After sustaining an injury on the Carleton University campus on Oct. 20, Jay Baldwin, a fourth-year women and gender studies student, is raising concerns about campus accessibility.
On their way out of MacOdrum Library, Baldwin was hit by the interior doors when the automatic door didn’t stay open long enough for them to pass through in their wheelchair. The incident left Baldwin, with a bruise on their arm.
The door was set to stay open for six seconds, which Baldwin said was not enough time for them to get through safely. After reporting the incident to the library, the timer was doubled to 12 seconds within 24 hours of their report.
Baldwin said the incident made them feel like they were “scammed.”
“I paid just as much as other students to be in school and yet, disabled and otherwise marginalized students are the first ones to be forgotten about in terms of accessibility policies.”
In an email statement to the Charlatan, Steven Reid, Carleton’s media relations officer, said any concerns about accessibility “are addressed as they are received.”
“This is the first such incident of this nature that has been reported on campus in 13 years,” the statement reads.
But this is not due to a lack of accessibility incidents,Baldwin said. Rather, they attributed it to a lack of reporting.
“There’s so much stigma around disability and around disabled people not being believed when things happen, even when they have evidence to back up that things have happened to them,” they said. “Society tends to dismiss us more often than not. So I wasn’t even sure if my report would be received or if things would change.”
Maheeshan Sivanesan, a third-year computer science student, said he has experienced similar issues with doors on campus. He said both automatic doors and elevator doors close too quickly.
Sivanesan uses a powered wheelchair and said he has been hit by automatic doors on campus. He said he hasn’t been injured by the doors, but said sometimes it’s painful.
“Some of those doors are heavy and they slam into my chair or elbow,” he said.
Sivanesan said he has gone to the library since the automatic door was changed to 12 seconds and he said it’s the perfect amount of time to get through safely.
Although the change was made swiftly, Baldwin said the problem still exists with many other doors around campus.
Following the incident, Baldwin met with Carleton’s Environmental Health and Safety team to try to resolve this issue.
One point Baldwin highlighted to the team was the library’s exterior doors open directly into stairs, meaning that people with disabilities need extra time to get around the ramp to enter the building.
Baldwin said they felt it was unfair they had to do the work of testing the accessibility of the doors without any financial compensation. They said they lost time to do school work over reading week because they were recovering from the injury and meeting with the school to discuss what happened.
“I was recovering from an injury that I didn’t ask for, that could have very well been prevented had they just asked disabled people what we needed from them in terms of accessibility,” Baldwin said.
Baldwin added that Carleton should assess accessibility at the start of each school year, rather than waiting for someone to get injured.
“I get that things take time, but how much time is it going to take for [the university] to realize that these are people’s lives? We’re not just asking for special treatment, for fun days, we’re asking for accommodations because we need them,” they said.
On Nov. 13, Baldwin made another report about the exterior library doors after being hit by them as they were passing through. They said the open time for the door on the outside was not doubled like the interior doors.
They said they are hoping this new report will resolve the issue with the exterior doors as well.
The university’s statement said, Carleton’s automatic door openers are set to meet the Rick Hansen Foundation standards. The foundation provides recommendations and certifications for accessible buildings and recommends automatic doors open for at least five seconds.
In an email to the Charlatan, Boris Vukovic, director of Carleton’s Accessibility Institute, said the university’s Coordinated Accessibility Strategy is being updated and feedback can be submitted online or at one of the upcoming consultation sessions.
The Coordinated Accessibility Strategy was developed in 2018 and is intended to improve the accessibility of Carleton’s campus and foster inclusion.
Baldwin said Carleton’s Environmental Health and Safety should test doors around campus with multiple people because even if they’re up to code, they could still be inaccessible to some people.
“Just because I was the one that reported, it doesn’t mean I’m the only one this has ever happened to,” Baldwin said. “People might not have the right channels or capacity to know when to report something.
“I’m glad things are starting to [change] but it shouldn’t have taken me getting injured for them to realize that there was a problem.”
Featured Image by Grace Huntley/The Charlatan.
