Handicaproutesoncampus: a rockyroadCabrini

STACEY TURNBULL ASST. COPY EDITOR STI722@CA.BRINI.EDU

Most students at Cabrini College usually don't think twice when they push the big blue button, signaling that it is an automatic door for the handicapped. Typically the button is pushed out of courtesy, so the door stays open for the person trailing a short distance behind. There is an automatic door press next to almost every door on Cabrini's campus, but are the handicapped benefiting from the facilities the school is setting aside for them?

There are ramps and automatic doors for those in wheelchairs and elevators that allow them to move from floor to floor in the academic buildings and, in the newer dorms, there is easy access to rooms designed for those with a handicap. But out of the 12 different housing options for residents, only four are handicap accessible, according to the Residence Life & Housing page at www.cabrini.edu.

"I'll usually push the button if I have a lot of things in my hands or if I see someone coming behind me. I can't wait to hold the door open for them, so I will just push the button to let them know that I would have if I had the time to wait for them to come," Debbie Maloney, junior history major, said.

But is the constant pushing of the automatic door buttons putting so much strain on them that they are not working? In some case~ this is true. •

"When I am walking through Founders, sometimes I'll notice that the handicap buttons on the first or second floors will be bro-

Some of the handicap automatic door openers are not working on campus, ken and it looks like it is just hanging by one screw," Lauren McStravick, a junior psychology major, said.

Through an investigation that occurred on March 7, there were three handicap automatic door buttons that were not functioning. The button near the mailboxes in Widener Lecture Hall would not open the upper or lower doors that are attached to it. The second was on the first floor of Founders Hall going out onto the arcade between Widener and Founders. The third was found at the Cabrini Apartment Complex.

• The inside door to the CAC automatically stays open for I 0 seconds when a resident opens it.

"For about a week, the door was- n't working," Mariel Wright, a junior psychology major, said.

To date, all of the handicap buttons are repaired and in working order.

These buttons are a major necessity to those on campus who have a handicap, but it is not the only concern that students have for those with a disability.

Wright said, "I was wondering about the facilities we give those with disabilities, and I wondered how they actually get around campus. There aren't many options for them to actually get into some buildings and many of the paths they have to take are long and complicated."

Wright says that the one path she noticed was associated with the arcade connecting the Widen-