The door to his first-floor dorm room opens by remote onto a spacious room, where scattered clothes and value packs of junk food denote the presence of a collegiate dweller. The desk and counters are low and lined with papers and at waist height, sliding storage bins brim with clothing. Off of the bedroom, there is a private bathroom where the toilet and shower are accompanied by thick, silver railings.

However, the room’s sole resident, College first-year Jonathan Harmatz, insists, “I don’t need my own bathroom. The public ones just need to be accessible. All I would need is a bar and a chair to take a shower where everyone else does.”

Harmatz has cerebral palsy, which inhibits him from walking; he is the only student on campus whose physical disability confines him to a wheelchair, but he asserts, “I can walk. I walked around my high school all the time with a heavy backpack, but the terrain of Oberlin College prevents me from doing this.”

The campus is slightly sprawling, which is unchangeable, but not unlike any other college; in fact, the campus is much smaller than many others. What prohibits Harmatz’s mobility, then, is a wide variety of obstacles, easily missed by those for whom walking is no challenge: high shelves, incongruous sidewalks and curbs that are without a designated transition to the roadway.

Although many of the buildings have adequate entries, there are many with bathrooms or interior doors that are not handicap-accessible. Harmatz has yet to find a handicap-accessible bathroom in King. Although many of the complaints that arise from Harmatz may seem simple to dismiss, one must not forget the loss of personal freedom that comes with that dismissal.

“I can’t reach the food,” said Harmatz of his experiences eating in the dining halls on campus. “Usually someone helps, which is very nice, but I’m an 18-year-old person and am capable of getting my own food if it is set up correctly. Certain little accommodations would make it more accessible and make me more independent.”

According to Jane Boomer, coordinator of students with disabilities, the stipulations of the Americans with Disability Act “requires” that students have access to all the programs and activities that other students without disabilities have access to.”

Although Oberlin surpasses the guidelines set forth by the ADA, there are still many areas of the campus that are inaccessible, mainly in the many buildings that are too old to be subject to the ADA guidelines and are often nearly impossible to renovate due to their age and design.

Boomer’s predecessor came up with a list of 999 areas on campus that did not have full handicap-access. Accordingly, Boomer stated that “any college that has buildings this old will take a long time to make everything compliant; the federal government doesn’t expect that that’s going to happen.”

Nonetheless, “We’re moving towards a concept of universal design where we are building universal access right into the buildings, equipment and communication technology we use,” she said.

Executive Director of Facilities Operations Michael B. Will noted, “All new construction meets or usually exceeds the ADA requirement code. For example, [at] the new housing on Union Street, we made specific required apartments ADA accessible and usable. The code does not call for every apartment to be accessible.”

In regard to the older campus buildings, Will added, “When doing any major renovation to buildings on campus we follow ADA guidelines to bring the area up to code.”

To assure equality for disabled students, Boomer’s job is to secure them “an accessible dorm room, but we also have to give them access to their advisor.” Harmatz, who is a politics major, has his advisor in the politics wing of Rice, an area that cannot be reached by any means other than up a staircase. To accommodate him, a buzzer has been installed to notify his advisor of his arrival. His advisor then meets with him downstairs.

“If he takes a class in an inaccessible classroom — we have a few, not many — we would work ahead of time to move the class to an accessible space,” Boomer said.

Boomer described the two approaches for making the campus accessible: “One prong is to be reactive to the needs of the student; the second prong is to be proactive, and that’s to try to improve accessibility in locations we feel the students, staff and public might need access to next.”

Despite the various measures, “there are often surprises because every student has his [or her] own differences and interests,” she said.

One of the most inhibiting elements for disabled students on campus is the inaccessible entrance into Co-ops. Although some living Co-ops have accommodated students who have mental disabilities with singles, they have remained virtually unoccupied by students with physical disabilities.

These circumstances, however, can be changed. When a former Oberlin student, now graduated, expressed a desire to eat in the Kosher/Halal co-op located in ancient Talcott, a ramp and an automatic door were set up for him. Other than Kosher/Halal, the eating co-ops are not yet entirely handicap-friendly.

It is also important to be attentive to the fine difference between accommodating and excluding. Harmatz was given the room of a previous wheelchair-bound student, equipped with many of the prior accommodations, though he said that he would have been capable of sharing a normal dorm room if some slight changes were made.

Harmatz said that while it is “very nice that they spent all this money...it’s in some ways insulting to put me in this handicap-equipped room. It takes away from my college experience. I’m the only freshman I know of that has a single, which I feel, though it is not intentional, ostracizes me from my peers.

“I’m a human being, and I want to go where everyone else wants to go,” he continued.

“There’s nothing that should stand in the way of me going somewhere other people can. People can get around the campus as they please, so I should be able to as well.”