For 33 years, Richard Harris has greeted disabled students with warmth, encouragement and an accessible Ball State University.
Harris, the outgoing director of the Disabled Student Development office, ends his 35-year-career with Ball State today.
"Hopefully, if somebody says, 'what did that guy do at Ball State?' [The answer] would be 'created an accessible environment for students with disabilities,'" Harris said.
Harris laid the groundwork for the university's disabled student program in the 1970s, and he has since helped it become a national model for other schools across the country.
"He has a real interest in people and enjoys people," Larry Markle, assistant director of Disabled Student Development and Harris' replacement, said. "He's not out there to sell Ball State; he's out there to let the student know what is best for him or her."
THE ROAD
Harris originally came to Ball State for just one year, in 1969, to earn a master's degree in student personnel administration.
Following his graduation in 1970, he became the first staff member of Student Voluntary Services. Harris continued in that role for three years, when he was asked to take on two roles: director of Freshman Orientation and coordinator of Handicap Services, which was what the department was called at the time.
Harris was supposed to devote 90 percent of his time to orientation with the rest going to Handicap Services.
"I don't think it was ever just 10 percent, because it's a very time-intensive kind of work," he said.
For 10 years, he directed orientation, and he followed that with 10 years of overseeing fraternities. Throughout those years, he continued leading the university's disabled student program, eventually establishing the Disabled Student Development office.
While Harris said he enjoyed his time overseeing orientation and fraternities, his greatest joy came from his role with Disabled Student Development.
"I've had the great joy of keeping up with a lot of our grads," he said. "I'm not implying that without Ball State's access program they wouldn't have become a success in life -- maybe it made it easier, maybe it made it better."
HIS PHILOSOPHY
Throughout his time at Ball State, Harris followed a single philosophy, which was not to rescue disabled students, but just to provide them with access.
He said he doesn't want to hear a graduate say, "I could not have done it without you;" he wants to hear, "I did this."
"We don't mother, father, hover, smother, lecture, preach, bitch, badger, cajole or hector," Harris said.
In light of the philosophy, Harris said he hasn't always been the nice guy when it comes to helping students. He said that he would often have to say "no" to students who wanted certain accommodations that went too far.
"In this line of work, we have to be careful not to cross a line," Markle said. "The program that's set up here has been a model nationally because so many folks want to rescue the person with a disability, and his idea is: Let's enable that person with a disability.
"All we do at Disabled Student Services is provide accommodation to level the playing field. And the student is the one who gets the grade in the class."
DEVELOPING A NATIONAL MODEL
In the 1970s, the concept of disability was new, but that didn't stop Harris from getting together with facilities managers and determining how every building would be made accessible.
Many of the buildings on campus were built in the 1920s, and at the time, there wasn't any consideration for accessibility, Markle said.
Harris was able to make Ball State accessible with ramps and elevators during the first part of his career, and that put the university ahead of many other schools.
"For many years, if someone had a severe disability and was going to go to school in Indiana, Ball State was where they were going to go," Markle said.
Harris worked to make campus accessible before legislation was passed by Congress requiring certain accessibility standards, and today, he pushes for Ball State's campus to go above and beyond the required standards, Markle said.
"He has really pushed that all new buildings not just meet the minimum standards of accessibility, but have access that goes above and beyond the minimum standards," he said.
Markle said that Harris has not only provided access to buildings, but he has also created access in many other dimensions -- such as offering technological options that give disabled students access to computers.
"The guy barely knows how to turn his computer on," Markle said. "Yet, he was making sure those things were accessible for people with disabilities."
Harris and the office of Disabled Student Development help students obtain classroom accommodations that give them the same opportunities other students have. The people whose lives he's touched are not always obvious, either, because 68 percent of the students served by the office have non-apparent disabilities.
Harris isn't quick to say that Ball State has been a national model for disabled services for students, but his coworkers are.
"He'll modestly talk about other people who have been the movers and shakers in terms of Ball State having a representation and successful campus," Markle said, "but he's been the main person in terms of making Ball State accessible."
Randy Hyman, interim vice president of student affairs and enrollment management, said Harris has been among the national leaders in higher education for his commitment to accessibility.
"His commitment has been played out in exemplary fashion," Hyman said. "Through his outstanding work, he has helped make Ball State a national model in this field."
Markle said that the foresight Harris had 35 years ago is what has made other schools across the country look to Ball State as a model.
Kay Bales, associate vice president for student life, said most other institutions in the country weren't even thinking about assessability when Harris was.
"He certainly has been a pioneer in the field," Bales said.
SUCCESS STORIES
Gregory Fehribach is one of those graduates who met Harris during a campus visit in 1975. Fehribach said he wasn't sure where he would be going to college at the time, but he said Harris was very influential in his eventual choice to come to Ball State.
"I thought he was a very warm fellow and very easy to talk to and very encouraging about college and higher education," Fehribach said.
Fehribach graduated in 1981 and is now an Indianapolis attorney, an expert on the Americans with Disability Act and a member of the Ball State Board of Trustees.
Fehribach said Harris could be equated to a Martin Luther King Jr. or Susan B. Anthony.
"While he was never out in the street leading protests, he quietly assisted in civil rights access in higher education for people with disabilities," he said.
As a trustee, Fehribach was one of the members who voted to give Harris emeritus status.
"He is a person that respects individuality. He encourages people to have fun after a hard day's work, and he encourages people to develop or test different opportunities," Fehribach said.
Carlos Taylor, adaptive computer technology specialist at Ball State, has known Harris in two capacities.
Taylor, who is blind, came to the university in the fall of 1996 for his campus visit, and that's when he met Harris. Taylor remembers how, at the time, he was scared and nervous about attending college. He ended up coming to Ball State knowing that Harris and the department wouldn't do everything for him, but they would provide him with everything he needed.
As adaptive computer technology specialist, Taylor has worked with Harris as a colleague helping to give computer accommodations to disabled students.
"I'll really miss him," Taylor said. "I'm grateful for what he's done for Ball State and the community.
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