What is Mapping Access @ ASU

Mapping Access began in August 2020 at Arizona State University's Humanities Lab. The Humanities Lab is a unique experience It seeks to address social problems present within society and ASU – for Disrupting Dis/Ability, the problem was accessibility and inclusion.

After reading and discussing text from disability scholars, such as Aimi Hamraie, students in the Humanities Labs were split into groups to plan their first “Disruptions,” or to plan how they were going to challenge the norms and status quos around campus.

RaNiyah was in a group with two other classmates with the disruption to bring awareness to the general lack of access on the Tempe campus. To reach the largest audience, the group created a Facebook page to get the point across. In a short period, the page, called “Disrupting Dis/Ability on ASU Campuses” received 164 likes and 167 follows. As popularity toward the social media campaign grew, so did the group’s desire to do more.

After hours of brainstorming and reading testimonies from students, staff, faculty, and affiliates, the next target to disrupt was evident – the ASU interactive map.

Typically overlooked, maps serve a huge purpose to everyone stepping onto campus. A map will tell a first-year student how to get to their lecture hall, it will tell a mom of young children how to get to the campus gym for a volleyball tournament, and it will tell a new professor how to get to the nearest library to conduct research. Maps increase your connectivity to your school. The problem with ASU’s interactive maps was that they lacked an accessible layer for those with a physical disability. Students with a physical disability could not see the closest accessible entrance or find a gender-neutral bathroom that would fit a standard-sized wheelchair.

Once the group examined this barrier, they researched other schools and their approaches to be more inclusive. From that point on, Mapping Access was born.

Over the course of nine months, students at Arizona State University collected data on all four Arizona-based campuses (Tempe, Downtown, Polytechnic, and West). In total, data was collected on over 150 buildings and if you access the ASU Interactive Map, you will see a sea of blue light up.