Disability Support Services helps blind student feel his way through study-abroad experience

Disability
Support Services helps blind student feel his way through
study-abroad experience

BY LINDSEY FIELDER

Rice News Staff

When Baker College
junior Will Conrad stepped off the plane in Edinburgh, Scotland,
at the beginning of this semester, he was about to embark
on a journey that had been in the works for several months.

Like all Rice
students who opt to study overseas, Conrad went through
the Study Abroad Office to choose from the myriad international
programs available. Unlike other students, Conrad is blind.
This made the selection process more intricate than usual.
Not only did he have to choose a program that would enhance
his educational experience, but the program had to accommodate
his disability.

Jane Ashmore,
director of Disability Support Services at Rice, worked
closely with the Study Abroad Office to make sure course
materials would be available ahead of time.
Conrad chose the Political Internship Program with the Scottish
Parliament through the Institute of Governance at the University
of Edinburgh and Arcadia University. Since interns in this
program are matched with a Member of the Scottish Parliament
(MSP), Ashmore also needed to know ahead of time if an MSP
would be interested in working with a blind intern and if
the parliament’s technology would support the screen-reading
software Conrad depends on.

“The first
question was the same one we ask for [his classes] at Rice,”
Ashmore said. “We have to know if we can find the books
for the coursework so they can be put on tape for him to
listen to.”

After Conrad
arrived in Edinburgh, a personal assistant showed him around
the city. “[The personal assistant] made a huge difference
in the ease with which I became familiar with things throughout
the city,” Conrad said. “I arrived [three days]
before my group, which also helped in getting used to the
area.”

Ashmore went
to Edinburgh to visit Conrad at the end of September. She
said by then he was integrated into the group of interns
and able to get around the city of Edinburgh, where four
names are given to portions of the same road over a distance
of five or six miles. “Will has an amazing ability
to adapt to his surroundings,” Ashmore said.

Conrad said these
adaptation skills stem from the way he looks at his disability.
“[My religious background] shapes my view of blindness
as a part of my person, rather than my identity,” he
said. “Taking such views, I feel, allows me to adapt
to situations because I know that a sovereign God is in
charge of my life.”

Conrad started
the study-abroad program with five weeks of classes on Scottish
politics, culture and society. He then began work in the
Scottish Parliament with his assigned MSP, Kate Maclean
from Dundee. Conrad said he had the opportunity to meet
the First Minister of Scotland when Maclean organized a
trip for students from her constituency.

Although the
internship portion of his time in Scotland has progressed
smoothly, Conrad said it has taken time to adjust to the
other students in the program. “Being a fairly conservative
Presbyterian and native Texan makes it somewhat different
when talking with primarily liberal [students] from the
Northeast,” he said. “Don’t get [the idea]
that I do not like Scotland — I have had a great time
— but I have also found that one semester is plenty
long to be away [from my Rice friends and family].”

Just as Conrad
had to adjust to his roommates, they too needed some time
to get used to the idea of living with a blind man. “I
think [my roommates] found it slightly strange at first,”
he said. “However, I try to make blindness only a small
part of who I am — it is by far not my personal identity
— so that helped it to become natural. Now I think
it has almost become a non-issue.”

While Conrad
said he has had a great time in Scotland, the hardest part
of living in a foreign country has not been the food or
the traffic. He said he misses the close group of friends
he has at Rice. “While I appreciate the variety of
friends that I have here in Scotland, they just cannot replace
the people I am closest to at Rice,” he said.