CHICAGO, IL (December 22, 2005) – A group of students at North Park Theological Seminary have experienced first-hand some of the challenges faced by many handicapped individuals. The students decided to attend classes while confined to wheelchairs to help them better understand and appreciate the world of those coping with physical limitations.
“It was quite an awakening,” says Christina Tinglof. “Quite humbling. Quite humiliating.”
Tinglof and other members of the “Spiritual Formation: From Hostility to Hospitality” class, working in groups, were assigned to research how the church can be more welcoming to people who feel excluded. Tinglof had observed that there is no direct wheelchair access to other areas of the seminary building from the first floor – the older building does not have an elevator.
Tinglof and other members of the “Spiritual Formation: From Hostility to Hospitality” class, working in groups, were assigned to research how the church can be more welcoming to people who feel excluded. Tinglof had observed that there is no direct wheelchair access to other areas of the seminary building from the first floor – the older building does not have an elevator.
However, a transport system is in place as part of the stairwell system that allows handicapped students and faculty to transfer from a wheelchair to a special chair affixed to a motorized track that transports them up and down the different stairways. One challenge is that some wheelchair-bound individuals are unable to lift themselves from their chair to the rail system and back into the wheelchair without assistance.
“You still have to have someone put you in the wheelchair, “says Tinglof. “Someone had to carry my book bag. Someone had to carry my chair.” She says she found the process to be time-consuming and observed that while people were assisting her, at times they were hindering access by other individuals to the stairs and landings.
The same assisting actions had to be carried out each time she traveled from one floor to the next, she noted. A trip up inevitably meant a trip back down. “It gave me a sense of hopelessness, of having no control,” Tinglof says.
Tinglof says her day was made even more difficult when she discovered that the second-floor bathroom was not wheelchair accessible, and the drinking fountains could not be used by someone who is wheelchair-bound.
The seminary building is an older structure. Installation of an elevator has been considered, but retrofitting an elevator as part of an existing older structure also represents a very large expense – more than $1 million by some estimates. In response to the inherent limitations of the building, the seminary seeks to accommodate handicapped students by arranging for their classes to be conducted on the first floor.
Tinglof says she hopes the experience will encourage future discussion on what accommodations can be made. “This was very new for me,” says Tinglof. “I’ve never worked with handicapped before. It was very eye-opening.” Other students who participated in the project were Deborah Penny, Adam Phillips, and Aaron Olson.
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