SU administration addresses disability accommodations

A sit-down meeting was conducted on Thursday, April 24 to discuss the status on the disability accommodation efforts for the T.T. Allain facility.
Flandus McClinton, vice chancellor for finance and administration, coordinated the meeting between Interim Chancellor Margaret Ambrose and representative from the System Office of Facility Planning.
The purpose of the meeting between McClinton, Ambrose and Facility Planning were to discuss the accomodation upcoming efforts.
Facility Planning has hired the Harmon Engineering Company LLC., to perform an engineering assessment analysis that would identify the specifics of the elevator shaft situation. From that information, the company then can propose a functional solution the situation.
The situation being the elevator shaft installed six years ago was placed with the intentions of complying with government mandates.
Due to rain, water settlements caused the soil to damp in the elevators foundation. This caused the elevator shaft to be “improperly aligned,” thus inoperable.
In an attempt to solve the problem, foam was inserted into the foundation to stabilize the sinking foundation. That attempt was a failure. The university system was back to the drawing board, with ideas to alleviate the problem.
Facility Planning is located at the systems level; all major facility projects are conducted on the systems level-making the process longer due to hierarchy of operations.
Upon the completion of an engineering analysis, the next step, according to the administration, is the bidding process, a 30 day process, then a bidding contractor is chosen to work directly under the guidance of the Systems office of Facilities Planning and the engineering firm.
According to administration, “the funds for the analysis have been identified.”
Southern University has been able to comply with government mandates because the university is able to provide factual evidence that an effort “in good faith” is being made to make facilities readily available to all faculty and staff.
“Short of actually completing or correcting the problem we must be able to provide correct evidence that we are attempting to get the problem solved,” said Ambrose.
According to the Harmon Co., the engineering analysis will be completed prior to May 30.