EDITORIAL: UHCL needs some TLC

The University of Houston-Clear Lake is experiencing growing pains. With the expansion into a four-year university, we have outgrown our current facilities. In total, five new buildings are coming to the campus including student housing, a recreation and wellness center, a STEM building, a police building and the Pearland campus is getting a health-sciences building. The estimated cost for all these new buildings is $153,575,000.

While it’s exciting to see UHCL expand into a larger campus, the buildings we already have need updates and better accessibility. Upkeep on the university’s existing buildings is suffering and needs to be addressed. Not only does this have an adverse effect on current students, but it also promotes a lackluster first impression on new students.

New students may be less inclined to attend a university with sliding doors that don’t open, spotty Wi-Fi, stained carpets, chipping paint, battered road signs and elevators that consistently break down.

Our facilities, maintenance and construction employees do their best to keep up with the demands with what resources they have, but they are understaffed, overworked and underfunded.

So, at what point do we as a campus body insist on more funding for maintenance and upkeep? Maybe if it challenges accessibility.

Two wheelchair-bound students were stranded for over two hours on the third floor of the Student Services and Classroom Building (SSCB) when the elevators quit working. University police were contacted numerous times, but it took approximately 40 minutes for police to arrive and discuss the situation with the stranded students. A group of students and student services staff stayed with the stranded students until they could safely return to the ground floor.

It is absolutely unacceptable to not have a contingency plan in place for exactly this kind of situation that does not require first responders in non-emergency situations. If ramps are not an option, then we require a service elevator or lift that operates either manually or on a backup generator.

This isn’t the only incident involving accessibility issues on campus. The Office of Veteran Services, located on the third floor of the SSCB, also has accessibility issues. The office is situated behind a series of two doors, neither of which are disabled-friendly. A quadriplegic student, for example, would need to call the office to ask for the doors to be opened, assuming he/she could get a signal on his/her phone.

There is also the challenge of restroom accessibility. If you are a breastfeeding mother, the parent or caretaker of an individual of the opposite gender or a transgendered individual you are out of luck. There is one family-style, gender-neutral restroom located near the Health Services Office in the SSCB, and a single-stall male and female restroom (one of each) on the third floor of the library in the Bayou Building.

This family restroom in the SSCB, however, is locked. There is no signage informing potential occupants that they should ask for a key, or from whom they should acquire said key. Upon inquiry, the keeper and location of the key is unknown. In addition, those who know of its existence believe the bathroom is not even operational.

A single, hidden, locked and non-functioning gender-neutral restroom defeats the purpose of accessibility. Each building on campus should have at least one gender-neutral/family-style restroom with a nursing chair, changing table and large handicap stall that is properly marked with an unlocked door in order to accommodate accessibility. Adding this restroom accessibility doesn’t have to come with an exorbitant price tag. At least one existing restroom in each building can easily be converted into a gender-neutral/family restroom.

There are five things every human body requires: air, water, food, sleep and elimination. Human dignity is compromised when we require a wild goose chase to utilize the facilities. We undermine human value when we make our campus inaccessible. Accessibility must be addressed in our existing buildings and be considered a priority in the construction of any new buildings on campus.

It is great to see growth at UHCL, and it’s wonderful that the campus is getting several new state-of-the-art buildings. While it’s normal to expect growing pains, challenges to accessibility should not be among them. It seems with all of the growth here at UHCL, some things have slipped through the cracks and UHCL is in need of some TLC.

As an update, in light of work on this story, the family style restroom in the SSCB is now unlocked.

If you see anything on campus that may need fixing, tweet a photo using #UpdateUHCL