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An ADA exercise designed by a former student gives students an eye-opening taste of what it's like to navigate campus in a wheelchair.
Sociology students and Professor Betsy Ross take turns navigating campus in a wheelchair as part of a disabilities awareness exercise.
Students with disabilities represent an important part of the diverse tapestry at Baldwin Wallace University.
But the opportunity to face the barriers to access that exist in and around campus for those who use wheels, rather than feet, to get around is an eye-opening experience for their walking classmates.
Every semester, sociology professor Elizabeth "Betsy" Ross partners with the local non-profit Youth Challenge Sports, which supplies sport wheelchairs for students to use in an Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) exercise.
Melanie Greenberg '20, a former student who uses a wheelchair, crafted the awareness exercise as a final project in one of Ross' sociology classes about seven years ago.
According to Ross, the goal is to "generate awareness about various obstacles to accessibility, both on and around our campus."
"Melanie is now a special education teacher in Parma City Schools and tries to return each semester to help lead this eye-opening experience for BW students," Ross explains. "She and her father have only missed one ADA Day in seven years."
This semester, on a beautiful fall day, students set out in the wheelchairs on different assigned routes and quickly encountered the barriers individuals with disabilities face when attempting to fully participate in campus life.
They found doorways too narrow for the chairs to get through, elevators not working and ramps so steep they got stuck. As they navigated bumpy sidewalks, challenging city intersections and impossible building access, some students expressed a mix of new recognition, frustration and empathy.
"If you want to eat with your friends at the picnic tables, you have to put your full force to go through the grass, and it's almost impossible," remarked one student. "I'd be mad if I had just 15 minutes between classes to get where I needed to go with all the barriers."
For Ross, the hands-on activity and personal reflection that follows carry more weight than a lecture on the ADA, the 1990 landmark civil rights law that prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities and guarantees their access to economic and civic opportunities.
"You can see the looks of surprise as they encounter what everyday life is like for those with disabilities," Ross commented. "That lightbulb moment is priceless."
International Day of Persons with Disabilities is observed globally on December 3 of each year to promote the rights and well-being of persons with disabilities while also celebrating their achievements and contributions to society.
