With the start of the semester underway, AU has been at work finishing up the $10.4 million beautification project around campus, but there have already been some complaints about the project because of accessibility issues.

Ever since the new campus beautification project has kicked, one area of focus has been on accessibility around the campus.

“Improved accessibility was a significant driver in many of the beautification projects,” said Dr. Carlos Campo, President of Ashland University. “From replacing the problematic brick sidewalks with flatter and wider concrete walks to ensuring that all new walkways met accessibility guidelines for slope and length, many of the improvements were subtle, but intentional.”

Other improvements around campus that have been made for the purpose of accessibility are the adding of ramps to the Avenue of Eagles, pulling the sidewalks away from Claremont Avenue, and also adding lots of new lighting through the campus.

Some other improvements made around the campus for accessibility purposes also include the new dorms in Clayton.

“In the dorms, all of the Clayton bathrooms were designed to meet accessibility requirements and even the modernization of the Clark elevator included floor buttons at accessible heights and braille indicators,” said Dr. Campo.

Even though all these improvements have been made for accessibility purposes, one of the areas that has not been updated is the Student Accessibility Center (SAC), which is currently located near Burger King.

Silvia Henriss, director of SAC, hopes that the center will eventually have some improvements.

“I certainly hope that they do, and they probably will once they’ve [finished],” said Henriss.

The biggest issue for improvement of the center, as Henriss mentioned, is funding since AU is a small, private university.

Henriss also mentioned that AU still has many areas for accessibility improvement like the freight elevator in the Center for the Arts, and an automatic door opening button on the inside of the library.

The campus beautification project is just hopefully one step closer to making AU more accessible for all students.