Think about the last time your dorm hall had a fire drill. I’m sure it wasn’t a very significant moment for you. Yeah, it was annoying to leave your room and walk down the stairs, but it probably took 10 minutes at most out of your day. Now imagine evacuating the building as a handicapped person, having to exit in your wheelchair while able-bodied residents easily used the stairs and sped past you. What if you were in an upstairs lounge? You would have no choice but to use an elevator, taking you minutes to leave the building that you wouldn’t have in an actual emergency.
Beyond the occasional fire drill, wheelchair-bound students face dozens of added problems each day, from using the restroom to navigating Penn State’s massive campus, freedoms that other students take for granted. Consider the crowds of people you pass on the sidewalks, and the annoying hills and stairs that you may trek up during your day. Think about how “painful” it feels to make the walks to your classes in the snow and cold rain. But imagine how much more difficult it would be to do all of this in a wheelchair. Is using an electric wheelchair to navigate Penn State’s crowds, hills, and weather really the best option? Or is there more that Penn State could do to assist its handicapped students?
To investigate the current state of disability accommodations at Penn State, I searched exactly that on Google. What I found was the Office of Student Disability Resources on Penn State’s webpage for Educational Equity. Information on the site includes information on  Accommodations, Resources, Scholarships, Discrimination Complaints, U.S. Disability Laws, and the Peer Education Program.
Student Disability Resources at Penn State:
Accommodations at Penn State ensure that students have the best chance of completing classes and their majors while “mitigating disability-related functional limitations that impact the ability to fully participate in a course or show mastery of content.” Accommodations are developed specifically to fit every student’s needs, as the Student Disability Resource Office personally interacts with students in trying to fulfill their requests. Types of accommodations include academic, service, and aid. Academic accommodations include extended test-taking time and priority registration, to ensure that a disability wouldn’t restrict a student’s access to education. Auxiliary aids come in the form of technology, sign language interpreters, assistance animals, and so on. Service accommodations include test proctors, note-takers, and readers. While these are all excellent accommodations for students’ education, there isn’t much talk of accommodations outside the classroom. The website lists the idea of Housing Accommodations that students have permission to request. I found it interesting that the website explicitly said that Student Disability Resources wasn’t involved in on-campus housing accommodations. More on that later.
In terms of non-educational accommodations, the Resources page of Student Disability Resources was much more promising at first glance. They list resources related to accessibility, navigating campus life, crisis services, general resources, counseling, student engagement, and tutoring. I’m glad that this is included on the website but most of these resources are offered to every student. (E.g. I’m not seeing any outside resources specifically developed for disabled students as I’m writing this).
Going to back to educational access, there are many different scholarships available to disabled students. These include scholarships offered to students with physical disabilities, a chronic renal condition, financial need, mental health diagnoses, hearing impairments, and other chronic health problems. While scholarships are mainly intended to foster academic success by attending Penn State, they can absolutely help families finance their students’ housing and other disability accommodations.
The Discrimination Complaints section provides resources for students who feel they’ve been discriminated against on the basis of their disability. These complaints are handled through Penn State’s Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) coordinator in the Affirmative Action Office. They also provide a link to the grievance procedure through the Office of Equal Opportunity and Access.
The section on U.S. Disability Laws is a great resource to remind students with disabilities of their rights, and to acknowledge that Penn State follows them, as they’re a public institution. The Laws include the ADA Act and the Rehabilitation Act, which expands the responsibilities of federal institutions to provide service to those with disabilities. They write that in a university setting, the school must provide interpreters, readers, and classroom equipment, as well as allow extended time for completing a degree, an adaptation of course instruction, and permission to use service dogs. However, the university does not need to provide personal attendants and devices for students.
The Peer Education Program gives disabled students a voice at Penn State, allowing them to educate non-disabled students through panel discussions. The idea of these classes is to facilitate a discussion of disabilities in an academic setting by having such discussions in classrooms.
My Thoughts:
Overall, I think that the website for Student Disability Resources is very thorough, yet easy to navigate. Through just this one website I feel much more aware of the types of accommodations and resources at Penn State, and I’m pleased to see that Penn State took the time to put together the information. While Penn State is definitely on par in terms of its educational access, I still think that services offered to disabled students outside of the classroom are inadequate. Like I said before, while it’s great that Penn State offers counseling and supportive events, these are meant for all students. We need more programs that are tailored toward disabled students.
From the moment I attended orientation at Penn State, I felt that this school emphasized having a well-rounded experience, placing importance on all aspects of a student’s life during their time here. While I think Penn State has fulfilled this for the majority of students, it seems that they haven’t put as much thought into implementing such programs for disabled students.
Future Directions:
Thus, in terms of future directions and policy changes, I hope to see more services available to disabled students in other aspects of their lives. While Penn State has certainly looked out for the overall well-being of its students, it seems to have overlooked the daily struggles that disabled students face, like getting to class and navigating their dorm experience. In my next blog, I’ll discuss policy ideas for improving the daily lives of disabled students at Penn State.
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Great first Civic Issue entry! I really enjoyed learning more about this topic. I really liked how you had your paragraphs structured so well, and everything was so organized. If you want, next time you could add some media like graphs or images alongside your strong statistics, but great job 🙂