By SHANNON O. WELLS
While listening to a presentation about Americans with Disabilities (ADA) compliance in campus facilities, Renee Prymus’ mind flashed on the Writing Center, housed in the O’Hara Student Center, and ideas that peer tutors she worked with created to make it more accessible, accommodating and appealing to the diverse range of students it serves.
Prymus, a Writing Center tutor and teaching associate professor in the English department, shared the tutors’ “universal design”-based concepts at the March 22 meeting of the Campus Utilization, Planning and Safety (CUPS) committee.
ADA compliance for a building focuses primarily on a wheelchair-accessible path from the street to place of service and access to bathrooms. “The presenters also mentioned a desire to be more inclusive in our Pitt spaces,” Prymus said. “And the word ‘inclusive’ is what made the bells in my head go off, with a connection to the Writing Center.”
Prymus, assistant director of the Dietrich School of Arts & Sciences’ first-year engineering composition program, often is assigned to the Writing Center, where she works alongside trained peer tutors who regularly present projects to the Writing Center staff. Last year’s presentations focused on improving the center’s inclusivity and universal design profile.
When the Writing Center moved to O’Hara more than 10 years ago, Prymus explained to University Times, concepts such as inclusive, universal design “were not yet part of the general discussion in educational contexts. They are now,” she said, “and so we’re trying to be forward-thinking about what’s next for the Writing Center, as well as how we can adapt/accommodate our current space in the meantime.”
A spokesperson in Pitt’s Department of Business and Operations said while there are no immediate plans to upgrade or relocate the Writing Center, they are open to innovative and accommodating design concepts as they look forward.
“We welcome ideas to enhance the student experience at Pitt. At the last CUPS meeting, the committee discussed potential future facilities and space improvement concepts, including possible opportunities for the Writing Center located in the O’Hara Student Center,” the spokesperson said. “Our Planning, Design and Construction team is reaching out to the provost’s office to share the committee’s feedback and explore this further.”
Creating quiet space
The student presentations included Samantha Kirschman’s “Universal Design for Learning in the Writing Center” concept, Olivia Ondis’ “Universal Design in the Writing Center,” and Adrian Wood’s “Autistic Tutors: An Analysis and Appreciation.”
Kirschman’s presentation defined an “accommodations model” as a “reactive process that seeks to make room for disabled people via specialized treatment or on a case-by-case basis,” such as obscurely located elevators and ramps in semi-retrofitted old buildings to meet ADA standards.
Universal design, however, stems from a social model of disability that understands disability “as constructed by society, a proactive process which seeks to build spaces to be as accessible as possible to as many people as possible,” and typically refers to physical design aspects in original architecture.
“Universal design really works at the intersection of usability, inclusion and accessibility — best practices from all three of these areas,” Prymus added.
Kirschman’s proposal included a set of stairs gracefully intertwined with a ramp. “It’s a really artistic outdoor staircase, and there’s railings down the side, so you could use it as a staircase as well,” Prymus said. The design includes hallways with wheelchair accessibility from street level all the way to the O’Hara Student Center’s third floor.
Showing current pictures of the Writing Center layout, Prymus noted a large L-shaped space with several white tables and about four chairs per table, which usually have two to three people at them.
Based on the peer tutors’ research, “their biggest message is that we need to create quiet spaces.” For some autistic students, “crowds are way too much. They notice small details, and when they’re overloaded, they have meltdowns, or shutdowns can be expected.”
Good for everyone
For comparison, Olivia Ondis shared visuals of the writing center at Metropolitan State University of Denver. The facility features wave-shaped dividers that provide visual as well as sound barriers. Universal design elements include quiet/private spaces, separate conference rooms, standing tables and stools, and soft lighting, as opposed to the Pitt Writing Center’s large, rectangular, fluorescent fixtures.
Other suggestions include welcoming signage outside and inside the building “letting students know that the Writing Center and the Math Center are here,” Prymus said.
Student tutor Adrian Wood’s presentation indicated that one in five children in the U.S. has learning and attention issues. “And those children grow up to be our college students,” Prymus noted. “And I can only imagine how the pandemic has exacerbated some of those learning and attention issues. …
“So our students are in need of universal design,” Prymus said, adding a quote Wood shared from autistic advocate C.S. Wyatt: “ ‘The accommodations I make for myself serve the entire learning community.’ So this really gets at the heart of the universal design, that what is good for the person who needs the most access is good for everyone who is accessing the space.”
Looking forward
Of course, ideas are one thing, implementing them often another.
“The Writing Center leadership has very little control over the space that they’re in, including paint colors, and old buildings are often not conducive to universal design,” Prymus noted. “So the combinations are often retrofitted. And I’m sure as you’re looking at this presentation, and thinking about universal design, the dollar signs are going off in your head of how expensive this is, both in space and financially, and time to design and implement this.”
Prymus noted that while the Writing Center location at O’Hara was considered temporary, “it’s been an 11-year temporary spot. So looking toward the future, perhaps when we move, we can work in these principles of universal design and inclusivity into our new space.”
The larger goal, as Ondis shared in her presentation “is to apply universal design approach to our spaces so that we can also provide the most helpful and individualized tutoring process and educational processes for the rest of the spaces at the University.”
Shannon O. Wells is a writer for the University Times. Reach him at shannonw@pitt.edu.
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