Signs surround Students with Disabilities Services, located in Willard Hall. (CU Independent/Michelle Davenport)
Over a thousand students have a range of varying conditions that qualify them for Disability Services at CU.
According to CU’s Disability Services and RTD, the Americans with Disabilities Act requires both to provide reasonable accommodations and services to those who qualify. Both organizations have their own evaluation process to decide who qualifies for such accommodations.
Cindy Donahue, the director of Disability Services at CU, is charged with helping students figure out what types of services their disability may warrant.
“We help students on the borderline set up a system so that it’s purposeful,” Donahue said. “It’s a service side that the office is unique in. If you submitted documentation that wasn’t at the level, you can still get help.”
Donahue’s office is located on the third floor in Willard Administrative Center, a building characterized by steep stairwells and narrow hallways. According to the Accessibility Guide for Students with Disabilities, the Disabilities Services office is only accessible for wheelchairs via a steep ramp, and students are advised to call for assistance. Donahue explained that, regardless of federal suppositions that support the handicapped, funds are still slim in her department.
“A lot of campuses have transportation for people who are injured or disabled,” Donahue said. “They provide accessible golf carts for wheelchair users or students who have to temporarily use crutches. We don’t have that, and we’ve requested them for seven, eight, nine years. Athletes get to use them.
Donahue also pointed out that skateboarders and bicyclists aren’t aware of the danger they pose to the blind and their guide dogs.
“It can be very traumatic for a blind student to have to deal with an injury to their guide dog,” Donahue said. “If it were up to me, I would ban skaters and bikers from the center of campus. Can we all live together happily? No. They feel entitled to fly across campus.”
Esubalew T. Johnston, a junior communication major who has been blind since he was a child, said that he opted to pursue higher education at CU in part because of the easy access to buses and other services.
“It’s amazing. There are so many buses, and they run very often, and I don’t have to rely a lot on other people, like my best friend or my mother,” Johnston said. “It’s about the independence and I really enjoy that. In Missouri there was no public transportation and I would have to call a cab from another town. It got very expensive.”
Johnston also pointed out several difficulties that can be easily overlooked by people who are not blind, ranging from ATM access to stairs that differ in size.
“Why do they have to make the stairs different shapes? It’s really frustrating,” Johnston said. “It’s not like I have issues with stairs, but you’re assuming that they’re all the same size.”
RTD spokesperson Daria Serna agrees with Johnston on the independence the public transportation system grants its disabled patrons.
“Many disabled people depend on public transportation and those that cannot use the express, regional or local bus routes or trains are very highly dependent on access-a-Ride,” Serna said.
According to the RTD Web site, access-a-Ride is a transportation system that helps passengers with disabilities who are also unable to use RTD’s standard lift-equipped buses. While it is federally mandated but not federally funded, access-a-Ride completes about 2,800 roundtrips a day.
Disability Services conducts a survey every two years on the effectiveness of their program; 90 percent of the students who took the survey said that they were very pleased with accommodations.
“They’re good people,” Johnston said. “Without them, shoot, I’d be screwed.”
Contact CU Independent Staff Writer Sheila Kumar at Sheila.kumar@colorado.edu.
