Accessibility on campus
You’re walking up Newton hill, it’s 8:55 A.M. and you have a 9 A.M. in Newton 202. You get to class and hesitantly let out little weighted breaths as to not let the whole lecture hall know that the mountainous incline of cardiac hill has taken you out once again. That’s all good and well, but what if I told you that, not only is that experience a luxury, but it's also the reason why many students with disabilities never even consider coming to the “welcoming” campus of SUNY Geneseo.
Many of us know that Geneseo holds the heaviest reputation of being one of the most ableist campuses in the SUNY system. Though this is not a surprise, many students fail to look into the why of this very serious accusation, and that, folks, is what I am here to tell you about.
Parking is already a drag as the snowplows circle around and around campus and yet the snow still persists on to consume parking spot after parking spot. There are nine lots on campus where students can park with a permit. Some can hold then cars while others can hold upwards of 100, so let's say there are 850 spots.
Based on the 2020-2021 academic year’s statistical data, the population of undergraduate students totals to 4,828. So, for the most part, the parking spots are completely filled; and I don't think I’d be too far off if I said that most of us have done the stressful circles looking for parking on Saturdays because some people brought their car up for the weekend without a permit and took all the spots. Now, take that fear and triple it as you go to park in one of two handicap spots available in almost every parking lot, and it's full.
I personally live on the north side, so there is never parking and there is nothing anyone can do to give you more accessible parking, so someone with a condition, such as mine, that restricts them from effectively traveling long distances is left to tough it out. On top of this, Geneseo loves to turn a blind eye to the illegal practice (NYS Law S 1203) of plowing into handicap lots, something that they often do in the union spots. As I said before, this is completely illegal and yet they decide that there are other, more “important,” items to tend to.
Now, let’s use our imaginations. It's a Saturday night, and you're exhausted. You walk into the ground floor of Genesee or Wyoming and intend to take the elevator to your room on the third floor. You click the button and the bell rings. You ring and ring, but it's past midnight and everyone is asleep. Now, if you are so fortunate, you get to have the fun little walk up the three flights of stairs to your humble abode. The next time you are in this situation, the elevator comes, you get on and ride up to the third floor. You stumble through the door and let the automatic door close behind you, but the cage is left wide open.
When I get up in the morning and have to go to work or to an appointment early, I go to use the elevator, and it rings. Where this situation differs is I can’t use the stairs. So, I ring and ring until finally someone comes to close the door 20 minutes later. Now, I'm running late for my appointment at the hands of some college students. It shouldn't be that way.
Why should my right to get to and from somewhere be stripped away by some late-night partiers or someone whose hands were so full that they couldn't manage closing that door? The cold hard truth is that those elevators are deeply rooted in ableism. Sure, they are good for service folks, like our lovely janitors or mechanics who come fix the showers and toilets that seem to endlessly fall apart, but they are all able-bodied people. What those elevators aren't meant for are those who can’t run up and close the door.
No matter how many posters are pasted on the walls to remind students to close the doors, there will still be those who turn a blind eye, those of which are the reason I haven't been on time to PSYC 251 once this semester. It's unacceptable for SUNY Geneseo to put my transportation in the hands of the same people who forget to put water in their ramen (no shade, we've all been there).
This next statement is not from something I have experienced, but from things I've observed and asked about. With that being said, some context is in order. Geneseo runs something called the L.I.V.E.S—Learning Independence, Vocational, and Educational Skills—program out of an enclosed facility in Doty. I am sure that most of you have no idea it exists, or an even larger majority have no idea where it's located, and while some of its features are very important, others are merely, well, ableist.
A feature that I totally understand the practicality of is the locked section. This is very useful if a student runs when they feel unsafe and/or becomes aggressive, in which case this locking system would make sure that they didn't injure others or themselves. Something that holds no water in this discussion is the placement of the program. Where there are many spaces on campus for this program to reside, they chose to put the program in a building with little student traffic, and even more infuriating, a location that is farthest from the center of campus.
If this program truly exists to integrate these students, they would place them closer to the rest of the student body they plan to integrate them into, not just send them out to eat at one of the dining halls. These students would have the capability to advance so much farther if they were only given the opportunity to actually communicate with the rest of the student body.
My final point, and which holds great significance to a majority of the disabled community, is the bus schedule. Though I am very fortunate to have had a car on campus when I lost my ability to walk long distances, many are not so fortunate or can't afford to constantly pay for the gas it takes to travel up and down the hill every day. This is where the bus system becomes increasingly important. Though this system is one that many students can comfortably rely on, often times the buses either don't come or come too early or too late for students to catch them. When this happens, students are forced to miss class or beg their more fortunate friends to bring them to their classes. This leads to the same delays mentioned in the elevator section of our discussion, and is just as impactful.
At the end of the day, many of these issues are that of which Geneseo will continue to sweep under the rug, as they have done many times before. The only people who have the power to make change are people like you and me—just people who are striving every day to make Geneseo a more accessible and enjoyable place to live.