[Athen] Slightly ranting

[Jane Berk via athen-list]

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Sent: Wednesday, January 7, 2026 7:21:41 PM
To: Access Technology Higher Education Network <athen-list at u.washington.edu>
Subject: [Athen] Slightly ranting

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The quarter began Monday and already I’ve had three professors tell me:
“Nobody let me know I would have a blind student in class”.
They’re emailing me or on the phone or zoom so they don’t know that I too am blind. As if we are some alien species.
The one professor wails “I’m going to have to change my whole approach to teaching.”
I’m always polite, explain I too am visually impaired, that they are welcome to visit me so I can help them troubleshoot any accommodating a student needs etc. (I’ve found saying I’m visually impaired scares them less though I cannot see a thing!)
But my internal dialog is screaming that they are idiots and wondering why when they got their masters degree did they never hear anything about universal design?
I also explain that just because the blind student is visible, they have students with invisible disabilities who will benefit from universal design: students with low vision, learning differences, limited English proficiency, etc.
Though there is a lot on Youtube about how to accommodate a blind child in K12, much less about helping blind students in higher education.
Of course it’s really the student’s responsibility to talk to the professor ahead of time, explain their needs and what accommodations disability services can provide. And many of my students do. In fact, I currently have one who insists on scanning and converting her textbooks herself even though we have this service. She’s super organized and assertive about her needs.
But this is community college, and we have two problems. Students don’t have the maturity to realize this or they are just so new to college and have no family with college experience to advise them. The other issue is   most of the complaining professors are adjunct and hard to track down ahead of the quarter to even let them know they will have a student with a disability in class. So even if a student tries to reach them, they cannot.
All my regular full-time instructors are great for our print-impaired students. They believe in them and are eager to make small changes to ensure their success. It’s those darned part-timers!
I wish I had better ways to alleviate these prejudices because they are the worst thing for a young person or newly blinded person with limited self-confidence when starting out in college.
--Debee

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