Princeton’s AccessAbility Center celebrates 5 years of serving students on campus

 On Wednesday, April 20, University students and staff could be found on the second floor of Frist Campus Center enjoying cupcakes and sushi as the AccessAbility Center celebrated its five-year anniversary of operation. 

Attendees also had the opportunity to make their own buttons and receive t-shirts courtesy of the Center. Following this, both students and staff took the stage to make speeches. They acknowledged the important work the Center has done over the years to create a space where students with disabilities and allies can come together to support one another.

Liz Erickson, the Director for Disability Services, opened the talk by discussing the Center’s purpose and how it has served as an educational space.

“The space was designed for universal access to people with different abilities. You’ll be comfortable in the space, and we wanted to complement that with programming that would educate our community about possibilities,” she said.

Erickson went on to detail unique features of the Center that were intentionally designed with inclusivity and comfortability in mind.

“When we planned the Center, we designed it with universal access. We chose the color blue because it’s a common color for someone who has different psychological disabilities; you’ll see a large piece of artwork in the Center that we had custom made for us,“ she said.

“We’ve created different lighting options in the center. If you have seasonal affective disorder, you can turn that light on and it helps to give you the light that you need. We have a sign language alphabet to represent students who are [hard-of-]hearing or deaf,” she continued.

In addition to Erickson, two fellows for the AccessAbility Center discussed their experiences and memories working with the University organization. Naomi Hess ’22 discussed the appeal of the Center’s presence not only when she was searching for colleges but also throughout her time at Princeton.