Without sight or sound

With the recent TCUJ-recognition of American Sign Language Club and the events planned during October's "Disability Awareness Month," both the Tufts administration and the Tufts community have increased campus awareness as to the needs of students with disabilities.

Large public universities typically have extensive, state-funded services for students with disabilities. Private, smaller colleges and universities like Tufts, however, are less likely to have such a wide range of provisions.

Because Tufts does not receive the kind of funding comparable to that of a large public university and has fewer students, the University's services for those with disabilities are largely designed to accommodate students on an individual basis.

Of the University's resources for blind and deaf students, Disabilities Specialist at Tufts Sandra Baer said that the University is "pretty much providing all the services that have been required in the past."

The question raised at Tufts, then, is whether more extensive services are necessary, or whether the current provisions, provided on a case-by-case basis, are adequate.

While there are about 200 students with disabilities registered at Tufts, including learning disabilities such as Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD), only approximately 16 of those are students registered as having visual or hearing impairments.

The Disabilities Services Office, run by Baer, is largely responsible for efforts to make the current system more effective. The Office provides students with disabilities with a guide on receiving assistance before arriving at the University.

Baer also works with blind and deaf students to help them ease their way into campus life. She provides students with services such as books on tape, note takers, America Sign Language (ASL) interpreters, and Academic Resource Center tutors.

A new service has recently been added to the arsenal of tools available to Tufts' hearing-impaired students: Computer Assistant Real Time Translation (CART).

"This is a state of the art accommodation," Baer said. "It is a person in the class, like a court stenographer, who in their private short hand form types out everything that is said by the faculty, and the deaf student gets it on a disk but can also see the words as they are spoken in class."

Similarly helpful technology is available for seeing-impaired students. A special computer in the Academic Resource Center has what Baer describes as "screen reading software."

"If a [blind] student needs to have a syllabus or something of that sort read to them, it can be scanned into the computer and read to them," Baer said.

Freshman Brody Hale, a seeing-impaired freshman, has been completely satisfied with the assistance he has received.

"The Disability Services Office has always been willing to help me in any way that they can," Hale said. "I feel that they've made my life as a student much easier than it could have been."

Hale's decision to attend Tufts was unrelated to his condition: "My choice was completely due to college selection, which schools I got into, and [the typical considerations] of any student," he said.

Jessica Levine, a hearing impaired sophomore and founder of Tufts' American Sign Language Club, also chose to attend Tufts based on "typical" student considerations: "Coming to Tufts was not primarily because of the services... I came here to be academically challenged and learn how to fit into the hearing world," she said.

Unlike Hale, however, Levine has not been fully satisfied with the University's services.

"[Most] of my friends back home are deaf," Levine said. "Coming to Tufts has been a culture shock and I felt Tufts didn't help me adjust well to the changes here. I'm slowly learning my way to blend into the hearing world."

Levine added that there are many services that would make her life more manageable, but these services are not being provided.

"I'm having a lot of problems with the Disabilities Services Office, and they've been lacking [in paying] a lot of attention to my needs lately," Levine said. "They [didn't provide me with] note takers until the second semester of freshman year, and I went through an entire semester without having very good notes."

This was not just a complication: according to Levine, her lack of a note-taker made it nearly impossible for her to excel in the classroom.

"I would like to see the Disabilities Office have a larger staff," Levine said. "They've been unable to give each student individual attention, and I think it's especially harder for deaf students who come from a deaf cultural background. I think that the lack of attention they give is probably why not many culturally deaf people come to Tufts."

Including Baer, there are two staff members who work at the Disabilities Services Office. The OEO provides awareness programming and ensures that the University follows state and federal guidelines regarding the rights of people with disabilities.

Levine believes that certain services the University has failed to provide would not only be beneficial to deaf students but to the campus as a whole. One such service is closed captioned movies in Barnum.

"Tufts is looking into getting rear view captioning, but we need more people to respond saying they need closed captioned movies," Levine said. "It won't necessarily be just for deaf students, but for students who speak English as their second language. They might prefer reading rather than just listening."

Furthermore, while Tufts has many peer support groups (such as the Peer Led Eating Disorder Support Group), there are no such groups for blind or deaf students -- or for those with any other physical disability.

"I just helped establish the American Sign Language Club with my friends," Levine said. "But unfortunately, there are no support groups, and I personally think there should be one."

Baer agreed that a support group would be beneficial to students: "We've been hoping to have a support group for students with disabilities in general, not one particular disability," she said.

"There have been some past efforts for this to be student initiated because we think that this is how it would work best," Baer added. "According to many of my colleagues, the more successful groups are those started by students."