The alternative

After the incident in 2019, the university offered a number of solutions to the problem. An example of such a solution is placing a sticker on the office door of a hard of hearing or deaf member of staff. The problem with this is that not everybody is always in their office. How is someone who cannot hear a fire alarm going to know that there is a fire if they are standing in a hallway; on the toilet; having lunch with a colleague; or are attending a lecture? And how can a sticker solve this problem? Another idea is to have a vibrating pager with you at all times, but in practice, this is often just as inconvenient. Many deaf employees therefore prefer an alarm that has flashing lights.

Schüller also came up with a solution. She believes it would be convenient if all of the screens connected to the university’s network would display a warning. This solution could be a useful addition to the visual alarm. The lecturer I spoke to had a comparable solution that involves receiving a notification on your smartphone if there is an emergency. However, she too emphasizes her deaf colleague’s preference for having an alarm with flashing lights. Therefore, an important first step would be a conversation with those involved. The organization could then come up with a solution together with the deaf staff member.

The price tag is the downside to these accessible solutions. The new buildings are an example of this. A new building should be the chance to start with a clean slate and to create a building that is as accessible as possible. The original plan was for the new buildings to be provided with accessible fire alarms, but this unfortunately turned out to not fit within the budget. It remains to be seen what accessibility for the deaf and hard of hearing will look like in these buildings.