newsflash (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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accessibility_fail2010-03-12 10:37 am
newsflash) wrote in accessibility_fail2010-03-12 10:37 am
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Mt. Holyoke College fails
My best friend has a lot wrong with her. She's a juvenile diabetic. She's got a disease called Ehlers-Danlos syndrome (EDS) that makes mobility an issue. She uses a service dog for stability and balance and to pick up things she otherwise would be unable to, among other uses.
Understandably, it's hard to complete formal education with all of this going on, which is why she hasn't finished her undergraduate degree. So imagine her elation when she was accepted to Mount Holyoke College under their program for non-traditional students. She was part of a group of older students whose educations had been interrupted for whatever reasons--health, children, poverty, career.
To make a long, painful story very short, she's had a shocking, nightmarish experience at Mount Holyoke, which you would expect to be a liberal, supportive environment since it's a women's college. She was led to believe everything would be in place for her arrival and that disability services there were top notch. However, it's been a nightmare. She was unable to eat in the cafeteria the first two months of school because the student workers told her she couldn't bring a dog in. Disability services told her they weren't sure what they could do, because not all student workers might understand an email saying they couldn't refuse her service. She was given a room on a third floor that her scooter wouldn't fit in, and when she complained she was told to leave her expensive piece of medical equipment in the lobby. When they finally moved her to a new dorm room, she had to go across campus to shower in her old dorm because they didn't install grab bars in her shower. She wasn't given accommodations letters for her professors for months. Etc. She learned her experience wasn't isolated, and after months of pain and frustration last semester, she and a large group of disabled students met with the dean of the college, with very unsatisfactory results.
My friend blogs about it here.
Understandably, it's hard to complete formal education with all of this going on, which is why she hasn't finished her undergraduate degree. So imagine her elation when she was accepted to Mount Holyoke College under their program for non-traditional students. She was part of a group of older students whose educations had been interrupted for whatever reasons--health, children, poverty, career.
To make a long, painful story very short, she's had a shocking, nightmarish experience at Mount Holyoke, which you would expect to be a liberal, supportive environment since it's a women's college. She was led to believe everything would be in place for her arrival and that disability services there were top notch. However, it's been a nightmare. She was unable to eat in the cafeteria the first two months of school because the student workers told her she couldn't bring a dog in. Disability services told her they weren't sure what they could do, because not all student workers might understand an email saying they couldn't refuse her service. She was given a room on a third floor that her scooter wouldn't fit in, and when she complained she was told to leave her expensive piece of medical equipment in the lobby. When they finally moved her to a new dorm room, she had to go across campus to shower in her old dorm because they didn't install grab bars in her shower. She wasn't given accommodations letters for her professors for months. Etc. She learned her experience wasn't isolated, and after months of pain and frustration last semester, she and a large group of disabled students met with the dean of the college, with very unsatisfactory results.
My friend blogs about it here.
no subject
That's utterly appalling. The third floor!
I had temporary accom in a student apartment designed for disabled access while the fulltime resident was on fieldwork. It was on the ground floor, was in a straight line from a card activated gate, had an open plan design with grab bars, the bathroom floor was completely level for wheelchair access to shower, and there were emergency call buttons by the bed and in the bathroom. I am shocked that any campus can't offer at least some dorm rooms set up to these requirements.