An independent, student-run newspaper serving the Virginia Tech community since 1903
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
www.collegiatetimes.com
COLLEGIATETIMES
107th year, issue 59
News, page 2
Features, page 7
Opinions, page 5
Sports, page 3
Classifieds, page 6
Sudoku, page 6
Virginia Tech evaluates campus accessibility
SARA MITCHELL
editor-in-chief
Michele Shebroe began avoiding the stairs on
campus her sophomore year.
After her father, who suffers from a long-term
back injury, complained of Virginia Tech’s hilly
campus while moving her in freshman year,
Shebroe wanted to survey the campus’s accommodations for those with a physical disability.
Using only paths that accommodate wheelchairs,
she discovered the lack of disability access on
the stair-covered residential side of campus, and
the mechanical engineer decided to contact the
Americans with Disability Act office on campus.
Virginia Reilly, director of the university’s ADA
office, informed Shebroe of a task force that was
created in 2009 to analyze the accessibility of the
north side of campus — the entire academic area
between McBryde Hall and Hahn Hall North. The
task force is part of an ongoing mission to not only
comply with federal standards but to also create
a more inclusive environment on the campus for
those with a DISABILITIES.
While she hopes to improve the access points on
campus for students, faculty and visitors, Shebroe
doubts her dad will be making the nine-hour drive
from New York back to Tech.
“He might not even be able to come and see me
graduate,” Shebroe said.
A FEDERAL LAW SETS THE STANDARD
When Virginia founded the Virginia Agricultural
and Mechanical College in hilly Blacksburg in
1872, the state planned for the enrollment of ablebodied cadets, and not the diverse Tech population
that exists today.
Now 138 years later — and with the help of a
federal law — Tech administrators, professional
staff, faculty and students are working to enhance
the growing campus to accommodate the nearly
550 students with a documented disability on
campus as well as those who aren’t documented
or are visitors.
“How do you make the university work for
all these folks?” asked university architect and
Blacksburg Town Council member John Bush.
“That’s a struggle on a campus as large as ours, with
as many buildings as we have.”
Tech as a government entity has to comply with
the federal Americans with Disabilities Act of
1990, which prohibits discrimination based on a
disability and also sets architectural standards for
any buildings built after 1990. A 300-page guide
outlines all ADA regulations for buildings, from
entrances to ramps. Even miniature golf facilities
and amusement park rides are regulated.
Tom Tucker is the building information manager
for University Planning, Design, and Construction
and has worked for Tech for the past 25 years.
When the ADA was enacted, he took classes on
what the new laws required and was responsible
for reviewing architectural plans to ensure they
included the new regulations.
“As you can imagine, it was new to everybody,”
he said.
Additionally, the university had to make accessibility priorities and present them to the state every
two years to determine the budget.
“The federal and state government said you shall
do this, but there was very little funding for that,”
Tucker said.
Bush said that ADA codes have been integrated
into the architectural planning process.
“Good design isn’t adding a piece,” he said. “It
should be integral.”
A lot of regulations are ones that Bush said people no longer consider intentional design aspects.
Doorways must be wider than 32 inches, but Bush
said most at Tech are 36 inches; bathrooms must
have a five-foot turning radius for wheelchairs;
doorknobs are all replaced with door handles to
accommodate those who can’t turn a knob.
This all falls under universal design, a concept
that is generally defined as accommodating everyone and keeping everyone in mind when planning
a facility.
Tucker said the university has people with disabilities check out the access plans. He said the
university’s attitude is to go beyond its most basic
responsibilities.
“This is what the law says we have to do at
minimum, but what would be the best practice for
you?” he said.
Bush said that while new buildings on campus
are ADA compliant, some alterations are still necessary. The Institute for Critical Technology and
Applied Science behind McBryde Hall was built
fully ADA compliant in 2008, but some users of
the building asked that the doors be replaced with
[
EVALUATING THE CAMPUS
Buildings opened before 1990 did not have to be
completely renovated to comply with ADA regulations, but any renovations made after 1990 must be
ADA compliant.
The north campus task force was created to
go back and look at older buildings and evaluate
their accessibility and potential for ADA-compliant renovations. The group contains professional
staff, faculty and students.
“Prior buildings were designed without that
awareness,” Bush, a member of the task force, said
of the campus. “We found ourselves going back for
a whole host of issues.”
While the final report of the evaluations isn’t finished, Bush said there were a few main conclusions
that came out of the research.
Bush said the group did not look at the interior of
the buildings but focused on making the academic
side accessible from a parking spot to the curb
through a route to the entrance of a building.
“There’s a lot of change in topography,” he said,
noting in total there is a 30-foot slope from the
McBryde side of campus to Burruss Hall.
The group also reported that many sidewalks
CT NEWS STAFF
POLICE INVESTIGATE WEEKEND ROBBERY IN COLLEGIATE
SUITES; VIRGINIA TECH STUDENT SUFFERS BROKEN JAW
shirt and tan shorts. The other was described
as a 6’0” white male with brown hair wearing a
white t-shirt and blue jeans.
The suspects may have sustained injuries during the altercation. The victim attempted to
defend himself before sustaining the broken
jaw.
Blacksburg police ask anyone with information on this incident to call 540-961-1150 or the
tip line at 540-961-1819.
SOPHOMORE ENGLISH MAJOR PUBLISHED IN NATIONAL
SOCIETY OF COLLEGIATE SCHOLARS LITERARY MAGAZINE
Sophomore Katelyn Noland’s short story has
been featured in a national literary magazine,
The Collegiate Scholar, published online each
semester by the National Society of Collegiate
Scholars.
Noland’s story, “Peeling Peaches,” is one of 18
submissions that were accepted. Noland is the
only student from the state of Virginia to be
published.
The magazine is published every spring, summer, and fall semester. It is one of the recognition programs run by the National Society of
Collegiate Scholars, an honor society that invites
high-achieving freshmen and sophomores to
participate in scholarship and leadership programs.
BASKETBALL PRACTICE FACILITY NAMED IN HONOR OF
FORMER UNIVERSITY PRESIDENT T. MARSHALL HAHN
The new basketball practice facility on
Washington Street has been named after former
university president T. Marshall Hahn and his
daughter, Anne Hahn Hurst.
The Hahn and Hurst families were the largest
donors to the $21 million, 49,000 square foot
building that opened in August.
Hahn served as president of the university
from 1962 until 1974. Cassell Coliseum and
]
less heavy ones, and that there be a color difference
between the sidewalk and the beginning of the
access ramp.
Bush said these two renovations are in the
works.
David Bingham, Tech’s ADA services architect,
came to Tech as an architecture graduate student
in 1988, before the ADA was legislated. He was one
of only two people in a wheelchair on campus at
the time, and he remembers there only being one
Blacksburg Transit van that could pick him up.
Before there were federal regulations, he said,
Tech was still fairly accessible. Even so, “we’ve come
very far over the last 20 years,” he said.
Blacksburg news in brief
Police are investigating a robbery in the
Collegiate Suites apartment complex that
occurred Sunday morning.
A 21-year-old male Virginia Tech student was
walking along Mary Jane Circle around 2:20
a.m. Sunday when he was approached by two
male suspects who punched him in the face,
stole his wallet, and fled the scene.
One suspect was described as a 6’3” white male
with long dirty blond hair wearing a blue polo
on the web
This story is the second part of a series
on disability access on campus. Check
collegiatetimes.com for a video of assistive
technology.
Lane Stadium were both opened during his time
as president.
The Tech Board of Visitors recently approved
the dedication of the building to be named the
Hahn Hurst Basketball Practice Center. The
Center is hoped to not only improve the quality
of basketball practices for the men’s and women’s
team but also to assist in recruitment of potential
players.
COURTESY OF VIRGINIA TECH
The $21 million basketball practice facility on Washington Street opened in August.
see ACCESSIBILITY / page TWO
LUKE MASON/SPPS
Michele Shebroe became concerned with the accessibility of campus after
her father, who has a back injury, was unable to navigate the hilly terrain.
Times Square terror suspect
admits involvement in plot
JOHN VALENTI
mcclatchy newspapers
NEW YORK — Faisal Shahzad told law enforcement
authorities he “received bomb-making training” in Pakistan and admitted his involvement in the failed car-bombing
attempt in Times Square, court records show.
Shahzad was trained in the lawless tribal region of Waziristan,
where the Pakistani Taliban operates with near impunity,
according to a criminal complaint in Manhattan federal court
detailing charges against him.
The Connecticut man faces terrorism and weapons of mass
destruction charges after admitting his role and providing
investigators with “useful information” since his arrest overnight, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said earlier Tuesday.
His arraignment had yet to take place as of Tuesday evening.
“Based on what we know so far, it is clear that this was a
terrorist plot aimed at murdering Americans in one of the
busiest places in our country,” Holder said at a Washington,
D.C., news conference.
According to court records, Shahzad used a prepaid cell
phone he bought April 16 to call Pakistan several times, to
arrange to buy fireworks in Pennsylvania and to call the
seller of the Nissan Pathfinder he purchased, then loaded with
explosives and drove to Times Square.
Shahzad paid $1,300 in $100 bills for the Pathfinder on April
24 after receiving four phone calls from a Pakistani phone
number, court records said.
Officials, among them Holder, Homeland Security
Secretary Janet Napolitano, FBI Deputy Director John S.
Pistole and NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly, said the case
was quickly solved with “exemplary investigative efforts,” the
awareness of average citizens and the vigilance of law enforcement officials.
“If successful, it could have resulted in a lethal terrorist
attack,” Holder said, adding that the United States faces a “constant threat from those who wish to do us harm.”
“The most dangerous lesson we can draw (from this) is the
false impression that this threat no longer exists,” he said.
The news conference came after intelligence officials in Pakistan had detained several people in Karachi believed to be
connected to Shahzad, according to news reports.
“We have picked up a few family members” related to
Shahzad, a security official in Karachi told Reuters. He declined
to elaborate.
Holder said while he had heard those reports he was not in a
position to confirm them.
Earlier, President Barack Obama said the FBI is investigating
potential ties between Shahzad, 30, and terrorist groups.
Government officials said Shahzad, believed to have been
living in Bridgeport, Conn., drove a bomb-laden Nissan
Pathfinder into Times Square just before 6:30 p.m. EDT
Saturday in an attempt to unleash an attack on what Holder
called “innocent tourists and theatergoers.”
Two street vendors alerted police and mounted officer Wayne
Rhatigan quickly responded. That helped avert disaster and
saved “hundreds of lives,” Obama said.
Federal officials said Shahzad became a naturalized U.S.
citizen in April 2009, just before visiting his native Pakistan for
five months. Shortly after returning, Shahzad bought the
Pathfinder.
Kelly said tracing the vehicle to Shahzad began simply
enough — when an NYPD detective crawled under the
Pathfinder and found its identification number. That enabled
investigators to find the owner of record and learn the car was
sold to Shahzad.
The net closed on Shahzad late Monday, when he was
arrested aboard a Dubai-bound flight on Emirates airline
at New York’s John F. Kennedy Airport. Law enforcement
officials said Tuesday agents were on the lookout for Shahzad
on flight manifests at regional and international airports — but
his name only appeared at the last minute because he booked
his ticket just before the flight and paid in cash.
Emirates officials said Shahzad’s paying cash was a red flag
that led the airline to contact law enforcement.
Questions were raised about why the FBI and other investigators allowed Shahzad to get on the plane and the plane to
leave the gate with him on it, as earlier reports had said. Holder
and Napolitano at the news conference said they never worried he would get away.
“Let me say, I was here all yesterday and through much of
last night, and was aware of the tracking that was going on,”
Holder said. “And I was never in any fear that were in danger
of losing him.”
Later, a federal law enforcement official confirmed that
Shahzad had actually gotten on the plane and sat down. But,
the official said, “CBP (Customs and Border Patrol) apprehended the subject before the plane pushed back. However,
once he was off-loaded, the plane pushed back from the gate,
and the FBI requested it be brought back to off-load two additional persons of interest.”
Those two people were interviewed and later cleared to fly,
the official said.
Another law federal enforcement official said Shahzad was
added to the no-fly list as a result of late-breaking developments in the investigation. It appears it was a last-minute
catch.
“TSA sent notifications to airlines; however his information
had not yet been populated in the airline’s system to the point
of triggering an automated alert,” the official said. “CBP officers
discovered the suspect’s intentions to leave the U.S. when they
received the passenger manifest, at which point they acted to
apprehend him.”
Pistole said authorities had homed in on Shahzad by Sunday
night and had him under surveillance. Customs and Border
Protection and other law enforcement agencies were alerted in
case he tried to leave the country, Pistole said.
It’s not clear if authorities followed Shahzad to the airport.
“The bottom line is, we were able to identify, locate and
detain Mr. Shahzad,” Pistole said.
The flight was delayed about seven hours.
The aircraft and passengers were then rescreened before
taking off Tuesday morning, Emirates said in a statement emailed to The Associated Press.
A law enforcement official said a 9-mm semiautomatic rifle
and ammunition were found in a car Shahzad parked in a lot
at JFK Airport.
FBI agents and New York City police detectives from the
Joint Terrorism Task Force made the arrest at about 11:45 p.m.
EDT after Shahzad was identified by Customs and Border
Protection agents at the airport, according to the U.S. attorney’s
office in New York.
Investigators have not established a connection to the
Pakistani Taliban, which claimed responsibility in three videos. Nor had any link been confirmed between Shahzad and
any other foreign terrorist groups, a law enforcement official
told the AP.
“He’s claimed to have acted alone, but these are things that
have to be investigated,” the official said.
Also Tuesday, Obama telephoned Rhatigan and fellow
Officer Pam Duffy to commend them on their quick response
Saturday.
At a Tuesday morning news conference, Mayor Michael
Bloomberg expressed gratitude for the work of investigators
who broke the case.
The Collegiate Times will cease production of the print version until June 3. See our web site for updates.
2 news
university editor: philipp kotlaba
new river valley news editor: zach crizer
newseditor@collegiatetimes.com/ 540.231.9865
may 5, 2010
COLLEGIATETIMES
Accessibility: Student seeks residential side changes Google
to
start
Professor
selling
speaks from
e-books
experience
from page one
For Craig Brians, the selling point of
Virginia Tech was the renovated elevator in Major Williams Hall. Coming
from flat, warm California, the political science professor needed to know
he could get to his fifth-floor office
just fine.
“I also like the carpets,” he said,
because they are easier to walk on.
After an injury while working in law
enforcement, Brians felt he had to be
upfront about his disability with Tech
when interviewing for a position with
the political science department. He
wasn’t sure how accessible the Roanoke
Airport or Tech’s campus was going to
be when he came in for an interview.
“I found from Day One the university
to be very accommodating,” he said.
Brians has been here for 12 years, and
he said the university has shown a “new
awareness” for accessibility. He rarely
has trouble now that a power door
has been installed in Major Williams,
and the university supplied him with a
zero-gravity chair to help him sit more
comfortably in his office.
He also believes his disability makes
him “a little more approachable” with
students with disabilities in his classes.
Brians makes a point to explain his
injury to his classes and read out loud
the university-mandated statement
in his syllabus describing how to get
accommodations for class. He feels
students are responsible for finding
accommodations within the Services
for Student with Disabilities office. He
recommends they become educated
on their rights under the Americans
with Disability Act of 1990, which
prohibits discrimination based on disability.
Although he recommends students
use SSD if they can, Brians wishes
SSD was more heavily staffed, as it
can be swamped, and non-emergency
requests have taken up to two weeks, in
his experience. He sees two issues with
how the campus deals with disabilities.
“One is the framing of disability as
an accommodation,” he said, instead of
designing so that things are accessible
and used by everyone.
With universal design — a concept
of designing for all potential users —
someone with a disability would not
have to feel like they have to get special
treatment when they need a special
accommodation but rather the accommodation would already be there.
The second issue for him is that a lot
of disabilities are hidden, so it’s hard to
be able to provide accommodations
when it’s not so obvious.
“It’s sort of obvious I have a situation,”
he said, pointing to his cane, “but students need to make others aware that
they have a situation.”
by sara mitchell
ct editor-in-cheif
were damaged and the accessible
routes are generally lengthy across the
north side.
Reilly said that six power doors have
been installed on the academic side of
campus. A new ramp to the back of
Burruss has been added in the tunnel
to the left of the building.
Bush noted that even the campus
landmark wasn’t very accessible.
“Burruss is our landmark; people
are drawn to it naturally,” he said.
“And the building’s main entrance is
not accessible.”
Those who can’t use front entrance
stairs must use the tunnel’s new
entrance or go through the side near
Norris Hall and take elevators to the
Burruss Hall lobby.
LOOKING
AHEAD
WITH
ACCESSIBILITY
After the task group finishes evaluating the north campus and making
its recommendations to the university, Reilly said the group would turn
its focus to Squires Student Center
and the upper quad area that includes
the corps of cadets dormitories.
While Michele Shebroe originally
approached the ADA office to discuss
the residential side, Bush said he was
not sure when the task force would
look at that area. He added that when
a community member calls attention
to something specific, like Shebroe
did, it does have a possibility to switch
the direction and focus of a group.
“They want to look at it,” he said.
Shebroe said one of the biggest
concerns on the residential side was
the lack of access from the Drillfield
through Slusher Tower to the West
End/Ambler Johnston Hall area. A
student would have to go around by
Owens Dining Hall or travel the steep
West Campus Drive.
She also wanted to bring to the university’s attention the turnstile going
into the DX facilities. Rick Johnson,
director of housing and dining services, said the situation was evaluated,
and the department concluded that it
was effective to allow students to enter
through the DX exit door if they have
a disability.
The university could also focus
more on proactive design as opposed
to reactive, Bingham said. For example, something as small as the Hokie
Passport swipe into buildings could
have been proactively designed to be
accessible to those without the use
of their hands. Instead, the campus
has to add magnetic proximity readers onto buildings as students and
faculty need them, which reads the
magnetic strip on a card from a few
yards away.
He said such functions “do the
same job for the same price” if added
originally, but the university couldn’t
afford to go back and replace every
swipe with a magnetic reader.
Progress can also be slow in renovating and adding to the campus.
Bingham said that while all ramps
on the residential side of campus
are regulation, they are still “a long
stretch” for someone in a wheelchair.
He mentioned that some universities use underground tunnels into
buildings to avoid big hills into the
regular entries, and that all students could utilize them during the
winter.
“Sometimes the amount of red
tape ... just feels like a long time,” said
Susan Angle, director of Services for
Students with Disabilities. “There’s a
process — meetings, architects, regulations.”
She said even small projects could
take more than a semester.
Funding can also be a roadblock.
The ADA office has a $100,000 project budget and additional funding
comes from the university capital
budget or from department budgets.
However, one project can eat up a lot
of a budget.
“A simple solution could be $20,000
to $30,000,” said Mike Coleman,
associate vice president for facilities.
“Unfortunately, these things are not
cheap.”
Coleman said implementing the
ramp in the Burruss tunnel had cost
several hundred thousand dollars.
Prior to that there was a lift, which
Tucker said was “a fix we could afford
at the time,” as a lift costs around
$10,000. A ramp is more reliable and
doesn’t require maintenance like a lift
would.
Bingham said that while the university budget cuts have put certain projects on hold — such as entire renovations of buildings — smaller projects
are generally able to find funding,
although it might be split between
offices and departments. He added
that the university has been willing to
help with access projects.
Tucker said some renovations and
additions were products of other projects. Sometimes the university would
decide to install a ramp instead of
stairs when creating sidewalks, and
this project would come out of a different budget.
“How can we make the biggest bang
for the buck?” he said.
Tucker pointed out that a project
could be evaluated by the cost versus
how much access was created. For
example, implementing an elevator in
a five-floor building might be expensive, but it is creating access to five
floors that didn’t have access before.
Not every building lends itself to
the kinds of projects people have in
mind. Coleman said in the example
of the Burruss tunnel, the campus
was lucky there was enough space to
build a ramp.
Angle hopes that the recent formation of a new executive ADA committee is a step in the right direction. Karen Eley Sanders, interim vice
president of diversity and inclusion,
heads the committee, which consists
of administrators, professional staff,
faculty and students. Angle, Reilly
and Bush all sit on the committee,
which has met once so far.
The new committee “will have an
awareness to move the process on a
little quicker,” Angle said.
In addition, Bingham said the
new committee will have spending
power, something an older ADA
executive committee didn’t have.
The committee plans to revise its
mission this summer and set more
priorities.
Bush believes that the university
and architecture in general is in a
transition period of shifting to more
natural disability access.
“That’s just the way designers think
now — more about connectivity,” he
said.
He said that as the baby boomer
generation gets older, there would
be a general emphasis on satisfying
the needs of those with physical disabilities.
He said he also hopes design
evolves so nothing is considered a “separate” accommodation for someone with a disability.
For example, he believes the front
entrance of a building won’t require
stairs anymore, and other accessible features will become less
obvious.
“The eye won’t see the ramp,” he
said. “You’ll just say, ‘that’s how I get
into the building.”
“We won’t sense that there’s a
separate community for disabled,”
Bush said. “That we’re not just
jerry-rigging to accommodate
them.”
KATIE BIONDO/COLLEGIATE TIMES
Sophomore Michele Shebroe brought up the lack of an accessible
route through the Slusher Hall area (accessible routes in blue).
ADA accessibility guidelines
from the July 2004 handbook
ENTRY AND RAMPS
- at least one accessible route must connect all accessible floors and elements
of a building
- ramps must have a slope of one foot for every 20 feet of ramp length
- doorways must have a clear opening of at least 32 inches wide
PARKING FACILITIES
- for every 500 - 1,000 spots, 2 percent of the spots must be accessible spaces
- ten percent of hospital parking spots must be accessible spaces
- twenty percent of rehabilitation facility parking spots must be accessible spots
VISUAL AND HEARING
- fire alarms must have permanent visual and audible alarms
- general signs must be in all capital letters with sans serif font
- braille will be separated at least 3/8 inch from the corresponding text
- braille text must be located between 48” and 60” from the floor
MICHAEL MCDERMOTT/COLLEGIATE TIMES
DAN GALLAGHER
mcclatchy newspaper
SAN
FRANCISCO — Google
Inc. plans to begin selling e-books this
summer over a platform that would
allow readers to load the books onto
multiple electronic devices, the company said Tuesday.
The search giant outlined the plan during a panel discussion in New York that
was first reported by The Wall Street
Journal. The service is called Google
Editions and will allow users to buy
e-books directly from the company, as
well as through other retailers.
No details were given regarding the
price of books or which publishers
would participate in the project.
Gabriel Stricker, a spokesman
for Google, acknowledged Tuesday
that the Google Editions service was
being targeted for a launch sometime
this summer. The service would also be
“device-agnostic”— meaning that any
Internet-enabled device could download and read the books, he said.
Such a move would position Google to
compete in the fast-growing e-book
market with Amazon.com and Apple
Inc. Amazon launched its Kindle ereader in late 2007 and has since taken a
commanding lead in the market.
Apple launched its iPad tablet last
month, along with its iBookstore service
to sell e-books for the device. The company said Monday it has sold 1 million
iPads and 1.5 million copies of e-books
in the past month. Amazon has never
released sales data for the Kindle.
The Kindle is a proprietary device
that only reads e-books purchased from
Amazon. Books for the iPad must be
purchased through Apple; if a user has
downloaded the Kindle app, titles can be
downloaded from Amazon.
Google’s proposed system would
not be locked to a particular device.
The service also has the potential to
offer far more titles than those offered
by Amazon and Apple, as Google has
already digitized some 12 million books
into its Google Books service. Many of
these are out-of-print titles.
The company is working to win over
publishers to its proposal. The event
Tuesday was sponsored by the Book
Industry Study Group and held at
Random House’s Manhattan offices
under the title: “The Book on Google: Is
the Future of Publishing in the Cloud?”
The Google Editions service will
launch whether or not the company is
able to reach a settlement with authors
and publishers over rights to millions
of out-of-print books that are still under
copyright protection, according to
Stricker. The service will involve titles
that are in print and covered under an
agency deal with publishers. Out-ofprint titles may be added if the settlement is successful.