Data about accessibility barriers and progress at the University of Vermont.
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The Office of Accessibility Services maintains UVM's Report an Accessibility Barrier form. This form lets campus users report physical accessibility issues on campus. The Office of Accessibility Services is then able to act to repair the situation.
To be transparent about what kind of accessibility issues are popping up on campus, here is a list of the issues the UVM community has reported through the form.
Last updated on 4/2/2026.
Reported Accessibility Barriers
We have received 33 reports of accessibility barriers so far via this form. 31 reports were about UVM facilities, two were about digital accessibility, and one was about UVM program content. All items are generally resolved within 48-72 hours.
| Date | Building | Location | Barrier Type | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1/13/2025 | Waterman | Student Financial Services | Facilities / Equipment | Wheelchair lift outside Student Financial Services does not accommodate all wheelchair sizes.
|
| 1/30/2025 | Central Campus Dining | Main entrance door buttons | Facilities / Equipment | The door button for leaving the dining hall is not working. |
| 2/1/2025 | Dana Medical Library | Main entrance ramp | Facilities / Equipment | Library ramp not shoveled. |
| 3/7/2025 | Dana Medical Library | Main entrance door | Facilities / Equipment | No door button and uneven sidewalks. |
| 4/14/2025 | University Heights | UHS Tower 1 elevator | Facilities / Equipment | Broken elevator in UHS Tower 1. |
| 6/4/2025 | Howe Library | CCRH/Library Skybridge | Facilities / Equipment | At the end of the skybridge, the elevator was not operational. |
| 6/6/2025 | Howe Library | West entrance elevators to CCRH | Facilities / Equipment | The first mentor to the library is stuck open on floor one of the CCRH west entrance and the CatCard scanner would not scan. |
| 6/25/2025 | Davis Center | Davis Center Tunnel Kiosk | Facilities / Equipment | The automated door opening button for the doors on the north side of the Davis tunnel entrance was not working. |
| 8/27/2025 | Patrick Leahy Building | Elevator | Facilities / Equipment | Elevator was not working. |
| 9/8/2025 | Davis Center | Pavement between Davis Center and Howe Library | Facilities / Equipment | This morning, UVM Event Services parked a dually truck on the pavement outside the northwest wing of the Davis Center, blocking the path for pedestrians. I could not get by with my mobility aid. |
| 9/9/2025 | McAuley | Elevator | Facilities / Equipment | McAuley elevator is not working, and has not been working since yesterday night. |
| 9/9/2025 | Alumni House Paviliion | Ramp to pavilion | Facilities / Equipment | There is a construction vehicle/lift parked in front of the entrance to the ramp for the silver maple pavilion. A wheelchair user was unable to enter the building for a meeting this afternoon. The lift was not in use at the time and the operator was not present. There were no signs directing folks to the other accessible entrance. Further, the alumni house is kept locked so to use the other entrance requires assistance. |
| 9/14/2025 | Mercy Hall | Elevator | Facilities / Equipment | The elevator in Mercy Hall has been turned off. I am not personally impacted by this issue but it has been turned off for over a week, and I know people who want to have guests with disabilities over and cannot due to this facilities issue. Furthermore, the sign on the elevator door simply reads, "The elevator has been turned off". This implies that there is no issue with the elevator, but turned off for the sake of being turned off. I would like to see this facilities issue fixed (or at least addressed!!!!!!!) as soon as possible. |
| 9/17/2025 | Howe Library | Elevator | Facilities / Equipment | The elevator north of the UDTL is broken. The door opens and closes, but the buttons inside fail to remain lit, and the elevator goes nowhere. |
| 9/23/2025 | Ira Allen Chapel | Stairway | Facilities / Equipment | The railing on the stairs up to and down from the stage are a little loose and unsteady. For those relying on handrails to increase their mobility this could be a barrier. It is slightly scary seeing such a flimsy railing when you need one to support you. |
| 9/24/2025 | Howe Library | Elevator | Facilities / Equipment | Elevator closest to the library was broken. Called SOS |
| 10/20/2025 | Skinny Pancake (Living / Learning) | Door | Facilities / Equipment | The accessible, non-stair entrance to the Skinny Pancake was locked, preventing my entry, but the inaccessible entrance was open. This occurred a few minutes after 9pm, I'm assuming the building must lock at that time as it wasn't locked before then. However, the stair entrance to Skinny Pancake allows entrance until the place closes at 10pm. This means from 9-10pm, I can't access this campus food option, but other students can. |
| 10/30/2025 | Marsh Life Sciences / Benedict Auditorium | Door | Facilities / Equipment | Both the inside and outside buttons for the door do not work, for multiple weeks. The doors are heavy and do not catch and open automatically when pulled either. |
| 11/2/2025 | Parking Lot, Living/Learning | Parking Lot | Facilities / Equipment | Someone is illegally parked in the access aisle. because of this I couldn't get my wheelchair into my car. |
| 11/4/2025 | Patrick Gym | Door | Facilities / Equipment | The automatic door button of the exterior door going inwards is broken. This is the west-facing entrance to the gym, by the bus stop. |
| 11/10/2025 | Living/Learning A Building | Elevator | Facilities / Equipment | The elevator won't open. |
| 11/13/2025 | Larner | Digital Access | Instructors mandated that a certain form can only be filled out with typed information and not handwritten by email. creates barrier for disabilities such as dyslexia, etc. | |
| 12/10/2025 | Living/Learning A Building | Elevator | Facilities / Equipment | The elevator works for going down but the button on the first floor is still unusable |
| 1/7/2026 | Howe Library | Elevator | Facilities / Equipment | 2nd floor Howe Library elevator not working. When you push either the up or down button to call the elevator, the buttons light up briefly, then the light goes out. The elevator displays no movement, and the door doesn't open. |
| 1/14/2026 | Fleming Museum | Fleming Museum lift | Facilities / Equipment | I access the side entrance of the Fleming Museum (walking from votey hall). There is a tiny lift that is required to get to my class in room 101. The elevator was finicky and I had trouble using it. I left called the Fletcher front desk, which went to voicemail. I then called facilities as the paper on the elevator stated. I was told someone would come out, but no timeline. I was stressed because I had a class to make at 2:50, and as it was the first class of the semester I wanted to be on time. I expected the infrastructure at such an expensive and prestigious university (an r1 school) to have functional technology and facilities. I was able to open the lift and get inside. When holding the button, I only went down an inch. A paper inside the elevator said to wiggle the door to get it to work. The license on the elevator was also expired, the second one I encountered in the same day. I am handicapped and cannot get to class without functional elevators and lifts. After jiggling the door I was able to get down to the first floor and get out of the lift. The paper (both inside and outside the lift) telling me to call facilities and the Fletcher front desk made me worried that I would be stuck in the lift. I did not know anyone in the class I could contact, as I had not met the professor or any other students. |
| 1/26/2026 | Harris / Mills Dining | Elevator | Facilities / Equipment | The elevator wouldn't open, someone told me it wouldn't move this morning |
| 1/29/2026 | Gutterson Field House | Gutterson Pep Band Platform | Facilities / Equipment | To get to the pep band area in Gutterson you have to go down a set of 5 stairs, and get past a narrow walkway. With my wheelchair I cannot do either of those things independently. I have to sit and scoot down the steps while one of my friends carries my wheelchair down. If I don't have a friend with me, I cannot access it at all. Once down the steps there is a short hallway that I am able to navigate independently in my chair but only until we reach the narrowing. I then have to get out of my chair again, and slide past the narrowing and wait til one of my friends gets my chair through. |
| 2/2/2026 | Williams | Elevator | Facilities / Equipment | Williams elevator is down, no notification was sent out about it to my knowledge, and only one service provider is working, meaning I cannot get where I need to go and neither can anybody else who relies on the elevator for 2 hours at the very least |
| 2/7/2026 | Dana Medical Library | Snow Removal, Entrance | Facilities / Equipment | There is unplowed snow to the entrance of Dana med library and near the accessible entrance. Also despite me and my peers being in CNHS, we cannot access the accessible entrance with the door opener button, only the inaccessible entrance with two doors. |
| 2/28/2026 | North Prospect Street and Colchester Ave | Sidewalk | Facilities / Equipment | I was walking down the street when a guy came up to me and asked me if I went to UVM: I said sure, what's up? He said maybe you can help me, I work in UVM dining and always take this route but there's one issue I've noticed. He said that the sidewalk section of crosswalk that I'd mentioned above was unsafe for blind folk. I can't remember the exact accommodations he recommended, but it has to do with the number of bumps on the ramp, distinguishing it from a normal sidewalk. He told me he's legally blind, wears glasses, and every time he walks by there he notices it. Trying to get more information off the internet, I believe he may have been referring to truncated domes. |
| 3/19/2026 | Jacob's house | Parking | Facilities / Equipment | Trash cans blocking hatched line portion of accessible parking space |
| 3/22/2026 | Jacob's house | Facilities / Equipment | I had an in-person meeting for a CAPS appointment. When [redacted] came downstairs and saw my crutch, she asked if I wanted to meet at one of the open offices downstairs. I am not going to quote the whole conversation (I had to ask 4 times by the way to get her to give me an answer) and will instead share what I learned. I learned that the downstairs (i.e accessible) offices were open because the people that usually work there are out (one person was on vacation, another may have been on maternity leave or something like that), and these openings were only temporary. I learned that on any given day, every single office may be full, and somebody that has an appointment with an individual upstairs, will be required to take the stairs or leave and do the appointment over the phone. I hope I don't need to stress the problems with this. | |
| 3/27/2026 | UVM website | Contact Form | Digital Access | This part of digital website accessibility of service assets has broken links and there's no confirmation that the online forms of this website has completed I use this and it says it's still processing my request forms and has not yet gave a confirmation of when UVM Received online request forms may have broken links or website accessibility parts |
| 4/1/2026 | Aiken | Restrooms | Facilities / Equipment | All restrooms in building closed due to sewer leak. |
| 4/1/2026 | Davis Center | Tunnel | Facilities / Equipment | Tunnel closed due to plumbing leak. |