Decades after the Americans with Disabilities Act, Western students say aging campus remains difficult to traverse

Since the passing of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990, Western Washington University’s campus has undergone many expansions and renovations in the name of ADA compliance. However, students today find that much of campus has yet to offer adequate mobility access in their day-to-day lives.

“Stairs are especially difficult because it's very hard on the cardio part,” said Teyha Moberg, 19. “And there's a lot of stairs on campus.”

Moberg is a second-year at Western and lives with Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS). This affects her ability to go up flights of stairs and makes walking and standing for long periods difficult. 

“The main challenge is just the really long commute,” she said. Moberg’s farthest class is a 25-minute walk from her home on North Garden Street. When she finds time in her schedule, she can sometimes catch the bus or have her roommate drive her closer to class, but it’s still a challenging daily commute. 

To park at Western, Moberg would require both a valid state-issued disability permit — which requires its own application process — and a valid on-campus parking permit. The latter can cost between $116 to $481 annually, according to Western Transportation Services. 

Thankfully, Moberg has found south campus to be more accommodating than its northern counterpart, especially when it comes to finding more access-friendly routes to take. 

“The layout of south campus feels more open, so you can kind of see things better, like stairs and ramps,” Moberg said. Other students, like 21-year-old Lilith Leedy, feel similarly.

“All the buildings are kind of connected. You don’t really have to leave a lot of the buildings in order to go to a different one,” Leedy said. 

Amenities like sky bridges and reliable elevators are a huge help to the Western third-year, who struggles with a knee injury that limits her ability to maneuver without strain. 

“Although I can walk, I have to really focus on it in order to not experience discomfort or pain,” Leedy said. 

Oftentimes, she finds herself struggling to traverse Bond Hall due to the placement of its single elevator in the center of the lobby. 

“Everybody knows where it is, and so everybody uses it,” Leedy said. “Often, when you are waiting for your class to start or on the way to class, you will have to wait your turn.” 

Due to the small capacity of this elevator, Leedy has often been forced to take the stairs to make it to class on time and has even been late in the past. 

Payton Day, 19, has also struggled with tardiness due to campus structure. They experience both POTS and Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, which affects the connective tissue of joints, skin and blood vessels. 

In the last year, Day has had to miss entire lectures because of faulty elevators and reorganize their schedule because of the physical toll of moving between north and south campus.

“I would say that south campus is more accommodating as it is much newer. But getting to

south campus from north campus, having to walk over unsteady bricks and a hill, is extremely difficult for me, and I know it is for other students with mobility issues as well,” Day said. 

Traci Brewer-Rogstad, the associate vice president for facilities development and operations at Western, said the university is already aware of these issues that students are facing. 

“Conversations about accessibility challenges are ongoing across campus,” she said. “Western is a historic campus making frequent upgrades to facilities, but the historic nature of the campus and its challenging topography result in a significant number of ADA improvements still being needed.”

Western is not alone in transforming its campus to fit ADA requirements. 

The Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities (NWCCU) is an organization that inspects and accredits willing universities based on their eligibility requirements, which include both ADA adherence and continuous improvement by extension. Western has been continuously accredited since 1921 on a seven-year cycle and was last inspected in July 2024. 

“Every one of those institutions, we hold them accountable,” said Sonny Ramaswamy, the president of the NWCCU. “My focus is the well-being of the students.”

Through accreditation by the NWCCU, Western is eligible for federal funding under Title IV of the Higher Education Act.

For the 2024-2025 school year, Western received roughly $22 million in Title IV funding, which goes to improving school conditions and education. 

However, the specifics of what students can expect to be improved are not yet clear.

“Facilities Development and Operations maintains a list of needed improvements, developed in cooperation with campus stakeholders like the Disability Access Center and the Office for Civil Rights and Title IX Compliance, along with external consultants,” Brewer-Rogstad said.

The list, prioritized by the highest need, aims to make the most meaningful changes with the available funding. 

In the meantime, students can use the WWU Campus Map, an interactive tool provided by Western that can help map access-friendly routes and list which buildings are ADA-compliant and what amenities they offer. 

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