The ADA coordinator team met with members of the Student Assembly to discuss plans, although the committee that has been formed does not have any student representation. It was explained to the students that Cornell must comply with requirements in order to continue receiving federal aid.
Cornell has organized a group of administrators, including Susan Murphy, vice president of student and academic services, and Stephen Golding, executive vice president, to assess Cornell’s care of members of the community that have disabilities.
The focus of the team’s initiative is divided into six main areas: physical accessibility, educational programs and services, technology, communication employment and emergency preparedness.
While the committee lacks any student representation, S.A. members asked questions and gave some suggestions to the ADA. via cornellsun.com
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An organization called the Cornell Union for Disabilities Awareness (CUDA), has been formed to address issues involving disability awareness on campus and their efforts have resulted in a course offering on disabilities awareness.
CUDA was created by students who saw that Cornell did not have a student organization that was committed to disabilities awareness and advocacy, said Sung Min Kim ’10, a member of CUDA.
Aside from pushing for the class, CUDA has also created a forum for students to speak out and discuss disabilities in addition to creating opportunities by which the rest of campus can raise awareness. “To my knowledge there were no outlets for this population of students other than Student Disability Services. CUDA has allowed students who are interested in this topic, whether they have a disability or not, to come together,” said Sember.
In addition to providing a forum, CUDA develops advocacy and awareness projects, a frequent focus being universal design. Universal design is when buildings or other facilities are planned so that everyone, disabled or not, can use them with ease.
4 comments:
Stories such as this never cease to amaze me. The ADA was passed in 1990, eighteen years ago. How much time does it take to make a campus accessible to all disabled students? I went through this as a graduate student at Columbia many years ago and sadly concluded inclusion is simply not valued. While time ground on it appears many campuses remain inaccessible. This is a social and architectural failure.
I agree with you and thank you for your comment. I just noticed I don't have you on my blogroll - an oversight for which I apologize.
Cornell was my graduate school. No one can do much about the geography (it's on a hill and navigating a hill is part of student daily life), but the campus itself is disgraceful. Not only are there architectural barriers, social and cultural barriers are worse.
I returned, as a guest of the university, to give a talk; it was far worse than the campus I was working on at the time. And people's attitudes when I needed help finding an accessible route into the building in which I was supposed to be talking were appalling.
It is high time for Cornell.
WCD
WCD
Thanks for adding this piece about your experiences there. The article I linked to (the first one) included quotes from a student that may have been questioning the need for handicapped parking since the spaces were empty - but I couldn't tell if that was the meaning. In any event, it certainly struck me that no students were on the committee - and sounds like CUDA has a lot of work ahead of it! Kudos to them.
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