Editorial : Disability center offers support, opportunity to push for campus updates

The new Disability Cultural Center opened this semester in response to a proposal by the Syracuse University administration in 2007. The center, located at the Hoople Special Education Building in Room 105, offers a support network and base for disabled faculty, staff and students on campus.

The center will ideally become a thriving resource center for campus members with disabilities, which will foster a sense of community and recognition on campus. Such initiatives do reveal the places where SU can improve in regards to accommodation and respect for the needs of those with disabilities.

Students and staff with disabilities have noted many of SU’s older — and, as it happens, most central — buildings are not disability-friendly. Such infrastructural changes to campus are by far the most pressing issues facing this section of the SU community. Proper infrastructure can determine if a prospective student or employee can physically maneuver around campus, whether that means offering specialized computers for the visually or hearing impaired or building elevators.

The Disability Cultural Center was meant as a support center rather than an activist group. But the center should coordinate with the campus advocacy group, the Beyond Compliance Coordinating Committee, to create a presence for this group on campus and push for further improvements.