Upper Campus Accessibility at Boston College

09/08/2021

♿️♿️♿️ Are you a BC student interested in disability inclusion and advocacy efforts like Upper Campus Accessibility? If so, apply for the Council for Students with Disabilities (CSD) using either the QR code below or this link: https://bc.campuslabs.com/engage/submitter/form/start/482831. We hope to see you at a meeting soon!

02/12/2021

12/21/2020

http://www.bcgavel.com/2020/12/21/delays-with-disability-services-at-bc-men-and-women-for-the-able-bodied/

The administration's failure to respond quickly to concerns of accessibility on campus contradicts the Jesuit value of "men and women for others."

11/18/2020

Hi Everyone! We haven’t posted on here since September, so here are a few updates on what we’ve been up to since then!

- We have had many meetings with members of the BC administration and it has become more and more clear that the call for this pathway is being taken seriously. However, we still need your help to keep creating buzz and demand around this so that the administration continues to be held accountable for their promises!

- Currently, we are asking that the construction of the pathway be done this summer, but making that a reality might be challenging due to the pandemic. However, we are committed to pushing for the construction to happen this summer until we get a definite ‘yes’ or ‘no.’

- Last night, we brought a resolution to the UGBC Student Assembly concerning the accessible pathway to Upper Campus. Thanks to the hard work of Taylor Morales (CSD Policy Coordinator), Jack Bracher (Class of 2022 Senator and CSD General Member), and Urwa Hameed (Class of 2022 Senator and Chair of the SA Intersectionality Committee), the resolution passed unanimously! It has been our hope that we can use both this resolution and the referendum that was voted on earlier in the semester to accentuate the steadfast student support behind this pathway.

Thanks for continuing to follow along and support this initiative! We hope to provide more updates soon!

- Svea, Nick, and the UGBC Council for Students with Disabilities

09/23/2020

https://www.bcheights.com/2020/09/23/ugbc-student-assembly-elections-fall-2020/

Students voted to fill open seats in the UGBC Student Assembly and passed a non-binding referendum to create an accessible pathway to Upper Campus.

09/23/2020

Good Morning Everyone! We’re very excited to share that our referendum PASSED on the UGBC ballot yesterday! The final yes/no vote count was 2,032 to 143, and we can’t thank everyone enough for voting and spreading the word!

So, you may ask, what’s next?! Well, our next step is getting a resolution passed in the newly elected UGBC Student Assembly, which is yet another step we are taking to show the heavy student support behind this pathway when we bring this to the BC administration.

Again, a huge thank you to all who voted yes on this referendum, and we will be sure to provide you new updates and other ways you can support the construction of this pathway in the days and weeks to come!

09/22/2020

Good Morning BC Students! First of all, thank you all so much for helping us get our upper campus accessibility referendum on the ballot!Voting in the senatorial elections is officially open! Please remember to go vote for your class senators, and please vote yes on the upper campus accessibility referendum! We appreciate your helping us to make Boston College more accessible to everyone!
https://bc.campuslabs.com/engage/submitter/election/start/441312

09/19/2020

Good evening!
There has been an initiative at Boston College for a while to create an accessible pathway to upper campus. As of now, if you are a student at Boston College with a disability that impairs your walking, there is no accessible way for you to live on or travel to upper campus independently. This removes many social, extracurricular, transportational, and even academic opportunities to students who may have this type of disability. If you are an incoming freshman at Boston College with a walking-related disability, you are automatically placed for housing on Newton campus freshman year, which requires you to use the campus bus several times every day. Counterintuitive much? Additionally, many social gatherings, meetings, etc. take place on upper campus, and about 75% of the Boston College freshman class lives on upper campus each year. If you take a look at the cover photo for this page, you can see the area where an accessible pathway can be created. The idea is to push the stone wall back by a few feet to open up the pathway. It is such a small change for such a big difference!

A few friends of mine and I had gotten together to create a petition which, if we could get 1000 signatures on for Monday, September 21, would allow a referendum on the ballot for the upcoming senatorial election. We wanted to have this referendum on the ballot because, if we could get a strong positive response, it would provide us with a powerful tool to go to the Boston College administration with, and push forward this initiative to create an accessible pathway. I am happy to say that we were successfully able to share this petition with Boston College students, and achieve the required signatures within a mere 22 hours after sharing it! We are looking forward to supporting this initiative with a hopefully strong positive response to this referendum on the ballot for the upcoming senatorial election on Tuesday, September 22! Here is what the referendum will look like on Tuesday:
Should there be an accessible pathway to upper campus that would allow students with walking-related disabilities to live on and travel to upper campus independently?
If we can see a strong positive response from the students, then we will be one step closer toward making the Boston College community more accessible to everyone!