I am an able-bodied person. I take advantage of this fact every day of my life as I walk around campus. At times I get winded or my legs hurt, but for the most part, I have no trouble walking to my classes, the dining hall, or common spaces on campus. As such, it is not immediately obvious to me and other able-bodied people around me how inaccessible this campus is. Every single one of my daily routes involves stairs. I hate them, but I can climb them. This is not the case for everyone on campus.
While stair free routes to most buildings do exist, they are usually not the most obvious route and often involve going through other buildings. I straight up do not how to get to the Arts and Humanities building or others in that row without either climbing many stairs or going up an elevator inside Sherman, University Center, or the Chemistry building. There are times when cutting through a building has its advantages (such as when the weather is bad), but academic buildings tend to be crowded. Working your way through a hall full of people and waiting for a crowded elevator can add precious time to your commute. What’s more, going through more doors can mean relying on more automatic door openers, not all of which are currently functional.
tl;dr if you are not able to climb stairs it will take a stupid amount of time to get anywhere on this campus, and even then your route may be blocked. Really UMBC? I feel like we could do better.
Unruly Bodies 
I agree, UMBC is not the best when it comes to accessibility. Being an able person, I get irritated with just how many stairs there are especially when you are walking from the Performance arts building and to the library. I can only imagine what a person with crutches or a wheel chair feels. The elevators in the library are also terrible when it comes to space. UMBC should increase space inside the elevator or possibly even increase the number of elevators.
UMBC definitely is not a disability friendly campus. I do think that with all these renovations that have been going on, they should also heavily consider making at least the main academic buildings more easily accessible. Having to navigate this campus with crutches, wheelchairs, or any other physical issue with walking must be a really annoying hassle to deal with.
I have definitely experienced this at UMBC. There have been numerous instances when I was searching for the elevator of a building and had the thought, “This is fucked up for people that can’t physically use stairs.” I honestly can’t even imagine the frustration that is most definitely felt towards the non-accessibility of UMBC’s campus. And I definitely agree with the comment regarding the renovations on campus. I’m not 100% sure of what’s being built by the stadium lot, but it appears like it will be a larger stadium or like parking garage. However, if we can build a new fucking stadium on campus, we should be able to make campus more accessible. UMBC – c’mon, get your priorities straight.
I’m an able bodied person as well. I was temporarily on crutches (It was only for a week).
Before I was on crutches, I had no idea just how inaccessible this campus was. It was completely ridiculous. It took so long to get to class. To even find a route was almost impossible because there weren’t any maps or routes for people who couldn’t use the stairs. I felt like every time I opened a door or went inside a building, there were stairs staring at me. I had to go out of my way and search for a different way which took a long time and often times, I was late to class.
I’m a little bit angry at myself, for not even thinking about how this campus does not welcome or adjust itself for people who can’t use stairs or how the campus space just excludes those who can’t use their legs.
UMBC is the worst when it comes to anything related to disabled people. I have chronic pain in my left leg so it makes it impossible to climb stairs. Most of the time I have to go through the academic buildings and take the elevator to get around campus. But the elevators aren’t even reliable. Last year I had to drop a class that was on the third floor of ITE because the elevator would never be working. This year I had to drop a class because it was up in the arts & humanities building and I could just never make it to that building. UMBC (as an institution) doesn’t care about their disabled students, this I am sure of.
I absolutely agree with this. i have no idea how people who cannot use stairs manage to get around this campus because it has a ridiculous amount of stairs. My first semester here I lived in the Walker apartments at the top of the hill and one of my roommates was in a full leg brace. She could walk but it was not easy and on more than one occasion she would call me and ask me to please pick her up so that she wouldnt have to gimp across campus and then up a hill, that also has stairs to get to the top of depending which way you go. UMBC can definitely do better.
I’m reminded of when we had that massive ice storm and several students were injured just trying to walk across campus. The outrage that seemed to go through the student body was everywhere. I remember I heard people talking about it in every class at some point or another and how angry everyone was with the administration. I wonder what would happen if students were capable of rousing that same frustration and anger they felt when their safety was threatened and directed it to get the administration to seriously address the accessibility of campus.
Same here ! I am always debating between climbing up that row of stairs or cutting through the chemistry building to get to the Arts & Humanities building. I agree UMBC is not very good at making the campus accessible. I attended a community college before transferring to UMBC and they actually did a great job a making their campus very accessible for disabled people. There was a ramp that people in wheelchairs could use, and although the campus was a lot smaller then UMBC it was very easy to walk from one building to another without having to cut through buildings or run for my life to make it to class on time. I think that UMBC should devote more attention in providing more accessibility around campus, so that we don’t have to cut through buildings 😦