NSCAD struggles to make old campus buildings accessible

Student Union president says the building could prevent students with disabilities from attending the university

NSCAD University's Granville campus is a labyrinth of narrow hallways connected by steep and twisting staircases.

The library's three floors are only accessible by stairs, and the school's lone elevator only connects to certain areas - it reaches the Student Services Office on the second floor, the Critical Studies office on the third floor, and the Bell Auditorium and the business office on the fourth.

The fine arts classrooms specific to the Granville campus - jewelry, painting, design and drawing - are only accessible by a convoluted network of staircases.

And this creates barriers for people with physical disabilities, says Emily Davidson, president of NSCAD's student union.

"I think that it would be pretty difficult if you weren't fully able-bodied at this school."

Davidson says the Granville campus could inhibit a person with a disability from attending the school. She says although concessions have been made for students with physical disabilities in the past, the impression she gets is that interested people "get turned away" when they see the limitations imposed from the old buildings.

The school's structural problems can be blamed on the age of the building, says Alexander Doyle, director of facilities management at NSCAD.

Although the Granville campus has been at the Duke Street location since 1972, the heritage buildings were constructed in the 1860s.

Doyle says when accessibility problems arise, the school tries to accommodate specific needs of students, but in many cases it's difficult.

"It's not that easy to just make those changes. We are talking about major, major infrastructure changes." He adds that the buildings' structural restrictions are "not something we just can change overnight."

Money is also an issue, says Doyle.

"We don't have unlimited funds to do these things."

But the school tries to accommodate any student with legitimate disability-related needs, says Bill Travis, disability resource coordinator at NSCAD.

If a physically disabled student needed to gain access to the library, he says the option is to digitize resources and materials to make them available for download.

NSCAD's policy on students with disabilities says the school is committed to providing equal opportunities for all "academically qualified students with disabilities, and will not limit admission to the university on this basis."

The school's long-term plan is to move its facility to the school's new Port campus, built in 2007. It can house programs that are "physically accessible to anybody who wants to take them," says Travis.

But in the meantime, the Granville campus' problems are "definitely on the radar ... but it doesn't seem like there's a solution on the horizon," says Davidson.

"I feel really sorry about it because I would prefer to be attending a school that is accessible," says Davidson. "For this campus, the future looks bleak."

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