By Sean Kranske, Contributing Writer
In recent years, West Liberty University has made ADA accommodations a priority when designing or renovating facilities on campus.
There are some areas that could use improvement, but West Liberty is already looking into solutions to fix any obstacles that students may run into.
West Liberty Health and Safety Specialist Anthony Salatino said, “We at WLU take ADA issues very seriously. We are currently, and always have taken steps to accommodate those with disabilities.”
The steps West Liberty has already taken include building handicap accessible ramps, maintaining elevators, and building wheelchair lifts in places where elevators are not possible, such as the smaller sets of stairs found in the Fine Arts Building.
“We have made improvements to several of our ADA ramps on campus, bringing them up to code. That entails the slope of the ramps, railings, and door access. Some of our buildings have wheelchair lifts which are inspected often,” Salatino said.
In addition to these steps, West Liberty has also started including automatic door openers to many of the restrooms on campus in order to make them more accessible.
“We have made several of our bathrooms ADA compliant in some of our buildings by installing interior automatic door openers leading to the restroom, correcting the width of the entrance door, and increasing the clearance space inside of the restrooms,” Salatino explained.
Despite these improvements, West Liberty still faces a few challenges when fully implementing some accommodations.
“The campus is not flat, which makes some ADA accommodations harder, such as ADA parking. Also, the location of some of our buildings make it hard to have some particular buildings ADA accessible,” Salatino said.
These difficulties don’t stop West Liberty from making every possible effort to make the campus as accessible as possible however.
“For parking, we have made sure that we’ve met the code and have the proper amount of handicap parking spaces. For the buildings, we have taken every possible step to ensure that they are accessible to everybody,” Salatino said.
West Liberty takes ADA accommodations seriously, and making sure that the campus is fully accessible is an ongoing process that West Liberty is always seeking to improve.
For more information on ADA regulations, visit WLU’s Accessibility Services page.
Photo Credit: Emily Salvatori
