Step Up To Knowledge: The Escalator Initiative

by Scholars United

Abstract

The escalators in the NAC building need to be seriously fixed the out of service escalators can stop being the norm at CCNY. Immobile escalators make it difficult for students and faculty to get to class on time. Occasionally, out-of-service escalators are paired with out-of-service elevators, which actually makes it impossible for some to get to class. Nobody should have to walk up six flights of stairs to get to class! So what’s been done about it? Not much, as there are CCNY student blogs that date back to 2012 complaining about the escalators. We are the students of CCNY and we are the ones who suffer and will benefit from the solution: by addressing the head of the facilities department (CUNY) with testimonials and a petition by students, we hope to raise funds in order to solve the issue of immobile escalators. We are confident we can solve the issue of immobile escalators in the NAC by September 8th, 2019.

Project Narrative

By permanently fixing the escalators in the NAC building at CCNY, and hopefully escalators in the entire CUNY system, we hope to solve the issue of students and faculty struggling and being unable to get to class. We intend on meeting with the CUNY head of facilities department in order to express our needs: facilities all over CUNY, but especially in CCNY, are suffering from lack of attention. Escalator deliver students and faculty to  their classes and need to be working at all times. From our meeting with the CUNY head of facilities, we hope to propose a budget of $550,000 in order to 24 sets of escalators in the NAC building replaced.

Out of service escalators have been a problem in the NAC building for years now. While doing our research we found facebook pages and posts complaining about the escalators that date back to 2012. None of us have been attending CCNY that long and it remains a problem today.

The student body and faculty ranges in age and ability, and depending on that age and ability, you might not be able to walk up six flights of non-working escalators to get to class. It may become completely impossible for you if the elevators are also out of service. For others, it’s just a big inconvenience, as you’ve been slowed down and enter class both late and out of breath. We aim to leave this lingering issue in the past, once and for all. With the escalators being permanently fixed, students and faculty will have one more reason to get to class on time.

The escalators have been a concern for a couple of years now. So our team has made sure that we have accurately plan how we are going to fix the escalator problem within CCNY. In order to make sure the job is done, Scholars United will be the ones supervising the project. Scholars United should be the ones to carry out the project because there might be flaws in the work if another institution carries it out.

To properly complete this project, our team has outlined a time frame in which the project will be completed. We aim to make this a 4-month project with four important milestones that would need to hit. The four events are sending the request, receiving the request, gain the materials and then start the project. Two options of where our team can send our budget request are CCNY or either CUNY. Our team decided that we would send the project goal to CUNY due to many reasons. One being that CUNY would be able to fund our project since they have a much higher budget than CCNY.

Based on the CUNY Fiscal Year 2018 State Adopted/Executive Budget Preliminary it has been stated: “The senior colleges total $2.43 billion”. Based on the CUNY budget they have a better chance of funding our project. We plan to send the request towards the beginning of May. After we send the request we will wait for approximately 1 month for a reply from CUNY.

If everything goes to plan we might receive a request towards the beginning of June. Once we get the request from CUNY and the funding of $315,000, then we can start ordering escalator sets towards the middle of June. We would finally begin the installation of the escalators during the months of July and August. The reason being that it would be during the summer semester. The summer semester tends to have fewer students within the building, which would make it a perfect time to install the escalator. The project would finally be finished before the 2019 fall semester, which would begin on August 27.

Our primary shift in focus when it comes to raising awareness in this ongoing problem is with students and faculty themselves. As previously mentioned, it is essential for safe transportation, conventional time managing, and effective access to all the floors to be provided in a college environment. The ones in greater effect are those who attend this school either to learn or to work.

As a team, we plan to create a survey for both students and faculty proposing questions in regards to their time here at City College with the escalators not functioning and how can that affect their time flow between classes, appointments, lectures, etc. A traditional Google survey can provide us with several statistics from participants that can give a more solid reasoning as to why funding for better services in regards to the escalators is important. Additionally, it creates a platform in which we can ultimately measure the outcomes. When surveying participants, some questions we’ve consider asking them  are:

1. Do you feel safe in your commute to class when using the escalators in the NAC?
2. How often do you use the escalators in the NAC building?

And select participant questions can be asked to those with physical disabilities:

1. Do you feel acknowledged by the school’s facility when the escalators are out of service?
2. Are you provided with other options to get to class or other destinations in the school even when the elevators or the escalators don’t work?
3. If so, do you find it fair an option?

Before we are able to go into the numbers, our team has made a unanimous decision in how we will measure our criteria for the project’s success. We came up with a simple process that is done using a website called Change.org. This website collects data from participants who share a URL link to sign petitions. Using this, we can figure out how to raise awareness by letting the engine run itself after sharing a petition link to get the escalators to work.

We are privileged enough to have the President of CCNY Dr. Vincent Boudreau be responsive to the community at CCNY. This even allows for executive positions in other CUNY schools to get in touch with our school for possible fundraising opportunities. The overall goal with the numbers is to get a dominant percentage of people who can vouch for the need of functioning escalators in CCNY. A range between 75%-99% can provide an overall convincing argument statistically speaking.

All in all, our team desires to find the best way for this issue to be solved in a effective and efficient manner prior to the next fall semester. We’ve come to a conclusion that the only way for this to fully work is if students and faculty are willing to participate in speaking out on this issue alongside the grant proposal. Thankfully, the CCNY community allows for such events to happen which will overall increase our chances to get better services.

LINK TO PRESENTATION: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/134O9pVPdN3eSgARUqSm5-hF8cYn97H84nsu4B1wiLxQ/edit#slide=id.g35694cd56_064