Many students on campus have noticed the larger seats in Margaret M. Walter Hall, but do not understand their purpose. Larger seats in Walter Hall are intended to accommodate overweight students.
Lecture halls on the first floor have two of these larger bench-like seats. They are located at the ends of the center aisles and are five to six rows up.
Many students said they thought that the seats might have been for students who use wheelchairs or have other physical impairments.
I would assume they are for people with some sort of disability
or maybe just for people who need more space said Jenny Evans, an Ohio University freshman.
Because the seats are farther up in the aisles, their purpose was not intended to accommodate physically impaired students. The seats are being used for what is called bariatrics, said Pamela Callahan, director of Capital Planning and Facilities Planning.
Bariatrics is the term used for the branch of medicine that deals with the causes, prevention and treatment of obesity.
As the director I get more requests from students who have disabilities for seats to accommodate them. For the most part
the seats were put in to accommodate for the larger people of today. We want everyone to be comfortable
said Kathy Fahey, assistant director of the Office of Institutional Equity.
The idea came primarily at the request of students who have been uncomfortable (with the smaller seats) in the past
said Fahey. Let's just face it -people are not getting smaller.
John Kotowski, assistant vice president for Facilities Planning, said in an e-mail statement that the larger seats are not required. The decision to add the larger seats in the lecture halls was made because of complaints that have been received about the sizes of seats available in the classroom environment.
The number of complaints have not been great
but we thought we would do what we did at Walter as a form of pilot to see how they are received and how they work out
Kotowski said. The reason these larger seats are not in other classrooms or lecture halls is because the feedback about seat sizing and the desire to have larger seats has not surfaced until the last couple of years.
The larger seating comes at an extra cost, but has become a more available resource because they are now a standard line of furniture, Kotowski said. Companies are realizing the growth in the size of American people.
A point that I think is important is that until recently oversized seats were a custom order that were fairly expensive to get
Kotowski said. More recently
because the size of the American student is getting larger and there is a greater demand for bigger seats
they have become a standard part of the furniture lines available.
The chairs cost $632.50 each and fill the space of two regular-sized chairs. One large chair costs $266.50 more than the cost of two regular chairs. There are four large chairs total, and the cost is $1,066 more than using eight regular chairs.
While the larger seating areas were designed for a good purpose, students tend to shy away from using them.
I've never really noticed that they're used by any of the students that are overweight. They are rarely used
