Washington University modified its route this past summer to make campus tours completely wheelchair accessible. The Student Life Editorial Board commends this effort, which will help accommodate potential students, family members and tour guides with disabilities.

Unfortunately, this step alone is insufficient, as accessible tours may easily create an unrealistic expectation for potential students that the University will provide all of their needed accommodations. Wash. U. still has plenty of work ahead of it to make its campus accessible. The Student Life Editorial Board urges the University to be more proactive in increasing disability accommodations and information about accessibility.

There are currently 15 buildings on the Danforth campus without any accessible entrances. Four additional can only be accessed through other buildings, and 17 more have only some floors accessible. Many of these buildings have classes taught in them, and spaces such as the Olin Women’s Building also host lectures and events. While the University has previously moved classes to other buildings following student requests, no one should need to check far in advance whether they can physically get to a class or event and ask that it be moved.

The Women’s Building is an important spot on campus, as it houses all of Wash. U.’s sorority suites. With this building lacking an accessible entrance, and all seven of the Upper Row fraternity houses lacking elevators–or any other routes to other floors–physical disability can become a barrier to Greek life involvement.

Literal barriers to entry are especially prevalent on the South 40. Nine dorm buildings lack accessible entrances (nine is also the number of turns on the ramp connecting Shepley Drive to the Bear’s Den). Many more are in need of power-assisted doors. This makes it impossible for some students or parents to visit these dorms. Furthermore, as these nine dorms are all traditional housing–which is less expensive than modern housing–students who are in need of better access are limited to only the more expensive options.

The University is likely waiting to improve accessibility in these buildings until they can be torn down and remodeled completely. When thinking in terms of decades, it makes sense to let the buildings sit for another five to 10 years. However, most students have a timescale of only four years. The potential students currently enjoying wheelchair accessible tours will have graduated before any other building is made available to them. Now that the University has improved their tours, an urgent next step is keeping this accessibility once freshmen arrive.

The Student Life Editorial Board understands that many of these requests are costly. In the meantime, there are also low-cost ways the University should support students and faculty with disabilities.

One step would be to update the campus accessibility maps on the Wash. U. website. While it is unclear when some of the maps were last revised, many of the buildings have not been inspected in a few years, as maps of the East End expansion are completely absent and the information on the Athletic Complex dates to before the building was remodeled in 2014. Adding these maps to the WUSTL app would be immensely helpful, as would placing signs on the buildings themselves about what is accessible/inaccessible within them. Additionally, there is no excuse for 35 campus buildings to lack any braille signage.

The conversation around disability issues has previously been sparked by Ability WashU, a student group dedicated to informing the community and advocating for inclusion. Ability WashU has assessed the Danforth campus using the Community Health Environment Checklist–Mobility (CHEC-M), an objective measure of accessibility developed by Dr. Jessica Dashner of the Washington University School of Medicine. Students should continue to bring gaps in accessibility to the attention of the University, and the University ought to follow the example of its own students and experts and address the many areas of campus that need improved accommodations.

Accessibility concerns on campus need to be given more support than in-the-moment fixes and superficial changes. Entire sections of the University are currently inaccessible to members of the Wash. U. community, a literal barrier to the University’s stated commitments to diversity and inclusion.