The Daily Orange

Life wasn't all that different for her back when she had the use of her legs. A voracious infection that entered a cut in her toe 22 years ago and spread like cancer to the upper regions of her back never paralyzed her ambition, her resilience.

Instead, Erzhena Boudayeva, a 42-year-old graduate student from Russia who has only known the paths of Syracuse University from wheelchair-level, says she is the beneficiary of great luck - she can coast around a campus with a well-built handicap-accessible infrastructure.

Coming to the head of a five-year period of flurried excitement for the SU disabled community, which included formation of the Beyond Compliance Coordinating Committee and the Disability Law Society - two student groups dedicated to increasing disability awareness - school officials and disabled students agree that the school itself is fairly well-equipped architecturally and technologically to handle students with disabilities.

"It's a very good situation here in terms of access," Boudayeva said, spinning her new electric wheelchair around. "I give it a good appraisal. But it could always still be better."

Modifying some of the oldest college buildings in the country - some as old as 130 years - to meet modern accessibility standards is a daunting task, said Steve Simon, director of the Office of Disability Services, the SU department charged with meeting the access needs of its 800 registered disabled students.

"I think our design and construction department has done a remarkable job in creating accessibility to over 95 percent of our campus buildings," Simon said in an email. "There is always room for improvement, but we are well ahead of the curve for a campus of this age and size."

Of the student-used buildings on campus, 11 are completely inaccessible to physically impaired students, including the College of Nursing, Haven Hall, and the Office of Financial Aid and Scholarship Programs, 10 are only accessible to the first floor and another 10 have no available handicapped restrooms.

And, said Boudayeva, access routes through some buildings are so convoluted that daily travel through them often feels like a perennial game of Chutes and Ladders.

"I cannot relax," Boudayeva said, carefully balancing a pot of Russian ravioli in her hand on its way to the stove, "I have to manage to get myself from place to place on time."

Snow complicates the campus commute even further, and last week's wintry blast kept a few disabled students dorm-ridden.

"I wanted to get my books from the bookstore the other day," said Pritul Bhuiyan, a freshman elementary and special education major who has been a wheelchair user her entire life. "I called ODS to see if they could send a van to take me, but they couldn't, and I wasn't able to get my books."

Unlike Boudayeva, who struggles to wade through the slosh even with a high-tech electric chair, Bhuiyan has to pump her arms for every foot gained, or pray for the thrust of a kind passerby to push her on.

"It's almost impossible to get anywhere in this snow with a regular chair," Boudayeva said. "Your hands get soaked from the wet wheels, and it's just exhausting.

"You need to be sociable if you're handicapped in this country. You have to make as many friends as possible. Thank goodness the people here are so caring and helpful. It's not that way in every country."

At least some of the disability awareness and accessibility on campus can be attributed to the two-year-old Working Group subcommittee of the BCCC. The group meets twice a month with various higher-ups in the SU administration, including Simon, to discuss ways to increase convenience and resources for disabled students.

It has completed projects including a new policy manual for disability services, new snow removal procedures, parking enforcement and education and building maintenance such as elevators, chair lifts and automatic door openers.

A more powerful body for altering the disability landscape at SU, dubbed the Chancellor's Task Force, will come into creation later this year, and will try to setup an agenda for a strategy for the future, said Jo Thomas, associate chancellor, speaking on behalf of Chancellor Nancy Cantor, who herself has an autistic child.

Thomas said the task force will work closely with ODS - a department hailed by the chancellor, Boudayeva and the BCCC for going beyond the call of duty to accommodate students.

"From a collaborative standpoint on a 10 point scale, (ODS is) a 25," said Julia White, co-president of BCCC. "They are really super."

Few people know the recent accomplishments of the quiet department nestled discretely in the Health Center. Last year, SU was the largest provider of alternate-format texts in Braille and on tape, amassing more than 250,000 pages of such accessible copy.

SU has also taken a leading role in promoting the passage and implementation of legislation that requires publishers of textbooks to provide electronic copies that can then be converted to Braille, large print or audio format, said Simon.

"This legislation will impact all people living in New York state who use alternate format, not only SU students," he said. "Many reading materials that have heretofore been inaccessible to those who have print handicaps, will now be available."

Now, the only issue for Boudayeva is recognized always as just another student.

"Most people think disabled people are suffering every day," she said. "Really we are just living our lives."

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