A student walked briskly through Central quad, backpack swaying side to side as he approached Upham Hall. It was 2:58 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 1, and this Miami University junior was late for class.
He walked toward the door he always uses, right beneath the Upham arches. However, as he approached the door, he noticed a purple ribbon hanging diagonally over it.
There, a student volunteer, greeted him and read the script she was given.
"We invite you to locate and use the wheelchair accessible entrance to this building. This is a student organized action to raise awareness about disability rights and the lack of accessibility on Miami's campus."
The student, visibly frustrated, apologized, explained he was late, and walked through the door anyway. The volunteers looked at each other and shook their heads lightly - it was no big deal, but they were hoping for more.
This is the second time in the past three school years this event has taken place. The action was first held in 2004 by two department of educational psychology (EDP) 180 classes, taught by Miami professors Kathy McMahon-Klosterman and Jean Lynch. The event was created to raise awareness of disability rights and the lack of handicapped accessibility at Miami.
Juniors Sami Schalk and Jill Gottke decided to lead the action again this year to continue the movement.
"Doing something once doesn't work - we don't want people to think (the problem) has gone away," said junior Meghan Albertz, one of the head volunteers.
Although the event in 2004 was successful, volunteers have learned from some of the mistakes. During the first action, for example, many who came to Upham Hall didn't understand the reasoning behind the event and easily became frustrated with volunteers. In return, volunteers became so upset over noncompliant students that some left in tears.
To prevent this from happening again, volunteers had to attend one of 15 training sessions held a few weeks prior to the event. There, volunteers rehearsed possible scenarios that could occur during the event. Student leaders Schalk, Gottke and Albertz led the sessions.
During the course of two days, volunteers manned the ribbon-adorned doors in Irvin Hall the first day and in Upham the second. From 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., three to five volunteers would stand at each nonhandicapped accessible door and read the script to those entering the buildings.
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According to volunteers, the goal of the action was to put people in the shoes of those who are handicapped.
"It's an inconvenience for one day, only for someone who uses a wheelchair, it's an inconvenience every day," Albertz said.
According to other volunteers that had been there throughout the day, half the students followed the directions, while half didn't. Yet volunteers remained positive.
"If we can raise awareness in a couple people, then it's a success," Albertz said.
However, some volunteers said many faculty members refused to comply with their requests, while students seemed more willing. However, when handed the flyer, one crumpled it up and threw it against the wall near the volunteers.
Others indulged in the experience.
One student, for example, who eagerly complied with volunteers' requests, walked toward the stairs that led outside to find the handicapped accessible door. However, before reaching the stairs he stopped and thought for a moment.
Quickly he turned around.
"If I were really handicapped, I wouldn't be able to go down a flight of stairs," he said. Realizing his mistake, he continued in the opposite direction and onward to the next handicapped-accessible door.
According to McMahon-Klosterman, Upham was chosen for a variety of reasons. The first, according to McMahon-Klosterman, is Upham's presence on campus.
"It is a very symbolic building," McMahon-Klosterman said. "It is a central building on campus that is home to many offices and classes from many departments."
According to McMahon-Klosterman, this makes Upham a sort of a combination of all people, subjects and ideologies the campus possesses.
Only one of the 14 doors in the building is handicapped-accessible as well. One door in Upham does have a sign for accessibility, but according to McMahon-Klosterman, it does not meet handicapped-accessible criteria. According to Gottke, the width of the slope is not wide enough and once at the top there is not enough room to open the door and have a wheelchair come it.
And then there's the layout of the building.
"The building itself is very convoluted in accessibility," McMahon-Klosterman said, saying a handicapped student would need approximately 20 minutes to locate the dean of the College of Arts and Science in Upham Hall.
"The handicapped student could always be accommodated by the dean," McMahon-Klosterman said, "but then you appear as different."
Yet, according to McMahon-Klosterman, handicapped students want to be treated like anyone else.
To others at Miami though, the building choice was confusing.
"Upham is handicapped-accessible," said Andrew Zeisler, director of the Office of Disability and Resources. "In a utopian world every door and every class would be handicapped-accessible, but that's just not possible."
According to the associative vice president of physical facilities Jim Haley, the American Disabilities Act (ADA), which was first enacted in 1990, requires public facilities like Shriver Center to be handicapped-accessible, while academic buildings are not required to comply by law. Universities must only allow program accessibility.
"We don't have to make every classroom and lab handicapped-accessible," Haley said. "When there is a handicapped student whose classroom is not accessible, we can move (him or her) to a classroom that is handicapped-accessible. To make every space on campus handicapped-accessible would be incredibly expensive and unnecessary."
But this is not a problem isolated to Miami.
"This is a challenge for many schools," Zeisler said. "Colleges like Wright State University that were built in the 1970s are the Cadillacs of handicapped-accessible colleges, but older ones like Miami are trying to improve."
However, according to Haley, who worked with McMahon-Klosterman to implement the action, the purpose of the event, to him, was to raise the awareness of able students regarding difficulties handicapped students face on campus. It was not to change the handicapped-accessibility of Upham or other buildings.
Yet for those like senior Sara Middendorf and volunteers, a change is necessary.
Middendorf is one of many handicapped students on Miami's campus. Born with muscular dystrophy, she has been in a wheelchair since seventh grade.
Middendorf was impressed by the action on Wednesday.
"I was really surprised hear that they were doing it," Middendorf said, "but I was happy, because a lot of people don't realize what goes on."
Schalk feels that with more student awareness, viewpoints like Haley's can change.
"We hope that by getting to more people we can solve the handicapped-accessibly problems on campus both socially and physically," Schalk said. "By placing more handicapped-accessible doors, handicap students will feel more at ease in return."
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