As the fire alarm rang, Adam Wright sat in his third floor room. Ten minutes passed until someone helped him out of the building.
It wasn’t a real fire, but for Wright, it was a real problem.
The St. Thomas University graduate was born with a rare bone and muscle disorder and uses a motorized wheelchair.
He says while STU has become more and more accessible, it still has a long way to go.
Bill MacLean, STU’s director of facilities management, says student accessibility can be a challenge because of the university’s outdated architecture.
“Our goal would be, wherever possible, to bring up existing buildings, the vintage pre-70s, as much as possible up to code,” he said. “That means, we have to raise funds and make renovations to buildings to make them more accessible.”
But making a campus accessible isn’t cheap.
Installing one automatic door can cost upwards to $5,000 and the school has limited funding.
Most of the money for accessible renovations comes from things like residence fees.
After graduating high school in 2006, Wright planned to get his bachelor of arts at the University of New Brunswick.
But after one semester of battling steep hills, outdated buildings and snow-covered sidewalks, he transferred to STU.
As soon as he moved up the hill, Wright knew STU was the right choice for him.
“It was the best decision I’ve ever made. The campus was smaller, so easier to get around. Snow was rarely a problem and the buildings most of the time were accessible,” he said.
After living with family for his first two years of university, Wright wanted to live on his own and began looking at STU residences.
The university offers three accessible residence rooms: one each in Harrington Hall, Chatham Hall and Rigby Hall. The rooms are larger, on the first floor and have a customized bathroom to accommodate students in wheelchairs.
But it wasn’t long before Wright ran into problems. Harrington didn’t offer a private bathroom and had no elevator, which meant he couldn’t access other floors. Chatham and Rigby didn’t work either, because the bus to campus didn’t accommodate wheelchairs.
The university suggested McLeod House, a UNB residence on Montgomery Street.
Wright moved into the residence in January 2008 but soon regretted the decision.
He required assistance to leave his room and during a fire alarm, he was helped by UNB security because no one in residence offered to assist him. Wright also couldn’t have visitors, because he couldn’t open the front door by himself.
“From day one, if the option would have been there, I would have lived at STU,“ he said.
“I felt like an outsider at McLeod. It was my house, but it wasn’t my home. STU was my home.”
Dean of students Larry Batt is responsible for all issues dealing with student life, including accessibility.
He says for cases like Wright’s, the responsibility is on the student to bring their needs and concerns to the university.
“The sooner we can hear, the sooner we can respond,“ he said. “We can’t tear a building down and build it up again, but we can certainly look for other alternatives.”
The STU student accessibility services office works to accommodate students with physical and intellectual disabilities. Their goal is to allow all learning needs to be met and the office has services such as note-taking, access to tutoring and quiet spaces for writing exams.
Because of renovations to George Martin Hall, this office is in the basement of James Dunn Hall.
When visually impaired student Derek Ness went to get the font on his midterm enlarged, the office couldn’t do it because they don’t have a photocopier. He’s a UNB student, but takes two classes at STU.
“It took a lot of communication back and forth between myself and the professor and the accessibility center, and let’s just say it was a nightmare to get this midterm organized.”
Ness said he appreciates the university’s effort to accommodate student needs, but thinks more needs to be done to improve accessibility at STU.
“[There are] stairs everywhere at St. Thomas and I have no depth perception, so especially coming down stairs is an issue for me when they’re not labelled with a clear edge.”
The university offers handicap parking, snow removal, ramps and some automatic doors on campus buildings. The campus is also lit at night to help students get around.
Despite the financial cost, Batt says the university will continue to adapt to the needs of accessibility for STU students.
“We may not be perfect, we may not give an excellent accommodation all the time, but we care about each and every student and we do respond.”
