JACKIE MARQUEZ / OPINION EDITOR

The Maher Rose Garden is a sight to behold in the spring. Located behind Maher Hall, the garden’s rose bushes bloom when the weather gets warmer. However, only our able-bodied students can sit among the roses and enjoy their beauty, because the garden itself isn’t wheelchair accessible. To enter the rose garden, you can either go through the back exit of Maher and walk down two flights of stairs, or you can go all the way around the building and climb up one flight of stairs. There are no ramps or elevators that lead to the flowers. 

While newer   spaces  on campus are accessible via wheelchair, there are quite a few locations  on USD’s campus that are still unreachable for students who use wheelchairs. This is related to the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Passed in 1990, the ADA prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities and sets guidelines around accessibility. These guidelines mostly apply to buildings built after 1990, as they require that newly constructed buildings and   renovations are made accessible. While  the ADA Act also provides  some  guidelines for older  buildings,  these guidelines do not require  that  all  older buildings   are made  fully accessible. 

Given these standards, USD is technically ADA compliant, according to Lissette Martinez, USD’s Senior Director of Media Relations.

 “With  each  new   building over the past 25 years, the university has diligently worked with architects to ensure that accessibility to the new structures met or exceeded the ADA code requirements,” Martinez said 

However, I would argue that being ADA compliant isn’t enough. Despite USD meeting code requirements, there are still a handful of places on campus that are out of reach for students using mobility assistive devices.

 Some of the older residence halls on campus are inaccessible because of physical barriers, which are defined by the World Health Organization as, “structural obstacles in natural or manmade environments that prevent or block mobility (moving around in the environment) or access.” On USD’s campus, physical barriers most often take the form of stairs. Take for  instance  the stairs in the Alcalá Vista Apartments (Vistas). Comprised of four buildings, this community houses primarily second-year students. Each of the buildings in the Vistas has three floors, yet none of the buildings have elevators. Students who rely on wheelchairs or crutches for mobility are unable to reach eight of the 12 floors in the Vistas. 

The same goes for the Valley A and B residence halls. Valley A offers 12, three-story buildings, but no elevators. That’s 24 out of 36 floors in Valley A that wheelchair-using students can’t reach. Valley B is also exclusively accessible via stairs. With four, three-story buildings, students with disabilities cannot reach 20 out of the 30 floors. 

In other words, Toreros who use “mobility assistive devices” like crutches or wheelchairs are excluded from many parts of our residence halls by pre-existing, physical barriers, in this case, the stairs. This exclusion has potential negative impacts for our students with disabilities. 

According to a study by Kapsalis et al. published in the National Library of Medicine, the existence of physical  barriers  diminishes  the health, safety, autonomy and social participation of mobility assistive device users. Kapsalis et al. also found that the presence of stairs/lack of escalators decreased quality of life for mobility assistive device users by creating navigational challenges and increasing risk of injurious accidents. In other words, the lack of elevators in some of our campus buildings make it hard for students to move around, and this can put them in danger. 

Toreros who use mobility assistive devices certainly experience navigational challenges while trying to get to the Maher Rose Garden, or the aforementioned residence halls. When it comes to accessing these spaces, they can attempt to go up the stairs on  their own, they can get someone  to  assist  them or they can simply  avoid  them altogether. 

All  of these options can result in the negative  effects  that Kapsalis et al. mentions. For a person using a wheelchair, going upstairs on your own requires you to hold onto the guardrail with one hand while wheeling yourself up with the other. This requires a lot of balance, and is only feasible for shorter staircases with fewer steps. In general, it is risky and can result in falls or slips, which can negatively  impact  health and safety. 

Relying on someone else to help you to get up stairs isn’t a great option either. This decreases your personal independence and can have negative emotional consequences. In an article published by Forbes, Andrew Pulrang explains that asking for help as a person with a disability can carry “hidden costs.” He explains that asking for accommodations or assistance can attract unwanted attention to a person’s disability, force them to share more information about their conditions than they want or cause them to feel burdensome. 

These hidden costs take an emotional toll on people who use mobility assistive devices, and that toll is only worsened by the way that physical barriers decrease social participation. For students who use mobility assistive devices, physical barriers like stairs can prevent participation in social activities. 

Residence halls in particular are a place for community on campus. Friends visit each other in their rooms, classmates study together in common spaces and resident assistants host programs on their floors. It’s important that all students are able to participate in these community-building activities. However, the lack of elevators in Valley A, Valley B and the Alcalá Vista Apartments prevents some students from joining in. If an event is programmed in the Rose Garden or on a non-accessible floor, students using crutches or a wheelchair cannot easily access the event. 

Students who use mobility devices still face accessibility challenges despite USD’s ADA compliance. Because of this, I think more could — and should —  be done to make our campus accessible. Elevators must be added to all of our residence halls, and stairs should never be the only way to access a space. 

Of course, adding elevators is no easy feat. 

As Vice President of Student Affairs, Charlotte Johnson explained during an Associated Student Government (ASG) senate meeting held on October 26, “In a few [residence halls], like the Valley, it would be very very difficult and expensive because of the way the valley is structured to put in elevators… They’re older buildings. So, it wouldn’t be just about installing the elevators. There would be a lot of other sorts of collateral, structural construction that would need to be done.”

However, the cost and difficulty of installing elevators does not mean that the University cannot do these renovations. In fact, they’ve done similar types of renovations in the past. According to Martinez, elevators were added to both Camino and Founders in 2020 as part of USD’s Renaissance Plan. These cost approximately one million dollars each and took about 14 months to complete. 

The addition of elevators in Camino and Founders demonstrate that USD has the ability  and resources to make older architecture  more accessible. Afterall, these two were the first buildings constructed on campus. However, the school  has embarked on a handful of multi-million dollar building projects, rather than completing similar renovations in the Valley and Vistas. Take for instance the Knauss School of Business which was completed in the summer of 2022 and the new USD Wellness and Basketball Practice Center, which started  construction in 2023. While   these  projects are fine too, accessibility renovations must be a priority. They  may not bring in as many profits, but they increase the quality of life for our students who rely on mobility devices. 

While the ADA may not require such renovations because of the time and cost they take, these renovations would help further the University’s mission of creating a more inclusive world. As such, they’re worth the University’s consideration. 

Photo courtesy of @usdadmissions/Instagram. The Valley A and Valley B dorms lack elevators, making them only accessible via stairs.