Div School to Aid Handicapped

The Divinity School last month started work on a $50,000-$70,000 project to increase accessibility in two campus buildings for three handicapped students who entered this fall, school officials said yesterday.

"Although we have had disabled students before, we've never had any mobility-handicapped students," said Dean of Students Guy Martin, adding that the administration hopes eventually to make the campus completely accessible.

Guy B. Wallace '88, president of the campuswide Advocacy for a Better Learning Environment (ABLE), said the Divinity School was slow to address the handicapped students' needs--something he charged is "typical of what's going on" at the University. "None of the Harvard graduate schools are access havens for the handicapped," Wallace said.

Harvard recently formed a student-faculty committee to study and make recommendations on the problem of handicapped access to University buildings.

The Div School has just finished installing a temporary wheelchair ramp at Rockefeller Hall. Acting Financial and Personnel Officer Jane Hill said the ramp will meet building requirements until a permanent ramp is built after the winter.

She said modifications to the heavy outside doors on Andover and Rockefeller Halls would make them easier to open, and that a stairlift is being installed in Rockefeller Hall for Randy Davis, a handicapped resident. The school is also providing electric eyes and lowered buttons in the library elevator.

The Div School's parking lot was resurfaced during the summer and adapted for use by the handicapped at a cost of $45,000, according to a spokesman for the University Parking Office.

Architects are studying means of providing access to the upper floors of Andover Hall and the dormitories, as well as the lack of appropriate bathroom facilities at Rockefeller Hall, Hill said.

"The good thing about this is it will have a positive influence for the whole community," said Martin. He said the Div School has used funds from its own budget to initiate these changes, but that he hopes for help from the University in the future.

"It was very surprising that this had not even begun to be addressed before we got to school," said Carolyn Craig, a first-year divinity student who is confined to a wheelchair. "After a whole semester of addressing the issue continually, these past three weeks are the first time that we have seen anything happen." Added Craig, "I find these changes to be an effort, but it is only a start."

"They knew in April that we were coming, but did nothing," said Cynthia Chetwynd, another handicapped student. However, she praised the administration's "attempt to correct things."

"It is very difficult not to be able to go to the faculty offices or to the school's weekly service because it is on the second floor; there are things that we have had no choice but to sacrifice," said Chetwynd.

She said that for the handicapped, the process of renovating "is never fast enough."