By Gabrielle Fellows
Youngstown State University’s Disability Services headquarters has moved from the intersection of West Rayen Avenue and 5th Avenue to 36 West Wood St, a location that is closer to the Williamson College of Business and Administration than Beeghly Hall.
Gina McGranahan, the assistant director of the Center for Student Progress Disability Services, said that the move doesn’t make the building harder to access for the students with disabilities that use its services.
“[The distance] is about the same,” McGranahan said. “Instead of being near the College of Education, we are near the College of Business.”
Mike Reagle, associate vice president for Student Success, said that the move was a necessary one that will not affect anyone using the center.
“That was the best place for [Disability Services] to move now in order to continue to provide the proper services for students,” Reagle said, “… it is part of a larger strategic plan that the university is pursuing. Whenever a university grows and improves, there will always be ‘growing pains,’ but they are always worth it in the end.”
Anthony Hartwig, a communications student who uses Disability Services, said that the new location is harder for students to reach.
“There isn’t much parking there,” Hartwig said. “I used [the old location] as a place where WRTA could pick me up and drop me off. [In the new location] they have to park on the side of the street … to get me.”
Hartwig also said that the students were told two weeks in advance about the move, so arrangements could be made with transportation via busses, cars and with the student escort services.
“[The move] affects the escort service,” Hartwig said. “It’s taking them further out of their way to get their escorts there, which affects everyone on their schedule.”
John Lane, one of the student security escorts at YSU, said that the move is slightly inconvenient, especially since it was done during the middle of the semester.
‘Its a little [bit harder], especially for the students who we have to pick up or bring back to disability services,” Lane said.
Students that rely on student escorts must give the student security service their schedule for the semester at the beginning of the year. Due to the move, it is harder for the student escorts to get the students they’re escorting to the new Disability Services on time.
“Sometimes you only have 10 minutes between classes, and it’s hard [to make it to the new location on time] when students have to take tests at disability services, especially with the new intersection,” Lane said. “There’s a crosswalk, but there’s not a light. Unless there are a lot of kids coming out of Williamson, it’s hard to get across.”
