Low Plaza: Equal Access For All

I love team sports, but I don’t like losing. A few weeks ago when I was playing pickup basketball in Dodge Fitness Center, I fractured two bones in my left hand. My opponents, these two jacked guys, started playing excessively rough with me and my teammate. They grabbed our arms when we dribbled down the lane and hacked at our wrists when we shot the ball. I became less cautious and played into their strategy, until I grabbed a rebound and landed hard into the elbow of my opponent. Ouch.

Since then, I have constantly been replaying the collision in my head. Partly because my hand inflamed into a red balloon, but more importantly because so many other aspects of my daily life have been affected. My injured hand has limited my activity for the past few weeks, and the accommodations I have to make in order to get work done on time has led me to think about how many individuals with disabilities across the University must be confronting a similar psychological battle. I am realizing that more services for our community members with disabilities need to be made available.

While I can never fully understand the physical conditions of my peers living with permanent or long-term disabilities, I can say that being constantly reminded that I am injured or “not like the others” is not a feeling I can ignore. The problem for me right now is not just how I can better adjust to my life, but how our University layout constantly makes it impossible for people with physical disabilities to be as involved as others.

Low Plaza, for example, is not friendly to people with disabilities. Although it is the nexus of social interaction at Columbia, many students are severely affected by the difficulty they have accessing it. I have seen too many students on crutches, who could easily slip and fall, struggle to walk up or down the steps. I’ve recently started initiating conversations with students like myself who have visible injuries. I figure that the splint covering my left wrist and hand allows me to be perceived as an ally rather than a nosy student government member intruding upon their privacy. The other day I asked a graduate student who had broken a bone in his right ankle while playing soccer why he was walking down the steps from Dodge Hall to Low Plaza instead of using the elevator by Dodge to get down to college walk. Simple answer: he did not have swipe access to the elevator. Following an injury, a student’s first concerns should be seeing a physician, resting, and coordinating his schoolwork with his professors. Figuring out how and if he can walk around campus should not be an issue.

Furthermore, there is only one ramp for students in wheelchairs to get onto Low Plaza. A student entering the campus from Broadway has to travel all the way across College Walk just to get on and off the plaza. When I think about all the programming that takes place on the plaza, I now think about how many students are prevented from participating. A second ramp should be added to the Broadway side of the steps to facilitate this traffic.

I asked a student, who is permanently in a wheelchair, how she gets onto the plaza. “I don’t even bother,” she said. It makes me wonder if she would “bother” to get onto the Plaza if there were an easier way to do so. It is the simple changes we can make that can have the most lasting positive effects. I cannot pretend to understand how students living with disabilities their whole lives feel, but I do know that they should not be inhibited because of the lack of campus infrastructure.

To elaborate on the mental toll, I’ll use myself as an example. As a history major, my hand injury has severely slowed down my typing, and by extension, all of my academic writing. As someone who is also always running around campus, this injury has forced me to stay indoors more often so I can complete my work properly. I have had to adjust my entire life to accommodate just two bones. I think that’s crazy, but it’s what had to happen. Columbia students tend to be over-worked, and the stress can often be overwhelming. Students with disabilities should not have to burdened even more to have their travelling needs accommodated.

Playing pickup basketball in Dodge regularly leads to some pretty interesting interactions, often with people you don’t really know—students, faculty, administrative staff, building personnel, or alumni. I like the feeling of putting my identity aside and letting my game speak for itself. I think it is important for our community members with disabilities to have the same right to put their identity aside as well. While we can never escape identity, we can make the changes that allow us all to participate equally in our university’s happenings. Not having easy access to Low Plaza is an infrastructural barrier that prevents our students from having a full Columbia experience.

Adil Ahmed is a Columbia College senior majoring in history. He is the CCSC vice president of policy. Additional Minutes runs alternate weeks.
Opinion@columbiaspectator.com">Opinion@columbiaspectator.com