I came across a blog by Jordan Moon, an African American male with visual impairments who is currently attending Arizona State University. While Drake, is a white male with visual impairments, Jordan speaks to the common challenges that college student with visual impairments face when navigating a college campus. He shared that getting from place to place is difficult for anyone, especially when that place is new. For the college student with visual impairments to go from home to school, find their classes on campus, learn the classroom, and find their way back home is a challenging feat. He added that navigating campus is a major worry and that there have been times when he has decided not to take on major transportation issues in college because they would be too difficult and dangerous. When students who are visually impaired / blind first try learning their campus’s layout, it can be extremely challenging. Many times, they need someone else to show them how to navigate the campus and help them navigate it so that when classes begin, navigating throughout the campus will be second nature. Learning the campus can take a while so many college students who are blind/visually impaired try doing this step a month or two in advance of their classes. Many of these students use a mobility instructor to help them learn the campus and surrounding areas and routes that they will frequently utilize. Mobility instructors are trained to teach people who are visually impaired/blind how to navigate certain physical obstacles, such as crossing streets, taking public transportation and so forth. In Jordan's case, he had his parents help him learn to navigate campus about two weeks before he was scheduled to start class. He had enough vision to see landmarks and navigated his way around campus by noticing those landmarks. Jordan shared that he also uses a cane to navigate around campus, and the cane is used for mobility purposes as well as awareness purposes. Using a long white cane when you walk allows you to locate steps, curbs, streets, driveways, doorways, bicycles, elevators, escalators, people, chairs, tables, desks, or any other object or place. On college campuses, such as Arizona State University, where there are a number of bikes, Jordan said a cane helps identify him so a biker will know Jordan can’t see him/her. Many students who are visually impaired or blind also use guide dogs to help them navigate campus. Jordan said that the advantage of having a guide dog is that it allows a student to walk to class at a faster pace. Jordan said that one of the most stressful aspects about college, and life in general, for someone who is visually impaired or blind is transportation. Jordan is unable to drive so he must rely on others or public transportation. He said that many college students are required to get some type of internship in order to graduate and this can be challenging because it requires a person who is visually impaired or blind to find someone to help them get to their destination. Jordan compares navigating a college campus to trying to ice skate for the first time. You are initially scared and frustrated, but eventually you learn how to do it without thinking of each individual step. It becomes more comfortable and natural.
Reading Jordan's blog made me realize how much I take for granted as someone who can navigate from place to place using my eyes. I can understand how important it is for students with visual impairments to realize the concept of interdependence. When it comes to transportation and navigating new places, this is a natural area where they will need to rely on others for assistance. It also makes me realize how a student with visual impairments must constantly plan well enough in advance so they can become familiar with the physical environment on campus and any challenges that may exist. As a student affairs professional, I can see how critical it is to know what resources are available on campus for students who are visually impaired / blind. In addition, it makes me think of the bigger picture of how important it is to be aware of the many different voices that make up the student body of any campus. I look forward to learning more about what services the office of disability services provides to students with visual impairments. I'm also curious to find out what resources exist for faculty working with students with visual impairments. As part of our assigned class reading, we read about social identity. I learned that as a student affairs professional, part of my role will be to seek out ways to work with oppression, privilege, and power, in an effort to enhance students' development (Evans, Forney, Guido, Patton & Renn). I thought about Drake's social identity as a white, male with visual impairments, in addition to considering my own social identity as a white, female. I have never given much thought to oppression and privilege and I realize now how these two things can negatively or positively affect our identity. As a white male, I learned that Drake is privileged. Due to his visual impairments, however, Drake is considered oppressed. I never considered using the word "oppressed" when describing someone with a disability, but I can now see how assuming one normative way of doing something privileges those who carry out the act as prescribed and oppresses those who use other methods. I wonder how Drake feels about this? Does he see himself as privileged in one sense, but oppressed in another sense? I wonder what other types of oppression might come into play with Drake. Does he have Christian, social class or heterosexual privilege, too?
Link to Jordan's Blog http://jdmoon.personal.asu.edu/wordpress/
Regarding navigating campus, I also came across an article about Darrell Shandrow, a white journalism student at Arizona State University who is blind. The article said that roughly 75,000 students at colleges and trade schools are visually impaired, according to Education Department figures (Brainard, 2010). To get around town, Darrell runs iPhone applications that identify nearby buildings.
Brainard, J. (2010, December 12), Colleges lock out blind students online. Chronicle of Higher
Education, Retrieved from http://www.chronicle.com/
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