Kent State University works to make campus more accessible for all

Broken elevators, cluttered pathways and broken push door buttons mark daily inconveniences for those with accessibility issues on Kent State’s campus.

The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 is a federal civil rights law that prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities in everyday activities and is the guideline used when constructing new buildings. 

Jackie Denning, senior theater design and production major with a concentration on costuming, uses forearm crutches to navigate campus. Denning has POTS, which causes the body to have trouble regulating their blood pressure when changing positions, and EDS, a connective tissue disorder that affects the collagen and how their skin and joints move, which has caused them to use forearm crutches for the last six months, they said.

The topography of the campus is a problem for Denning because of how big and hilly it is. 

The topography is something that is challenging to figure out and to plan building’s accessibility around, Kent State University Architect Jay Graham said. 

“Sometimes, it’s just not feasible, you can’t flatten the whole campus and it’s what makes our campus beautiful,” Graham said. “But we as architects and designers and planners, really have to focus on making sure that, again, the experience from a visitor, from a parent, from a student, from an employee, that they should have the same experience as everyone else.”

The problem Denning has faced outside of the topography is how big the Center for Performing Arts is because of them spending most of their time there due to their major. With the expansion of the building, the elevator is in the back and with their blood pressure problems they can not take the stairs regularly to avoid the risk of fainting. 

“The elevator is pretty sketchy so sometimes it just doesn’t work properly,” Denning said. “It always will eventually work but sometimes it just gets stuck because it’s an old building. And also the automatic doors recently haven’t been working as they’re supposed to be.”

Graham said that the university has a service-provided contractor that if any instances happen regarding elevators, most of the issues can be fixed if they are minor. If the issue can not be fixed, they figure out how to accommodate the issue, whether that is moving a class down to the ground level for a day or a week or however long it takes.

Those who experience accessibility issues within a building can let the building’s curator know to fix the problem. People can let the curator of the building know if an elevator does not work or if a push button to open the door is not working, Student Accessibility Services Director Amanda Feaster said. 

The university gets money from the state of Ohio in the form of biennium funding. The university has allocated $1 million from the funding to address accessibility needs on campus, Graham said. The main focus currently deals with the bathrooms. 

The last allocation of the money was used to eliminate shower curtain bathroom partitions and create legitimate ADA restroom stall partitions, said Douglas Pearson, associate vice president of facilities planning and operations at Kent State. 

“When the Accessibility Act first came out and the requirement to change bathrooms … people thought it was a good idea to use a curtain on the accessible stall, they felt that it was easier for those to maneuver through,” Graham said “But if you think about it sitting in the stall with a curtain with no locking that’s terribly just done. So we still have a number of buildings that have those on campus.”

The next allocation of money will be used to complete the replacement of fabric curtains on campus and establish a new universal restroom serving Front Campus buildings, Pearson said. 

A part of this will be Bowman Hall’s second floor bathrooms being renovated. The bathrooms are a part of the original construction and are not accessible, Graham said. With this there will be more universal bathrooms added.

Also inside of Bowman on the second floor, there is a small elevator and eventually, there will be an addition at the point between the lecture and the classroom wing, so that it will be fully accessible within the building, Graham said. Currently, in Bowman, there is a half rise offset between the lecture hall and the classroom wings so anyone who wants to access those have to go outside and re-enter the building.  

“All new construction and renovation is compliant with State of Ohio Revised Code Section 3781.111 and the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990,” Pearson said. “Kent State has taken other actions to improve accessibility in existing buildings around campus including accessible walkways, automatic door openers, accessible universal restrooms as determined by student access needs.”

The building code requires a certain number of fixtures based on the occupancy and the use of the building, Graham said. The code has not addressed nongendered bathrooms, only female and male, but the university has created these bathrooms for those who are nonidentifying that have a  urinal and a toilet.

“We want all the students to have the same experience, and feel the same abilities to have the same movements,” Graham said.