Once upon a time in our Ohio University musical President Glidden's reign, I sought to visit a colleague friend on the third floor of Ellis Hall. In the past when I had made this trip, I had easily bounded up the three flights of stairs enjoying the existential pleasures of keeping my arteries unclogged. Unfortunately, at this stage of my being, entropy had begun its inexorable nefarious painful and arthritically flavored work on my knees. In my earlier visits I had learned that Ellis Hall's elevator, let me call her Eli
lived a private existence - she was the slave of the building's faculty and staff, each of whom had their own key to her -
E-lec-a-tri-city.
Having no key, I slowly and painfully lumbered up the stairs, but before seeing my collegial friend, I spoke with an administrative assistant in one of the academic departments. I asked her why Eli was not free and open to everybody - and especially to those of us who had a bit of a stair-climbing disability.
I was told that Eli was a rather small and not so healthy an elevator, and if she were made available to everyone; students, disabled and all - she might be ravished and die from abuse and profligate overuse. Nevertheless, I asked her to explore this matter with others and see if something could be done.
A week or so later, on a return visit to Ellis I noticed a small plastic plaque-sign pasted beside Eli's operating-key-slot with the following message:
If you have a disability and need to use this elevator please go to the Ohio University Disability Services office in Crewson House and get a key.
Crewson House is a block west of Ellis Hall with a hill in between. This response to my concern about meeting the needs of the occasional stair-climbing disabled Ellis visitor - seemed to me a bit insufficient. Thus, I decided to communicate directly with President Glidden.
I was not expecting much in the way of a favorable response from him. Early in President Glidden's tenure at Ohio University, with letters to the editor, I had publicly disagreed with him on his apparent fascination with and attraction to corporatization as an appropriate model for Ohio University.
However, I was amazed and quite surprised at the promptness with which he responded to my e-mail - so much so that I subsequently asked him how in the world he could find time to personally check and respond to what I thought might have been a tsunami of e-mails. He told me he felt that it was worth a half hour of his time in the morning, to scan his e-mail and to respond to as many as possible each day.
In the late 1970s, I'd spent a sabbatical leave year in Washington, D.C. with the U.S. Congress, Office of Technology Assessment exploring US resource consumption and its profligateness, with an eye to public policy for coping. This interesting experience in the Washington cabal helped me to subsequently keep an eye on some of our federal government's public policy expressions - laws and executive orders.
Thus I noted along my way, the July 26, 1990 enactment of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (P.L. 101-336) - a law that had something to say about accommodating persons with disabilities.
In my e-mail to President Glidden, I mentioned this law, suggesting that Eli's privatization might constitute an Ohio University violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act.
When I visited Ellis Hall a couple of weeks after my e-mail exchange with President Glidden, I noticed that the plaque-sign by Eli's operating-key-slot had been removed and the slot had been replaced with a simple touch button with which anyone could summon her favors.
I could almost hear Eli singing at the top of her voice -
Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty I am free at last!
Chuck Overby is an Ohio University emeritus engineering professor who resides in Athens.
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Opinion
Letter to the Editor
