An online map indicating the accessible areas on campus was completed last week and is due to be available on the MSU Web site this month.
The map project was brought to Director of the Office of Affirmative Action, Compliance, and Monitoring Paulette Granberry Russell's attention last year by Council for Students with Disabilities members.
"Hopefully it will be very helpful," council President Val Erwin said of the map and its service to students. "They'll be able to look at a building and say, 'Oh, my class is here, this means I have to go to this entrance.'"
The map will outline accessible building entrances, classrooms, restrooms and parking spots. It will include symbols, pictures of accessible entrances and narratives describing where to find those entrances.
Students from the Council for Students with Disabilities, the Residence Halls Association, Geographic Information Systems and university administration collaborated on the project.
"It was our belief that this was something we could do and that there would be some real value in creating an online map that would identify accessibility points for not only those within the community, but also for external community members - like anyone interested in coming to MSU," Russell said.
The map took about one year to complete.
Russell said this map is a starting point and additional information will be added to detail existing accessibility on campus and to update new accessibility options.
Derek Wallbank, international relations junior and Academic Assembly representative for the council, said the map will help highlight campus buildings that aren't accessible.
Wallbank said only three of the available undergraduate housing options on campus are fully accessible - Holmes, Case and Wilson halls.
"A lot of our buildings were built a long time ago, but this issue has also been around a long time," he said.
"While I understand the university put a lot of money into making this campus fully accessible, there's no reason why students in chairs should have to feel like second-class citizens."
When Shaw Hall was renovated in 2002, students were surprised and upset that it was not made fully accessible, Wallbank said.
"People were absolutely flabbergasted that at the end of it, so much money had been put in and yet, where's the public elevator?" he said.
But Russell said the university is always trying to make progress on the issue of accessibility.
"MSU has made tremendous strides in creating a campus that is accessible for faculty, staff and students," she said. "We're certainly working every day toward becoming an environment that extends beyond what we might be required to do by law."
Russell said that a hard-copy version of the map is expected in February.
