How to Make a 200-Year-Old Campus Wheelchair-Accessible

Chronicle photo by Julia Schmalz

Cory Paradis, a fourth-year student at the University of Virginia, has used a wheelchair since first grade because he has cerebral palsy. Now 25, he transferred to the university from Germanna Community College’s campus in Fredericksburg, Va., his hometown, and has majored in urban planning. He lives in an accessible suite not far from Thomas Jefferson’s famous Lawn but usually gets around campus by driving. He has a car-top carrier equipped with cables and a motor to lift and stow his folding wheelchair once he has climbed into the driver’s seat (he prefers an unpowered wheelchair for the exercise it gives him). He also has an assistant for a few hours a week.

The Chronicle’s Lawrence Biemiller and Julia Schmalz met Paradis outside the university’s School of Architecture to talk about his experience on the sprawling, hilly campus. He was due to graduate in a few weeks, and the architecture-school commencement ceremony was scheduled for McIntire Amphitheatre, where grass and gravel make it difficult for him to navigate. The school’s registrar had proposed visiting the site with him in advance to come up with a plan for the occasion.

You transferred from a modern community-college campus with three entirely accessible buildings. What was the transition like?

When I first came here, thankfully I had somebody to help me out and tell me where I needed to go. The routes you have to take are very circuitous — if you’re just somebody who’s visiting for the first time, you have no clue where the accessible routes are to this place or that place. I cannot get to the architecture school from my dorm without driving my car, just because the topography makes it prohibitive. Going back to my dorm is a bit easier, because the big hill is facing the other direction. I could get back to my room if I absolutely had to.

Just getting to my car from my dorm was a challenge. I parked behind Brown College, which is the dorm I stay in. There’s no elevator in the building itself. To get to my car, I had to go out of my room, turn right, and go around the back of the building and down the sidewalk, which took me about six or seven minutes. It was such a pain in the butt. To get from my car back to my dorm room, because it’s up a hill, I would have to use an elevator in another building, which is locked at midnight. So I couldn’t stay over here at the architecture school past 11:15 or 11:30.

But I’ve found a different parking lot that has an outdoor elevator that works 24/7. The lot is actually for Monroe Hill House, which is right across from where my dorm is. Now I’ve made friends with the people who live in the house, and they said I could park there, no problem.

The Student Disability Access Center has been great in accommodating me. There was a class this semester that they relocated from the politics-department building, which is located in the South Lawn area. To get there, I had to go through a building called New Cabell, take an elevator, go out and take a ramp down, and cross a bridge that goes over Jefferson Park Avenue. It took me 10 or 15 minutes to get there from my dorm. And it took longer to get back because everything’s uphill. They relocated that class to New Cabell, so I didn’t have to go twice as far.

And you’re a member of a committee on barrier-free access, right?

Meeting the people who are focused on improving accessibility has improved my appreciation for the work that is being done. When I first got here, I was maybe a little impatient and maybe a little oblivious to things that are improving. They really are pushing to improve access for people, but the system is very bureaucratic. It’s got to go through this committee, and it’s got to get approval from this and that and that. So it just takes time.

How Improved Campus Accessibility Helped This UVa Student

Chronicle photo by Julia Schmalz

Cory Paradis gave The Chronicle a campus tour to highlight improvements that have helped him, pointing out accessibility steps that any university should consider. See the video here.

Here at the architecture school they’ve improved their signage. If you come in off of Rugby Road, now there’s signage that points you to accessible routes. The university’s also doing a project on Brandon Avenue, where the Student Health Center is, which is also the Student Disability Access Center. Now I cannot get there without driving my car. But they’re redesigning the whole street and building a new Student Disability Access Center, and from what I’m told everything will be accessible. They’re also putting in student housing that will have accessible suites with a roll-in shower and wider doorways.

One of the things that’s a problem that I wish wasn’t a problem is that they built a new student-lounge area in a building on the Corner. The Corner is where the restaurants and shops are, and it’s where a lot of students go to hang out. The building actually is accessible — it’s got an elevator now, which is great. The first floor’s a lounge-cafe space, and there’s a second floor which is mostly study spaces, and then there’s the basement, which is a game-room area. But the Corner for me is just not accessible. It’s on a huge hill. That space for me has been basically nonexistent.

The Lawn’s not easily accessible either, is it?

One of the challenges at this university is that it’s so historic — the ADA wasn’t around in 1819. Wynne Stuart [associate provost for academic support and classroom management and chair of the committee on barrier-free access] has a big project that she wanted to get started before she retires — making the Lawn accessible. They’ve worked with a landscape architect who drafted designs for two ramps that go alongside the steps on the left side of the Lawn as you’re looking towards the Rotunda. I saw the renderings for that a couple of months ago, and it looks really fantastic. The Lawn will be fully accessible, all of the levels, without having to go out and around. They’re hoping it can get started this summer.

They’re working also on making some of the Lawn rooms accessible, where there’s not much of a threshold. And they’ve also worked on accessible bathrooms. Now there’s a building in one of the alleyways that has three bathrooms that are private and have accessible showers and stalls. You’d have to go outside and roll for, like, five minutes, so it still wouldn’t be convenient, but it is possible. If I was eligible to live on the Lawn [rooms are reserved for high-achieving students who are heavily involved in university activities], I don’t think I would. But it’s nice that they’re making it a possibility.

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I have been to some parties on the Lawn. Larry Sabato [a professor of politics] throws a Christmas party every year in his pavilion. It’s open mostly to politics majors, but if you have a friend who’s a politics major, you just act like you belong there and they don’t say anything. My friends have to carry me in to that, up four or five steps. Thankfully, I have good friends — they make it work. Basically I’ve discovered that if you have friends who are willing to help you out, you can pretty much go wherever you want to.

And you were the teaching assistant for an architecture class in which the professor had students attempt to get around the campus in wheelchairs.

That was the inclusive-design studio, which emphasized that you design from the start with accessibility, instead of its being an afterthought. I was giving students my firsthand experience and helping them find their ideas, and letting them know that their ideas actually have impacts on people. I think that was helpful for them to see, because so often they just design something for a theoretical project and there’s really no application or impact. I still wish the architecture school would put more of an emphasis on accessibility — I don’t feel like that’s something that is being taught in mainstream architecture yet. Hopefully it will happen one day.

What will you do next?

Right now my idea is to come back here for grad school in urban and environmental planning. My job aspiration hasn’t changed: I would like to help localities or universities or just communities improve their overall accessibility for individuals with disabilities. It’s been a pretty good experience here — I’ve really enjoyed it. Being able to apply what I’ve learned in real-world situations will be the next step.