Blind students broaden their horizons at Oberlin

"I don't have a dark life. I have a very, very bright, colorful life," Laurie Rubin, a first-year Double Degree student, said. Rubin has Leber's congenital amaurosis, a genetic lack of the retina, which only allows her to differentiate between light and dark and to see some shadows.

But being blind hasn't impaired her views of life.

This year Rubin and two other first-years join junior Bill Stevens as blind students "with significant needs" at Oberlin, according to Dean Kelly, coordinator of services for students with disabilities.

In total, there are 12 students who are known to be legally blind. However, as Stevens explained, the definition of legal blindness encompasses a broad spectrum of individuals. One could have a significant amount of vision and be classified as legally blind, and one could be legally blind and able to function normally with contact lenses or glasses.

Kelly's office currently assists 187 students with disabilities. "Every effort is made to serve people the best we can," he said.

For students who are blind, Kelly believes that the Oberlin environment is "reasonably accessible because of the terrain."

It is a goal to make "every new construction as accessible as possible" and to make continual improvements to pre-existing operations, including access to elevators, he said.

Kelly thinks there is some effort to recruit students who are blind in order to contribute to the diversity of the campus.

"People need to be aware that we're people with the same intuitive abilities and feelings," Rubin said.

Blind students are integrated into the dorms, classes and social life at Oberlin, seeking assistance to locate books or assignments on tape or computer disk, Braille books and other necessary resources. Rubin said Kelly's office has been great, whether she has needed support, a reader or arms to guide her.

Kelly's office recently purchased a Brailleing system which will allow individuals to scan or take off of a disk an item that needs to be read and to consequently print it on Braille paper. The Sight Center in Cleveland has been a primary resource for print-outs and tapes if books are not available in Braille. Either Kelly or his intern Michael Dwyer, OC '97, locates a specific book in Braille, a book on tape or other materials, facilitating the needs of the students.

Not all who are blind use Braille, however. First-year Becki Lane, who has macular degeneration and wears contact lenses, is able to read large print books. But because of the "blank spots" in her eyes, reading is difficult and she often uses tapes.

"A lot of what I see is based on familiarity," she said.

Stevens, who says that he "got into this very late," uses Braille only to label a few things, such as his CD's. He was born legally blind and is now almost entirely blind. He had no vision in his right eye and very little in his left when his retina detached from his flattened optic nerve.

He says that his experiences with being blind are on a personal level and are "not all universal."

"We all have different skills and abilities," Stevens said, referring to himself and the other blind students at Oberlin.

Approximately a year and a half ago, Stevens began to discover for himself a "whole body of knowledge" about being blind. This "process of observation" began during his freshman year; he is still discovering more about blindness, especially the implications with social interactions and communication, and probably always will, he said.

"As a blind person, I learned how to assimilate into sighted culture to the extent that I forgot I couldn't see," Stevens said.

It is an entirely new and rewarding experience for Stevens, at age 19, to "have the opportunity to interact on a meaningful level" with other blind students at Oberlin, he said.

The social issues about being blind especially interest him.

"If I'm passing a person and I've known them, and say maybe we've had a couple of interactions or shared experiences that might have had a particular meaning, and then they pass me the next day and get a generic response, an enthusiastic response, but still a generic response because I don't know who they are.

That can be sort of disorienting because the fact that I have encountered them doesn't go anywhere. I can't pin it down to any person so it doesn't go to adding to any scheme of voice. And so very often I have lots of surface level isolated events, and I might be thinking in the back of my mind, 'gosh, I haven't seen such and such since six months ago,' and I've passed them twenty times on the street since then and they've said hi, and I'm thinking...'where did they go'..." Stevens said in a discussion on blindness last June.

He uses speech synthesizer software on his laptop computer, with which he writes letters and papers, takes notes and notates music. The software detects what is changing on the screen and tells him.

"I live out of this machine," he said.

Likewise, Rubin has a special computer and Braille printer in her room. Using these devices, she can scan something in type and print it out in Braille.

Rubin proudly wears her walking cane in a holster around her waist. In the past, there have been somecomical misconceptions about it: once, a teacher misunderstood the reason that she was wearing the holster and thought that it was for a weapon.

For Rubin, Bill has been a mentor. She considers him a "very special person." He was already established as a blind student at Oberlin and therefore made coming here easier for her.

Rubin said her parents have been very supportive, as well as protective, and they have made sure she could always get what she needed while letting her participate in such activities as river rafting and skiing. In essence, they have wanted her to experience life, she said.

Now she's on her own and feels good about what she has been able to accomplish.

"The people have been so great," she said. "I have not met one person who has judged me for being blind. For the first time in my life, I feel like I'm being treated equally."

Here, Rubin has confidence in herself. "I'm my own person and it feels good to be my own person," she said. She wishes that more people in the world would be more open to blindness and diversity in general.

Rubin, a Voice and Psychology major, came to Oberlin the week before Orientation to get acquainted with the campus. She focused on the buildings she knew she would frequent, but also "improvised" and explored. Rubin uses a cane, but often prefers physical contact while she is walking with others because it is easier to "synchronize" the pace.

Every morning she leaves an hour before her class begins and usually arrives 15 minutes early. If she gets lost, she feels comfortable asking other students for help.

First-year Victor Wong, who has been blind since age six, said that Wilder Bowl, for example, can be very confusing to negotiate because of the many crossing paths.

Inside, Rubin's dorm room looks just like the average sighted person's. She and her roommate have posters that decorate the walls, which she hopes make it seem welcoming and very much like home. Each of Rubin's posters has special meaning to her, such as the one she got after seeing the musical "Rent."

The word "see" doesn't bother her; she says it's a generic term she uses in talking. "And I even use it with Bill," she added.

Rubin says that she can see colors because she can imagine what they look like. For instance, she knows what blue is because she's been to the ocean and green because of vegetables and leaves, grass and mint. She can see reflections because she knows what the sun looks like on the ocean.

Stevens is also more than willing to speak about his visual memory, the struggles of interaction he has discovered, the personal language he has developed and many other facets of being blind. This semester he will give a talk as part of a disability awareness ExCo, at which he hopes to raise awareness about blindness.

"From my perspective, in terms of awareness and understanding...people with disabilities are in a way one step behind minorities," he said.