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Saturday, November 7, 2020

Suggestion: Don't just rail against the name; put in a rail

Something has always been missing from the steps

While we are thinking of a redo of the name of the Janss Steps - see above and below - how about a simple modification of the steps themselves? 

What has always been lacking is a handrail. 

The campus has produced a path down (or up) the hill on which the steps are located for wheelchairs, basically a series of ramps. But for those who can walk down the steps but are a bit unsteady, a handrail is needed. It could go down the middle. There could be a single rail down one of the sides. Or there could be two handrails, one on each side. Shouldn't a campus with concerns about people with handicaps and access, install this simple modification to the steps?

From the Bruin: Student leaders have revised their plan to rename the Janss Steps and will instead propose a more inclusive name. Undergraduate Students Association Council leaders and students from the American Indian Student Association now plan to make a proposal to rename Janss Steps to “Kuruvungna Steps,” after previously having passed a resolution calling on UCLA to rename Janss Steps to “Tongva Steps.” Both the Kuruvungna name and the Tongva name were meant to honor Indigenous people who originally inhabited Los Angeles and the UCLA land, said AISA Vice Chair Desirae Barragan. However, even though Tongva is commonly known in academia, the name does not accurately represent the entire Gabrieleño Tribe, she added. Kuruvungna is a word taken from the original Gabrieleño language and is also the name of the Gabrieleño village that inhabited the land that UCLA and Westwood are built on, Barragan said...

Full story at https://dailybruin.com/2020/11/05/student-leaders-revise-janss-steps-rename-plans-now-advocate-for-kuruvungna-steps

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