The Traveler

Issue date: 4/16/08 Section: News

Media Credit: Larry Burge Included in repairs needed in Vol Walker Hall to accommodate wheelchair-using students is replacing the existing lift that reaches the student workroom in the basement.

Some wheelchair-using students studying architecture or psychology at the UA might have difficulties navigating through their buildings, where accessibility can be limited, students and faculty said.

"Excluding based upon color is not OK," said J. Freer, graduate student studying education and public policy.

"[Excluding] based on color of eyes is not OK. Then excluding individuals on their inability to walk up stairs is not OK either," he said.

Timothy Denoble, head of the UA architecture department, noted during a tour of Vol Walker Hall that accessibility in his building is a huge problem. He said he has a relative in a wheelchair whom he cannot show all the inside areas of the building because of its inaccessible spaces.

To renovate the obvious inaccessible areas of Vol Walker Hall is estimated to cost $30 million, Denoble said.

"That might not seem much money for an athletic department update for one of its major facilities," he said. "But for this building, which was the original UA library, that price tag becomes large enough to place the needed renovations close to the bottom of the list of things to update on campus."

Renovations to increase accessibility in Vol Walker Hall include implementing a new elevator system, repairing the existing lift that reaches the student workroom in the basement and providing a way for a wheelchair-user to get to a restroom from anywhere in the building.

Wheelchair-users in the basement of Vol Walker Hall and want to use the restroom have two choices to get there, both of which require them to wheel outside the building, Denoble said. They can use the faculty bathroom on the third floor - which requires wheeling up and out of the south side entrance and around to the building's west entrance - or to wheel across to an adjacent building such as Old Main, Mullins Library or a science building.

Using the adjacent building would be the route of choice, Donoble said. But after wheelchair-users enter the west entrance of Vol Walker Hall, there remain obstacles to making a fast trip up to the third-floor restrooms, which include navigating through the narrowness of the elevator entrance, opening and closing of the pull-to-open elevator door, sliding open the elevator's metal scissor safety gate and reaching to push the correct floor button.

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