Examine the barriers, stigma, and challenges that students with visual impairments experience within higher education settings.
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What barriers and traumas do students with disabilities, particularly those with visual impairments, experience in higher education settings?
Drawing on personal experience, author Stephanie Levin provides an overview of disability history within higher education settings and explains the impact of poor care on disabled students. Stephanie was only 20 when she experienced retinal detachment that required surgery. Shortly afterwards she experienced retinal detachment in the same eye which resulted in vision loss. With her newfound identity as a visually impaired woman, Stephanie struggled with post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, and anxiety. She refused accommodations within her university for fear of stigmatization, but she found that her acquaintances, professors, and friends viewed her differently.
Through themes of trauma and identity, this book is ideal reading for teachers, carers, and disabled students as well as students of Disability Studies and Education.
Contents
Stephanie A.N. Levin is a doctoral candidate in the educational leadership program at Rowan University. She is also a management assistant at the Rowan-Virtua School of Osteopathic Medicine. Stephanie is enthusiastic about promoting inclusiveness for higher education students with disabilities and she is an advocate for accessibility and social justice.
On Thursday April 24, 2025, we held a seminar in our Topics in Education Studies series:
Breaking Free: Rewriting the Script of Disability in American Higher Education
In this conversation between Stephanie Levin, author of Picking Up the Pieces: Finding My Way as a Visually Impaired Woman in Higher Education and Dr. Janise Hurtig, Lived Places Publishing Collection Editor, they discussed ableism as a systemic issue that continues to plague American postsecondary education – and how educators can help break the cycle of ableism and further promote inclusiveness within their institutions.
We received this quote from an attendee:
I LOVED IT! Everything [Stephanie] said resonated with me. From feeling less than, identifying, the invisible disability, "you look fine!," to the constant need to prove you’re struggling just to be believed. The part about masking hit me especially hard. That exhausting daily performance of “normal” just to survive in a world not built for us? Having issues with partners and other important people in my life that are supposed to be supportive… being viewed as less competent…. that’s my life. Her words made me feel seen and it helps so much to know that I am not alone.
—Anna Schultz, student at DePaul University
What barriers and traumas do students with disabilities, particularly those with visual impairments, experience in higher education settings?
Drawing on personal experience, author Stephanie Levin provides an overview of disability history within higher education settings and explains the impact of poor care on disabled students. Stephanie was only 20 when she experienced retinal detachment that required surgery. Shortly afterwards she experienced retinal detachment in the same eye which resulted in vision loss. With her newfound identity as a visually impaired woman, Stephanie struggled with post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, and anxiety. She refused accommodations within her university for fear of stigmatization, but she found that her acquaintances, professors, and friends viewed her differently.
Through themes of trauma and identity, this book is ideal reading for teachers, carers, and disabled students as well as students of Disability Studies and Education.
Contents
Stephanie A.N. Levin is a doctoral candidate in the educational leadership program at Rowan University. She is also a management assistant at the Rowan-Virtua School of Osteopathic Medicine. Stephanie is enthusiastic about promoting inclusiveness for higher education students with disabilities and she is an advocate for accessibility and social justice.
On Thursday April 24, 2025, we held a seminar in our Topics in Education Studies series:
Breaking Free: Rewriting the Script of Disability in American Higher Education
In this conversation between Stephanie Levin, author of Picking Up the Pieces: Finding My Way as a Visually Impaired Woman in Higher Education and Dr. Janise Hurtig, Lived Places Publishing Collection Editor, they discussed ableism as a systemic issue that continues to plague American postsecondary education – and how educators can help break the cycle of ableism and further promote inclusiveness within their institutions.
We received this quote from an attendee:
I LOVED IT! Everything [Stephanie] said resonated with me. From feeling less than, identifying, the invisible disability, "you look fine!," to the constant need to prove you’re struggling just to be believed. The part about masking hit me especially hard. That exhausting daily performance of “normal” just to survive in a world not built for us? Having issues with partners and other important people in my life that are supposed to be supportive… being viewed as less competent…. that’s my life. Her words made me feel seen and it helps so much to know that I am not alone.
—Anna Schultz, student at DePaul University
