Bop it. Twist it. Kick it? That can’t be right. No, I’m not describing the actions one takes while playing with the iconic 2008 game Bop It! I am describing the ways in which Kenyon students use the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) push buttons that automatically open doors across campus with just the hit of a button. At a school with notoriously heavy doors, these buttons are frequently used and frequently break. What might be considered a mild inconvenience for some is all the more noticeable for those that cannot physically open the doors.
“It’s an issue for any building that has automatic button systems,” explained Mia Miller ’29 in an interview with the Collegian. Miller uses a wheelchair and is one of few students currently at Kenyon who has a visible mobility aid. “It’s like a 50, maybe 40 out of 100 chance that [the button is] actually going to work. So, I mean, it doesn’t shock me, but it’s still disappointing.” When the buttons don’t work, Miller has to physically open doors that are difficult for people with mobility issues to open. Miller described the process of opening the doors when the button isn’t working: She sets down what she had been holding and wrestles with the door to manage her way into any given building. The whole affair “usually involves me accidentally crashing into something with my chair. Usually, when there’s a lot of people, it’s just awkward, and it’s just a whole mess,” Miller explained.
Some wear and tear is to be expected for these buttons. However, if you were to stand beside any ADA button on campus for some time, you might see what Manager of Building Maintenance Trades Mike Itschner called “the amount of use and also the amount of abuse” of these buttons. “The ADA operators are intended for mobility-challenged people and sometimes these are used as a lazy button instead,” Itschner said in an email to the Collegian. “A few problems that are most common are when the button is activated and the door is stopped or held by the user. This can cause the operator to receive a fault code and de-energize to protect the equipment and the user from harm. Another common failure is abuse from hitting the buttons too hard or kicking them.” When doors open automatically, they are programmed to open and then close uninterrupted. It is hard to imagine Kenyon students waiting for the door as it slowly closes. Rather, people tend to hit the button to make the door stay open longer. Especially as you watch the sea of people coming out of Peirce Hall after lunch, you can see that these buttons are not being used as sparingly as intended for the longevity of the machine. Without thinking of larger consequences, students slap the button on their way out of Peirce to keep the doors open for the next guy.
“Anybody who’s kind of unable to open those really heavy doors, it’s a pretty big accessibility concern. And I know a lot of people, they don’t think about it,” Miller said. “[The button] is a nice luxury, I suppose, for them in that sense. But for other people, it’s kind of like a necessity. When those Peirce door buttons aren’t opening, it takes a lot out of me physically to be able to open it.”
For most Kenyon students, accessibility is not their top concern. According to the article in the Oct. 16 issue of the Collegian titled “Students weigh in on poll: Should Middle Path be paved?” some of the 48.2% of students who opposed paving Middle Path cited the importance of Kenyon’s historic and natural beauty. One student even said, “If disabled students or community members have complained, it would make sense, but have they? Or is it just a what-if scenario?”
With our historic buildings, naturally hilly geography and a notorious Middle Path, these buttons are part of a larger tapestry of accessibility concerns at Kenyon. Julie Prince is the interim director of the Office of Student Accessibility and Support Services. In an interview with the Collegian, she described the work she and others in her office do as part of the push to make Kenyon as accessible as possible for whoever happens to be on campus; not just students, faculty and staff, but also grandfathers visiting for senior days or Gambier residents eating at the Village Inn.
“I would like to think that we all have a lens where we look at other things and try to envision how they impact others. But that’s not always the reality,” Prince said. She encouraged students to be mindful of how Kenyon’s inaccessibility is significant for the day-to-day life of many students here, whether it be a door too heavy to open or a table too low to sit at. “If we think about making [Kenyon] accessible for one person that has a mobility need, that also continues to be accessible for everyone. A ramp for a wheelchair user does not negate persons walking up the ramp. We all have access to it.”
Prince noted that she always uses an ADA button when available so that she can quickly report if it is not working. Broken buttons can be reported via the Accessibility Barrier Form, which is available on the bottom of the Accessibility at Kenyon webpage. According to Civil Rights/Title IX Deputy Coordinator Katie Sherman, there have been more reports of accessibility barriers since the Office of Civil Rights began emphasizing this resource in its training last year. Many reports are about the lips on sidewalks or building entrances being too high. Prince stressed that while Kenyon is very inaccessible in a lot of ways (some of which, like the natural topography of Ohio, there is nothing anyone can do about), there are still students, faculty and staff working to make Kenyon as accessible as possible. On an individual basis, Prince wants others to help make Kenyon accessible, either by formally reporting when something like the ADA button stops working or just by being a good friend when someone may need an extra hand. On a more macro level, however, Kenyon’s progress toward accessibility can feel hopelessly indicative of other issues at the College.
“I feel it’s unfortunate that we don’t value the needs of our current students as much as we potentially value the opinions of our alumni,” Prince said. “I’ve heard that from our students’ mouths that they feel that as well. They don’t feel valued as a student; they feel that the institution values the alum and donors more than they value their current students’ wellness and safety. And that’s troublesome.”