Access for All Means Clearly Marked Stairs

Relativity (M. C. Escher)

April 18, 2023

AJ, Contributing Writer

Last  school year Molly Ondich was a straight A’s student who was enthusiastic about school. She was engaged in her classes and an active member of Jewish Student Union.  However, as time went on she began missing more and more classes. It wasn’t because she was sleeping in or because she was hungover, but because her health had begun to decline. By the end of 2022 Ondich had withdrawn from UMF. There were many factors that led to Ondich’s withdrawal, accessibility on campus just being a major one.

Ondich has a visual impairment and a heart condition that both heavily impact her day to day life. She has trouble using stairs that aren’t clearly marked, and without a clear marker stairs all blur together, unfortunately, many of the buildings on campus lack these markings, and life without these seemingly simple adaptations (which are required by ADA law) is extremely difficult for students like Ondich. For example, with no stair markers, Ondich is forced to use elevators on campus- which is an entire problem on its own..

UMF has five dorms, three of them have elevators but only two are actually accessible. Dakin has an elevator inside but in order to get in you need to go up a flight of stairs or use the wheelchair lift, which only one person has the key to. Francis Allen Black Hall or FAB has an elevator but rooms are reserved only for upperclassmen and aren't easy to get into. Scott Hall has two elevators and is considered the most accessible, however when asked about Scott’s elevators Ondich remarked that the elevator in Scott South was too small to be easily accessible and while the elevator in North was good, if it went down you were stranded due to the stairs between each elevator. Other elevators in education buildings are also frequently down, which often left Ondich arriving late or unable to attend classes at all.

Classes are another thing that aren’t always the most accessible according to Ondich. “Sometimes course descriptions don’t tell you how much physical activity is in the course,” said Ondich. “There have been a couple courses that I’ve signed up for that have been a lot more physically demanding than the course description implied.”

When Ondish signed up for fall Geology, she wasn’t expecting to have to take a hike every week, the hikes hadn’t been in the course description and made doing the class harder. When she brought up her concerns to the professor her chronic heart condition was dismissed as asthma and nothing changed. Ondich continued to struggle through the class until halfway through the semester when other students began complaining about the difficulty as well.

These issues with inaccessibility around campus are one of the reasons Ondich ended up withdrawing from UMF.