Mission
Facilities' Campus Accessibility helps make purposeful decisions on new construction and recommendations to improve our current surroundings. The office, created in 2023, provides dedicated subject matter expertise to help improve our campus accessibility throughout all Facilities' initiatives, projects and protocols.
Objectives
- Perform a campus-wide assessment on physical accessibility
- Develop University accessibility protocols for new construction and renovations
- Provide in-house consulting to any staff member seeking to improve physical accessibility on campus
- Maintain a campus accessibility map of accessible pathways and building entrances
Building Accessibility
Princeton’s central campus consists of approximately 10 million square feet of space in more than 200 buildings on about 600 acres. The University is working with AccessAble to provide detailed information about spaces on campus that can empower students, faculty, staff and visitors to navigate campus spaces based on their own needs.
Initiatives in Progress
AccessAble staff, as well as trained University staff volunteers, continue to survey interior spaces to increase the information in our digital accessibility building guides. This summer the focus is on surveying individual rooms with a capacity of over 50 people.
To continue to work towards our vision, Everyone Enters Through the Front Door, some of our historical buildings and pathways need renovations to enable a step-free, barrier-free entrance. Princeton has multiple large renovation projects on campus, and a primary objective in many of them is to provide an accessible…
Princeton University recently entered a period of extensive construction to expand and improve our campus. The design of each of our new buildings includes a vision of equitable paths of travel. This means beyond designing buildings where everyone can enter through the front door, the buildings have…
Prospect House, while being one of the Universities most beautiful and visited spaces, has largely been one of the most inaccessible. This project will radically change the accessibility of and access to the building and grounds. Improvements throughout Prospect House will make the building more accessible.
The renovations to Dillon Gym, which will create the new Class of 1986 Fitness and Wellness Center, include improvements to enable accessibility to most of the building. A new elevator will serve all levels on the south side of the building, from the pool up to the main gym. A beautiful brand new …
From October to mid-November, you may notice people in our buildings measuring entryways and ramps and taking photos. These surveyors are from AccessAble -- a leading provider of disabled access information – and are partnering with Princeton to produce detailed access guides of the buildings, parking facilities and sports venues on campus.
Round doorknobs require users to grab and twist, which can be difficult for people with limited dexterity, arms full of stuff, and in many other situations. Another example of universal design, replacing round doorknobs with lever handles helps everyone in our community. Lever doorknobs allow one-handed, one-elbow, no-grip access.
Improvements Completed
The new EV buses accommodate wheelchair passengers with best-in-class onboard technology, Tennyson said, including automated wheelchair positioning.
A new ramp will replace the steps outside the north west corner of the Guyot building. The new ramp provides a mild slope to travel north from Goheen Walk to Frist Lane.
A new accessible path along the east side of Elm Drive, with a beautiful stone retaining wall, fixed two problems.
The elevator, which will be located on the west side of Nassau Hall, will enable accessible routes to almost every part of the building, including the existing accessible restroom on the lower level.
Meet our new Interactive Princeton Campus Map App! The Princeton Campus Map app offers live, turn-by-turn directions to points on campus using the new wayfinding system first introduced in 2022. Users can select…