This winter, a newly designed snow-removal plan is aiming to help students with disabilities effectively make their way around campus.
The plan includes adding two new MSU grounds maintenance staff members and earlier snow-removal shifts.
New snow-removal routes will also be added to better facilitate students with disabilities in the east and south complexes.
Snow presents obstacles unique to people with disabilities, said political theory and constitutional democracy senior Josh Rabinowitz, vice president of the Residence Halls Association.
"Even when things are plowed, things are still very hard for the average student with disabilities as opposed to the average student," he said.
"They're a lot more sensitive to problems that the average student would be able to adjust to or handle fairly easily."
RHA and MSU Grounds Maintenance Department are both responsible for removing snow on different areas of campus.
The newly implemented plan was developed through meetings involving RHA, the Grounds Maintenance Department and the Resource Center for Persons with Disabilities.
The new shift hours for the snow removal team this year are 6 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., which is a change from the 7:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. shift last year.
The MSU staff said they hope the change will help students with disabilities make it to their early classes without encountering snow obstructions.
"We added two people to our snow-removal plan who will be following a route to get to residence halls earlier, so students with disabilities can get out and get to the bus stop," said Jenni McManus, the personal administrator snow plan coordinator.
The MSU Grounds Maintenance Department also met with the Resource Center for Persons with Disabilities to establish where students with disabilities are housed, so the snow removal workers can get an earlier start in those areas.
Michael Hudson, director of the Resource Center for Persons with Disabilities, said sharing those target locations with the snow removal team will give them better direction when considering where to begin work for the most immediate impact.
"If we know we've got four chair users who live in Wilson Hall, that group now knows that and they have an ability to get started at Wilson to help clear up that area," he said.
RHA also had a meeting with the grounds maintenance department last spring to explain which areas both organizations were responsible for, and to establish which priority entrances to consider first, said international relations junior Derek Wallbank, who was president of RHA at that time.
"There was a little bit of confusion as to who did what," he said. "There's a problem when you have confusion and both sides think the other's going to do something, and no one ends up doing it."
But Wallbank, now ASMSU representative for the Council for Students with Disabilities, said the new plan is already helping to correct problems that students with disabilities encountered last year.
"It's fairly timely," he said. "There's been definite routes marked off and the steps to buildings have been cleaned. It seems to be a pretty encouraging start."
