ADA Compliance

[PurpleDU]

At Northwestern University (Evanston, IL), all houses are receiving a mandate from the administration to bring their buildings up to Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) Compliance. We have been given deadlines to retrofit our 100 year old buildings with items like elevators, ramps, bathrooms, fully excessabile common areas, and also install fire sprinklers. We have a group called Quadrangles, concerned alumni from all greek houses, who are staying on top of the situation and attempting to negotiate the terms with the university.

For our house, we decided we will take on a capitol improvement campaign in the next year in order to meet the deadlines. Some greek houses have elected to sell their building back to the university to make the improvements and then lease it for fraternity use, but this course offers its own set of problems and a loss of autonomy.

Are any other universities undergoing a similar transition with their houses? Do you have any best practices you recommend?

Thanks,
Eric

[Tom Earp]

This is going to be a big expense for each chapter as is with the fire sprinkler system.

How much more can we afford?

While I know both are worth while, how soon will chapters either close down or go to just dorm type housing?

Thank goodness, when we just built a new house, there were ADA items in place.

No, we did not put in an elevator to the basement or second floor.