BY CHRISTINE MCKNIGHT 
heri Denkensohn, B.S.’89, has a special fondness for the network of service tunnels which link the academic podium on the University at Albany’s main campus. 
     "Thank goodness I had those tunnels! I knew every possible way to travel through them," she laughs. 
When Denkensohn first rolled her wheelchair onto the Albany campus during a visit in November of 1984, she realized almost immediately that it was the place for her. 
     "I felt a sense of security," she says of that trip, taken during her senior year in high school. "I remember arriving in Nancy Belowich-Negron’s office, and she said this was not a big deal (going away to college) and not to worry about things. I met another disabled student and saw a dorm room on State Quad. I left with a sense that this would be a feasible thing to do." 
     Belowich-Negron, director of Albany’s Office for Disabled Student Services for the last 18 years, says Denkensohn met the challenge squarely. She graduated with honors from the School of Business, served as a student mediator in the Office of Residential Life and as a member of the Purple and Gold student honorary society, and won admission to Georgetown University Law School. She was even tapped to give the student address at her commencement. 
     "When I first met her, I thought: Here is a young woman 
who so recently has had a tragic accident, but who has absorbed it quickly and is now determined to move on with her life," said Belowich-Negron. "She was upbeat, intelligent and ready for a competitive environment. Her question to me was: ‘Am I going to be okay here?’" 
     Denkensohn had injured her spinal cord in a swimming pool accident that left her a quadriplegic when she was 16. Though she missed most of her junior year in high school, she received intensive tutoring the following summer and graduated with her Rondout Valley High School class in Accord, Ulster County. College was now in the future. Larry Brown, a counselor with the New York State Office of Vocational Rehabilitation, recommended Albany as the most accessible university in the state. 
     "It was not too far from home, but it was also a good school and it had the accessibility," says Denkensohn. She is now 30 years old and an attorney in the Office of the Inspector General in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in Washington, D.C. Her work typically involves general administrative law questions with emphasis on issues relating to the investigation of health care fraud. 
     As a freshman at Albany, Denkensohn quickly developed an expert’s knowledge of Albany’s tunnel system as she wheeled from her suite in Steinmetz Hall on State Quad to her classes, the library and other activities. She shared her suite with four other young women, Laurie Lloyd Wallace, Delores Schaub Morales, Lisa Alongi Garvey, and Diane Schmid Frazzetta, and they became fast friends, living together on State Quad for four straight years. They all earned B.S. degrees from the School of Business. 
     "We all arrived, sight unseen, and we all hit it off," said Denkensohn. As a freshman, she had visiting nurses assist her during the morning and evening, and attendant care during the day. Later, her roommates shared those responsibilities among themselves, helping her, for example, in the dining hall and in the library. 
     "I had an extremely positive experience," says Denkensohn. "I had very little hassle as far as living conditions. The campus was extremely accessible, and I was able to get to all of my classes." 
     In the classroom, Denkensohn at first taped her classes and then later transcribed them on her computer by typing with the end of a pencil, but she soon found that was too time consuming. She found that taking notes herself, wearing a hand splint into which her pen fit, was a better system. As a disabled student, she received priority in registering for classes. ("It shows you that accommodations for the disabled don’t have to be expensive, they just have to make sense," she says.) Throughout her undergraduate career, Albany’s Office for Disabled Student Services was a source of support.  
     "One of the biggest advantages was just its very existence," Denkensohn said. "For example, if I needed extra time for my exams, I could take them in Nancy’s office. There was no need to make a huge case for myself. I would explain my needs to a professor, the professor knew who Nancy was, and it was simple . . . Nancy’s office gave me a sense of what my rights were and what I could expect, and when I went to law school I took that knowledge with me. I had a good experience at Georgetown, too — in fact, it was exceptional. For example, all of their shuttle buses had lifts in them. But I think my experience at Albany shows that the campus was far ahead, probably, of other places." 
     At Georgetown, Denkensohn recalls one class session, shortly after her arrival, in which students were asked to introduce themselves. "They went around the room, and everybody was from an Ivy League school but me, and it was sort of intimidating, but my experience at Albany had helped prepare me," she says. 
     After her third year in Gerorgetown’s four-year night law school, she was offered a summer job in the Inspector General’s Office in the Office of Personnel Management in Washington. That led to a full-time position in the same office following her graduation from Georgetown. Last July, she moved to her present job with the Department of Health and Human Services, with an office at 330 Independence Avenue. 
     Advances in technology have made a dramatic difference in Denkensohn’s professional life. Like her colleagues, she has a speaker phone. Her desk has been modified so her wheelchair can fit under it, and there are plans to refit elevators to accommodate individuals with disabilities. She also has an automaticdoor to her office that locks. But her key work tool is a voice-activated computer, which types what she dictates. Her rolodex is on the computer, and she researches legal issues on it. She interacts with others by e-mail and telephone, as well as in person. 
     "I think technology, in general, has helped everybody, but especially it’s helped handicapped people," she said. 
     Denkensohn, who lives in her own two-bedroom condominium, travels to and from her job via the Metro public transportation system or is driven in her own accessible minivan equipped with a lift. To relax, she enjoys going to the movies or theater with friends, reading and watching sports events on television. Her favorite teams: the New York Yankees, Baltimore Orioles, New York Football Giants and Washington Redskins. ("I’m a New York girl, but I’ve been in Washington since 1989," she explains.) 
     Denkensohn is committed to a career in public service. "I truly believe in public service, so I see myself remaining in government and hopefully moving up," she says. 
     In the final highlight of her undergraduate career at Albany, a committee of students and administrators selected Denkensohn to give the student address at her commencement. In her remarks, made as a 21-year-old, Denkensohn described life as an ocean and told her fellow graduates that each of them was the captain of his or her own ship. "I said that, while there may be bumps along the way, everyone needs to take control of his or her own life," she recalled. Denkensohn, it seems, has taken her own advice.