Office of Disability Resources recently relocated to Seacobeck Hall

by MATIAS ESQUIVEL

Staff Writer

Due to staff error, a previous version of this article stated that ODR director Jessica Machado was not available for comment in time for publication. This is incorrect and has been removed.

Over the winter break, the Office of Disability Resources (ODR) moved from its previous location in Lee Hall room 401 to Seacobeck Hall room 005. Some students are concerned about how accessible the new location is to students with disabilities.

Once inside Seacobeck, The Office of Disability Resources is accessible, but the process of getting inside the building is what causes trouble. The only wheelchair-accessible entrance is on College Avenue, making the building inaccessible from the campus side. 

“Whenever you open up a new building [they are] always fairly unique and they always come with their own challenges,” said Gary Hobson, the capital outlay program director. “We did make sure that we provided accessible parking at Seacobeck, that we looked at the walkways coming from the sidewalk … and tried to make sure that there were no issues of door thresholds or anything like that; so that’s why there’s that large plaza there.”

Hobson recognizes the finished building has limited accessibility from the main campus.

“If students are on Campus Walk, you have a challenge getting from Palmieri Plaza over towards Seacobeck as far as the crow flies, if you were trying to take a direct shot there,” he said. The only wheelchair-accessible entrance is off College Avenue.

Freshman Emily Huelett believes there should have been more consideration of ODR’s location in regards to accessibility.

“The whole purpose of the Office of Disability Resources is to help students with disabilities, mentally and physically, and I don’t think that they took into account the physical at all and how difficult it would be for the people who have physical disabilities to get to the new office,” Huelett said. 

Katya Stafira, junior sociology major in the Special Education Program, admires the design of the accessible entrance.

“The only way I have accessed the building so far is from the College Avenue side,” she said. “The entryway from the College Ave side is completely accessible. There are no stairs/curbs/lips that would have to be avoided so it’s a really great design!”

Even though accessibility from the center of campus is difficult at the moment, there is a proposal for funding for accessibility improvements around campus.

“There was a project that our office worked with ODR on, and it’s an accessibilities improvement project that is campus-wide,” said Hobson. “Governor Northam’s budget came out in December of [last] year, so … we requested around 11 million dollars in funding, campus-wide. That includes construction and design and other soft costs that go into a project, so that’s just not necessarily 11 million dollars going into actual direct improvements.”

The budget for the proposal requested, for the 2022-2024 biennium, was “partially put together by an inspection that we had through the Office of Disability Resources and [Sabrina Johnson]. Dr. Johnson, before her retirement, had sponsored a visit by a gentleman who had worked with the government dealing with accessibility issues, so he actually came through December 2019 and actually did a tour of the campus and identified and helped put together some information for us.”  

The document Hobson provided for this claim includes a Capital Budget Request for 11.25 million dollars, of which 6.82 million is set to be used for exterior accessibility for all non-accessible halls, full interior accessibility for Dodd Auditorium and James Farmer Hall and full site accessibility across campus.