the positions of the walls and doors, he expects to manage well in the future.

Gunnarrson has not let his disability interfere with his college experience. He is a percussionist in the Yale Precision Marching Band and plans to try out for the swim team. In class, he uses a laptop and a tape recorder and consults classmates for help with notes.

Last year, about 150 students, undergraduate and graduate, used ROD (though this number includes about 15 students with temporary disabilities such as athletic injuries). "What we do is very individualized," Esposito said.

Betty Trachtenberg, Dean of Student Affairs, reinforced the Administration's commitment to equal access. "We try very hard to accommodate students with disabilites. There is no one way to do so; we fit accomodations to the disability of the student," she said.

Conditions are by no means ideal, however. Koch complained of locked doors and sidewalks in "sorry shape," among a variety of problems he has encountered in his time at Yale so far. "Some community businesses, especially on Wall Street, don't make much of an effort to accommodate students in wheelchairs," he added. "While it's not entirely Yale's fault, [the University] should be working with New Haven to improve access."

Arch Currie, the director of the Yale Office of Facilities, oversees capital projects like the $22 million renovation of Linsley-Chittenden Hall. "In every project that we do there is at least a consideration for what has to be done for people with disabilities," he said. Every floor level in LC is now accessible to handicapped students; the building also has an elevator with double doors, wheelchair lifts, and a stair-climbing lift to allow speakers to get to the lecture platform.

Though disabled students face unusual obstacles on their way to Yale, there are no special quotas or recruitment programs for their admission, nor do their applications receive special consideration. "We don't take disabilities into account [in admissions]. It would be inappropriate for us to consider," Dean of Undergraduate Admissions Richard Shaw said. "In most cases, we wouldn't know [of a student's disability] unless a student voluntarily indicated it on an application. We don't ask."

Nonetheless, Shaw said that Yale welcomes students with disabilities. "We are conscious and considerate. We don't discourage them from applying. For any candidate, we look at whether they have the capacity to do the work."

A new organization on campus, Students for Disability Awareness (SDA), was founded last spring for students with physical and learning disabilities. "It's to create an inclusive and supportive environment for students with disabilities," SDA organizer Jillian Cutler, CC '99, explained. "What we're envisioning for this year is to have weekly meetings to discuss problems, share common experiences, and especially look at situations where we can increase awareness."

SDA also sponsors activities centering on disability issues. Activist Ted Kennedy, Jr., recently came to speak about disability awareness at an SDA-cosponsored Calhoun Master's Tea.

Rachel Bloom, TC '99, who heads SDA, believes Yale's physical accommodations for disabled students have been very satisfactory. "One of the reasons we aren't battling for facilities is because there's really no battle," she said.

Sangeetha Ramaswamy contributed to this article.

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