There is one flight of stairs in my house, and after going up and down them once on crutches, I am so exhausted I fall asleep. I called the Student Health Center about possibly renting a wheel chair, bearing in mind that in a week, I would probably feel much better, but might have difficulty with RPI’s many stairs. I also called about moving for a month to a room more handicap accessible than my current room: on the top floor of BARH. To solve both of these problems, I was directed to Debra Hamilton, the assistant dean of students for Disability Services.

Hamilton told me that a wheelchair, while available, was usually deemed unnecessary by people suffering my kind of injury. She told me that while I might feel awful right now and while it might be difficult to get up one flight of stairs, by the time I returned to campus in a week I would be feeling much better and more capable of navigating the several staircases on campus. She also asked me if BARH really did have four floors, because she hadn’t been up there herself. I assured her that yes, BARH really does have four floors in addition to several flights of stairs outside just to get to the door. She inquired about the entrance on the third floor on the Fieldhouse side of BARH. I could exit there, but then I would go down just as many stairs outside. BARH is also the most remote of the freshman dorms. It would be a long walk on crutches from Burdett Avenue and Sherry Road down to Fifteenth Street, and even further down to Sage Labs or West Hall.

The shuttle, to her, was the perfect solution. This way I would only have to go down one and a half flights of stairs, up a half-flight, and down a second half-flight to get outside. Then I would only have to navigate around two snow banks between BARH and the Fieldhouse lot and cross the lot to the shuttle stop. This seems better than walking down the several flights of stairs into campus, but considering a walk to the room next door is currently exhausting, it also doesn’t seem like a viable solution. She suggested I ask other students waiting at the shuttle stop to help me with my bags and walk with me to ensure I didn’t fall. Her tone assumed an optimistic quality as she told me I could meet some cute boys that way. I have used the shuttle several times before and have never boarded the shuttle with someone else from BARH. While the first stop at West Hall might be useful to me, the second stop from BARH (at the foot of the stairs near the lower levels of the DCC) does me little good for avoiding long staircases, and also leaves a long walk to Sage Labs.