Comments on: OSU students taking ADA-related cause to Salem

By: Reed Jackson

Reed Jackson — Wed, 23 Jan 2013 00:38:38 +0000

Hi "Designer," Thank you for the response. This brief is a follow-up to a broader piece we wrote on the issue, which can be found here: http://djcoregon.com/news/2012/06/06/student-group-accuses-osu-of-not-meeting-ada-regulations/ For that piece, we spoke extensively to the university's interim executive director for equity and inclusion, Angelo Gomez (who is also quoted above). He actually agreed with some of the Able Students Alliance's points, including that not enough oversight on projects was a problem. We also spoke about how OSU strives to meet ADA requirements, but sometimes comes up short due to the difficulty of meeting every single standard. So, while it is true that OSU hopes to go "above and beyond" the standards, school officials were very candid in saying there's more to it than that. They may not agree with all of the ASA's arguments, but they themselves admitted there are some issues that need to be solved, which we tried to summarize in the brief above. - Reed

By: Designer

Designer — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 19:46:19 +0000

While I can’t speak to all projects on campus, I can tell you that on the two I’ve worked on OSU’s Project Managers have expressed OSU’s desire for Universal Access (i.e. a desire to go ‘above and beyond’ ADA). It’s irresponsible to have written this article without discussing how many times OSU has gone above and beyond what is prescribed by ADA. I’m sure if you look at this side you’ll find far more good has been done on campus for their disabled population than bad.

By: Chris Humphries

Chris Humphries — Thu, 17 Jan 2013 23:51:19 +0000

The only thing worse than lacking the skill to do a job properly is lacking the integrity to admit your mistakes and correct them. OSU has one of the finest construction management degree programs in the nation but they cannot design and construct new buildings that comply with federal law that has been in place for 23 years?

These problems are the result of the university failing to supervise the consultants, designers and contractors under contract to build buildings to meet all codes. I have never seen a contract that did not include that basic requirement. These persons either told the consultants, designers and / or contractors to ignore the law or failed to get the designers and / or contractors to correct their design and / or installation mistakes. I sure hope it is the latter.