Campus works to improve accessibility for disabled students

Students with disabilities credit faculty for efforts that have ranked UW–Madison among the nation’s most disability-friendly public universities.

“A lot of professors in different departments are sensitive to the fact that students have disabilities,” says Melissa Lehman, a UW–Madison senior who is blind. “A lot of professors make it easier for [disabled students] to make it on their own.”

Chris Klusman, a UW–Madison senior who is deaf, also appreciates faculty efforts to make classrooms more accessible to disabled students.

“There are some professors and teaching assistants that are helpful with me,” Klusman says. “They have been very accommodating and that makes things easier in the classroom.”

At times, faculty can go above and beyond the minimum in aiding disabled students. Lehman says Jenny Saffran, assistant professor of psychology, used grant money to hire a reader who assisted Lehman in a class.

Since 1998, three publications have placed UW–Madison among the nation’s top 10 disability-friendly public universities. An Internet site for the disabled, HalfthePlanet.com, was the latest to award the campus with a top ranking for excelling in accessibility.

The McBurney Disability Resource Center receives much of this national attention, but Trey Duffy, the center’s director, says other efforts on campus also contribute to the consistently high rankings given by organizations for people with disabilities.

“I think that they’ve been most impressed with campus-wide responsiveness to issues surrounding disability,” Duffy says. “It is something that is handled in every department in a decentralized fashion.”

There are several campus departments and organizations unrelated to McBurney that make exceptional efforts to include disabled students, Duffy says. For example:

• Hoofers, an organization that operates through the Memorial Union, maintains a disability-accessible sailing program.
• Students in the College of Engineering participate in a class that develops prototypes of technologies that improve accessibility for disabled people.
• The School of Education offers a course within the Department of Kinesiology that provides adaptive physical training for people with disabilities. This class is available to UW–Madison students as well as members of the community. A staff of physical education students and volunteers work with the class members, focusing specifically on each individual’s goals.
• The Kohl Center, which was designed with guidance and advice from the disabled community, is another aspect of campus that is praised for its accessibility.

  “The Kohl Center is no doubt the most accessible entertainment complex in the world,” Klusman says. “It is wonderful to see that it can be accessible to many people with different disabilities.”

  Although the campus deserves its high ranking, Lehman and Klusman both cite areas that need improvement. Technology designed to aid the disabled could use updating, they say. “It’s not necessarily [McBurney’s] fault because they, like a lot of other programs, are under a tight budget,” Lehman says.

  According to Duffy, at $600,000 per year, McBurney has one of the smaller budgets among Big Ten disability resource centers. In comparison, the University of Minnesota has an annual budget of about $6 million.

  This small budget makes the university’s ranking more impressive because it does not cause McBurney or the campus to fall short of its goals, Duffy says.

  “Our role is to ensure that [disabled students] are not limited in choices of classes, majors and outside-of-class activities,” Duffy says. “There really aren’t any limitations and that’s what the campus excels at.”