UNLV handicapped access difficult to navigate

September 2, 2010 by Sarah Shaw 

Wheelchair experience exposes failures of handicap access

When my doctor told me I had a tumor the size of a football in my lower abdomen that would require a fairly serious surgery, you can imagine my reaction.

More than the fear of possibly having cancer or of going under the knife, I was terrified that I would not be able to go to school this semester.

I am enthusiastically beginning my second year at UNLV. I love coming to college. I am one of those people who thrives on this kind of atmosphere and I intend to stay in school until I get a Ph.D (maybe even longer!).

I have goals, and I am on a timeline to meet them. Missing a semester of school was out of the question, but the earliest my doctor could get me into surgery was Aug. 20 — a mere three days before school started.

I came to school on Monday in a wheelchair. This is when I realized for the first time our school’s lack of handicap accessibility.

I, like many people who are blessed enough to be able-bodied, have never noticed this problem until I had to suffer through it. In fact, all most students notice are the buttons we have on every door that allow them to open automatically for handicapped people.

I thought this was adequate for handicapped access, but one day in the life of someone who has to commute via wheelchair and I can tell you our campus is completely impractical for anyone requiring a chair or scooter.

It was so difficult that I could not even return on Wednesday, and I have decided I need to recover more fully before attempting to attend — although I do still plan to be back this semester.

The kicker, though, is that I had friends pushing me all day! I was constantly in the care of responsible adults who had no difficulty in moving my wheelchair around, and I still couldn’t do it.

I could not imagine being a permanently handicapped person and attending UNLV. Even the sidewalks are just not up to par! The cracks are so enormous; my wheelchair got stuck in them more than once. I don’t know if there is anything the school can do about this, but it really was a challenge.

At one point, I had to go to the Alta Ham Fine Arts building from the Cottage Grove garage and found myself stuck by the flashlight sculpture between Artemus W. Ham Concert Hall and Judy Bayley Theatre.

There is no way into campus from this point at the school, besides a huge staircase. I had to go all the way around to the science and engineering building in order to get to a ramp that allowed me into campus, just to go back around and get to HFA.

Also, there is no ramp that exits Flora Dungan Humanities to the east, facing the parking lot. Actually, there is one, but on it is a picture of a wheelchair with a cross through it, which declares this ramp is not for handicapped people.

After going down it, I can see why; it felt incredibly steep. I could almost see someone in a wheelchair losing control and falling over. This brings me back to the basic point: there is not a “handicap accessible” ramp leading from the FDH to the parking lot.

I guess UNLV just doesn’t believe making people with physical disabilities push themselves all the way around in 120-degree weather is that big of a deal.

I don’t know anything about really being handicapped or what is required of a university these days to accommodate disabled people, but I can tell you that having to go around our campus on a wheelchair for one day gave me so much respect for people who do it every day.

According to UNLV’s webpage about disability rights and resources in Nevada, “In 2005, some 40,000 Nevada students age 3 to 21 were classified as disabled. That is more than one out of ten students enrolled in state schools.” And out of these, “2,076 (5.2 percent) possess a physical disability.” I just think this is something we should all think about as we go on with our own lives.

I don’t know if I am making a call to action. I definitely don’t have a plan or a platform I am standing on. All I can say is disabled people are just like any of us, and they deserve to commute around campus with the same ease as the able-bodied.