In a previous draft of this article, I focused on the negatives of the current state of disability access around campus. There seemed to be many issues that were not being addressed, but the more I looked into it, the more I realized how deep the process of getting new accommodations runs.

The human brain focuses on the negative. This has been proven time and time again. When acknowledging issues, we never think to look at the positives or take into account what might be going on behind the scenes. This is true for accessibility issues across campus.

In 1990, the Americans with Disabilities Act was passed. It stated that all buildings, roads and businesses must have accommodations for those with disabilities. Disability is defined as “with respect to an individual, a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities of such individual.”

Written in the legislation is the promise that, “[g]oods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages and accommodations shall be afforded to an individual with a disability in the most integrated setting appropriate to the needs of the individual.”

On campus, we have a Disability Resource Center and many other offices that work to keep our campus accessible and running smoothly. In fact, The Daily Mississippian recently referenced Mississippi State University as “the top choice in the state” for students with disabilities.

However, walking around campus, you can still find multiple accessibility issues. One of these is the constantly broken elevator in Old Main.

Old Main Academic Center is one of the largest buildings on campus, housing a multitude of classes, study rooms and tutoring areas. One of the defining features of Old Main is its grand staircases, both inside and outside. For an able-bodied person, these stairs are already an intense climb, but for a disabled person, it is a mountain of impossibility.

While the building does have elevators and ADA accommodations, there are major issues with them. Only two of the three elevators in Old Main are currently operational. The secondary main elevator, on the northeast side, has been down for some time, and few visible changes have been made.

Jacob Goodman, a senior majoring in computer engineering, explained the potential harm of only having one operational elevator.

“I feel like the singular elevator hurts disabled people because it’s a one-access point where everyone else has multiple ways to get to their classes,” Goodman said. 

Saunders Ramsey, executive director of Campus Services, and Tommy Verdell, director of Facilities Management, provided insight into the elevator’s status.

“We have had problems with that one particular elevator going on two years now. The control board is faulty and we’ve replaced it repeatedly… the problem we’ve found is there’s a programming issue with the control board that’s the internal coding of the mechanism, which is controlled by the manufacturer,” Verdell said.

This means that the issues with the Old Main elevator can not be fixed remotely or by just replacing the part. Mississippi State has been speaking with the manufacturers over the course of several months to try and fix the programming to no avail.

Verdell said that Facilities Management does weekly elevator maintenance and reports problems with elevators as soon as they are discovered. Departments are able to report these and other issues through work requests on the Facilities Management website. He also said that out of the 158 elevators on campus, there are currently six that are non-operational, including the one in Old Main.

While maintaining accessibility in campus infrastructure is important, academic accessibility, managed by the Disability Resource Center, is also important.

The Disability Resource Center is an asset to help students with disabilities make their college career move smoothly. One of the main duties of the DRC is to provide accommodations to those who need them, whether it be extra time on assignments or testing accommodations.

Lacey Clark, a student employee working for the DRC, discussed the process of accessing the accommodations request.

“It’s fairly easy to get accommodations. There’s a link in Banner that you can use titled ‘get accommodations,’ and you click that and it takes you to our page,” Clark said. 

While MSU works hard to make the campus physically accessible, it is not perfect. Some older buildings around campus, such as Moore Hall, have no visible ADA accessibility accommodations. Others, like the Sanderson Center, have blocked or closed off accessibility entrances and exits while under construction, and have yet to reopen them. Unfortunately, the physical structure of the campus is extremely difficult to change, and very little can be done to improve accessibility in some cases. 

Speaking on making changes around campus, Ramsey mentioned that an auditor comes to campus to see what can be improved upon. The auditor then goes to the ACCESS committee and motions for things that need to change around campus and in what order.

According to Ramsey, one of the most recent changes was in Allen Hall. The seats bolted to the floor were removed to make the building more adaptable.

While there are still many issues to be addressed across campus, multiple people, offices and committees are working to better our campus. It will take some time, but solving accessibility issues is a priority that is being addressed.