By: Will Harper, staff writer
Recently, Wofford has been working to reconcile issues of accessibility on campus, ensuring that people with disabilities are provided adequate and necessary services, while still maintaining the look and feel of some of the older historic buildings.
Jason Burr, associate vice president of facilities and capital projects, has helped run the physical plant with accessibility in mind. Having a child that has a disability, Burr does his best to ensure that members of the Wofford community with disabilities are able to traverse as much of the campus as possible. When conducting the interview, the subject inevitably came to elevators, and Mr. Burr responded “Sometimes an elevator just isn’t feasible in a building, so the issue becomes making as much of the building accessible as possible.”
One ironic paradox facing the Wofford community is the fact that the office dealing with accessibility issues is located on the second floor of the Wellness Center, a building without an elevator. Burr discusses this issue as a moment when he and his staff have had to “make it work.” The physical plant modified the building so all students, faculty and staff could still meet with the accessibility offices.
“That’s one of our older buildings, and it’s a challenge. We’ve got a ramp that we put in, and there is meeting space downstairs where the student can meet with Ms. Perry Henson or whomever else downstairs. Obviously, you’d like for every portion of the building to be accessible, but sometimes, it’s just not possible.”
Wofford will keep working very hard to ensure that every new building built on campus is as accessible as possible so a person with a physical injury or disability can still move around the campus with ease. This is evident in many of the new buildings, which include the Jerry Richardson Indoor Stadium, the Rosalind Sallenger Richardson Center for the Arts and even the new Greek Row, which are all completely or nearly completely accessible to those with injuries or disabilities. Burr also expressed that the future renovations of Burwell will make the building more accessible than it currently is.
