On April 3rd, President Kent Devereaux sent out an email announcing updates to the Campus Master Plan (CMP) website including “a PDF version of the complete 158-page plan for everyone’s review… supplemented with over 500 pages of appendices.”
This update comes after some students criticized the CMP for not providing enough information on certain areas of the plan. Particularly disabled students and members of Equal Access, a student disability advocacy group, have said that the plan makes little mention of improving accessibility around campus.
President Devereaux’s email emphasizes accessibility as one of the “central themes of the plan”, and highlights that the complete Master Plan PDF includes “many more details” about accessibility in the plan. However, many improvements to accessibility described in the document won’t take place until phases 2 and 3 of the Master Plan, spanning 2028-2033 and 2033-2038 respectively.¹
The Master Plan PDF makes many mentions of accessibility in the abstract including “holistic accessibility planning and upgrades” and “supporting the development of accessibility design standards”.²
Additionally, some buildings slated for renovation in the plan include mentions of non-specific accessibility improvements. For example, the document mentions “projects to improve
accessibility, address maintenance and renovation concerns in existing residential buildings” ³ and addressing “deferred maintenance, sustainability, and accessibility issues” in the renovation of Hoffberger.⁴ The Hoffberger renovation is a part of phase 2 of the CMP, and improvements to residential buildings take place in phase 3.¹
Other discussion of accessibility includes the academic quad, which the plan says will be “reimagined as a universally accessible quad traversed by multiple pathways”,⁴ as well as “a vision for a fully accessible Winslow Great Lawn” that will have “accessible paths” that lead to seating spaces.⁵ Improvements to the Great Lawn are slated to occur in phase 3 of the Master Plan,¹ and there is no clear timeframe given for the updates to the academic quad.
The most specific accessibility improvement in the PDF is regrading the slope from Van Meter Highway up to the residential quad and creating “an accessible ramp from the lower grade of Van Meter Highway up to the grade of the existing residential quads.”⁶ This change stands to streamline students’ paths around campus, helping students in wheelchairs or with other mobility issues to avoid time-consuming detours. This is set to be completed in phase 2 of the plan.¹
The 158-page PDF can be found in a link at the bottom of the CMP website (campusmasterplan.goucher.edu). The PDF additionally includes a table of contents for the appendix and says that it has been “prepared as a separate document”,⁷ but I was unable to find the document containing the appendices.
Which page to find this information in the CMP PDF:
¹ 137
² 76
³ 118
⁴ 98
⁵ 110
⁶ 120
⁷ 156
By Zev Israel ‘26
