Blindness is focus of new partner degree
USU has partnered with The Hadley School for the Blind to provide an associate degree with a focus in blindness for those who work with the blind.
The Hadley School for the Blind has been offering courses to blind students and their parents, teachers and others since 1920, said Linda Alsop, director of the deafblind programs. Hadley is not able to give out degrees or certificates as they are not a registered university, and they were looking to partner with a university who could help them do that, Alsop said. Hadley President Chuck Young called Alsop in May last year, and they have been working at the program since, Alsop said.
“(Young) was looking for a partner with which that could happen … He didn’t find a good fit until he found us,” Alsop said.
Alsop said she feels the main reasons Hadley chose to partner with USU are because Alsop and her colleagues have already developed an online associate degree for deafblindness, USU has done more with distance education than most other universities, and a partnership between a public and a private institution is a new thing. Hadley began as a school for the blind but now has many students all over the world who are either family members of the blind or work with them, Alsop said. Hadley has 11,000 distance education students who do the work online because they are unable to quit their jobs to attend school to complete the courses.
The setup of the program will follow Alsop’s deafblind course, which was awarded the Blackboard Greenhouse Exceptional Course Program award, said Kevin Reeves, instructional designer with the Information Technology department. The deafblind program began with a grant which allowed it to be tested and have student input to make the best Blackboard setup, Reeves said. The blind program provides not only assignments and information through Blackboard, but PowerPoints with voice over and scripts to those presentations, all done by Alsop. Alsop puts all the content together and then works with Reeves’ department to get it on the Web site, Reeves said.
“There is already a need for it. Seven students have already began their coursework,” Alsop said, along with the fact that she doubts the program will need to be advertised.
There is a shortage of those who can work with the blind and course such as this one being available, Alsop said. Providing this coursework online to allow them to still continue working will open up many doors for them, she said. Six courses will be offered: Braille, Human Eye, Introduction to Blindness, Low Vision, Multiple Disabilities and the Role of the Para educator, Alsop said. She said the diploma will come from USU for now.
Alsop said the program will officially be ready in Fall 2009 for both undergraduate and graduate students. The fees will be the same, $144 per credit for undergraduate and $240 for graduate. The fees will be split between USU and Hadley, Alsop said, as both will have teachers and facilitators in the program.
“USU has a strong structure already in place that we are building on,” Alsop said.
In the future, Alsop said she hopes they are able to develop other similar programs and expand the program into a bachelor’s and master’s degree.
-alison.baugh@aggiemail.usu.edu