For students with disabilities, UC Santa Cruz campus can prove punishing to navigate

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For many students, UC Santa Cruz’s picturesque campus plays a major part in their decision to attend the university.

The campus is built in the foothills of the Santa Cruz Mountains, meaning it sits on an upward slope, gaining around 512 feet in elevation. Students entering campus often must trudge through dirt paths shaded by giant redwood trees and climb up steep hills or stairs to get to the next destination.

But for students such as Annie Kepler, a cancer survivor who uses a wheelchair, navigating the sprawling campus is a much more arduous experience — so much so that it’s left the fourth-year microbiology major feeling “defeated.” 

“UCSC loves to boast about diversity, but they never include disability in that,” Kepler said. 

UCSC’s Disability Resource Center reported serving more than 3,800 students in the 2021-2022 academic year, ranging from physical to neurological disabilities. 

From academic accommodations to physical support, spaces on campus work to provide aid for students with disabilities, university officials said. Scott Hernandez-Jason, the assistant vice chancellor for communications and marketing at UCSC, said the university has made efforts to create an inclusive environment.

“While many students successfully access services, accessibility remains an ongoing process rather than a static goal,” Hernandez-Jason said in an email. “We are dedicated to making sure student voices are heard as we work toward greater inclusion and equitable access.” 

“UC Santa Cruz opened in 1965 and was constructed under the building standards of the time,” Hernandez-Jason added.

As the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was enacted in 1990, he said, institutions “expanded efforts to make their facilities accessible to people with disabilities.” This included making “improving campus accessibility a goal within all of our major construction and renovation projects.”

But longstanding accessibility challenges have given Kepler and other students with disabilities the impression that the university does not recognize disability and mobility as a priority. 

“There is this fundamental issue that the physical space that we’re in is not accessible,” she said. “This campus was not designed with accessibility in mind, and there isn’t much you can do to change that infrastructure.”

Getting around UC Santa Cruz

In her first year, Kepler was assigned to a triple dorm room in College 9, a residential college located in the upper portion of the campus. Her room was under 200 square feet. She struggled to find a space where she could store her wheelchair and found it difficult to visit her friends on the second or third floors without subjecting herself to physical pain. 

“I learned pretty quickly that I just shouldn’t bother using my wheelchair here,” Kepler said. 

The ADA-required push plates in her building would not work at times, she said, and she felt embarrassed when others watched her struggle to open the door. 

Ruby Mihalko, a community studies major and theater arts minor at UCSC, also found it hard to get around campus on crutches after injuring her ankle.

Mihalko lived in a third-floor dorm, which did not have an elevator. It took around 10 days to gain access to a first-floor dorm; she relied on friends to help her use the stairs when coming or going.

Kepler was able to bring her car onto campus in her first year for more mobility. UCSC students with a valid Department of Motor Vehicles placard are allowed to park in specified parking spots for free. 

Mihalko, who does not own a vehicle, utilized the campus’ disability van service (DVS) to get around. While the service was helpful, she felt that the shuttles were understaffed. As well, the service could often get her near her destination, but she still had to find her way into the building. 

“Walking with my crutches felt very scary, going to places that [I was unfamiliar with]. I just didn’t do that because I was too scared of falling considering that every single piece of pavement on this campus is extremely different and very uneven,” Mihalko said. “It definitely created a lot of fear.” 

She said that one of her friends would sometimes even pick her up and carry her to class. 

UCSC provides housing to more than 9,300 students, less than half of the student population, meaning that many students must live off campus. Affordable housing is scarce in one of the most expensive housing markets in the country, where the average price of a rental being over $2,700 a month for a two-bedroom apartment.

According to Kepler, finding a place to live is much harder when searching for specific accommodations, such as buildings with elevators or apartments with enough space for wheelchair mobility.

“It’s difficult because not everything can work for everyone,” she said. “That’s just a fact of the world, and we are the minority. We really are.” 

Apart from mobility limitations, Kepler and Mihalko also addressed the social stigma of having a disability. Both spoke about common outdoor activities in Santa Cruz, like biking, jogging, skateboarding, swimming and especially surfing.

“Part of [having a] disability is accepting the fact that there are just things you can’t do in life,” Kepler said. “Everyone makes their own individual peace with that, but it is disappointing that the campus doesn’t put more of an effort to create more accessible activities, or invite disabled students to explore those activities.” She also wished UCSC had better advertised accessible hikes, and which beaches had ramps with rental beach wheelchairs. 

‘I think there is a way to make it work’ 

Beyond the DRC and van service, the university provides Disability Management Services and staffs an ADA Compliance Office. But having faced the challenges of being a student with a disability at UCSC, Kepler took initiative to create a space, called the Zebra Club, where students can talk about their experiences and even make change for others throughout campus.

The Zebra Club meets with the DRC regularly to talk about accessibility, in hopes of making change around the campus. She said that, after meeting with university administrators, through meetings with administration, Zebra Club students felt they are trying their best to improve accessibility, but lack resources to do so. 

“I often wonder if I would have come to UCSC if I knew about how inaccessible it is,” Kepler said. “Socially, emotionally, physically — there are barriers in every single place.”

She said future students with disabilities at UC Santa Cruz should not hesitate to advocate for more accessibility changes.

“Your story is important, and you are a valuable member of the community. You’re not a burden to be accommodated.”

Bryce Chen is a fourth-year legal studies and literature student at UC Santa Cruz and a member of the EdSource California Student Journalism Corps.

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