NORTHERN TODAY 5 WINTER 2024 NORTHERN STATE UNIVERSITY | News Visual Impairment Scholarship encourages new teachers into field new scholarship will hopefully help with a specialized teacher shortage before it becomes an issue in the area. Nationwide there is a critical need for teachers of the visually impaired, which requires an endorsement in visual impairments. Most educators are eligible to add the visual impairment endorsement to their certification by completing the coursework. Locally, the South Dakota School for the Blind and Visually Impaired is down a teacher. “Immediately, we are doing ok. In the future, we really need to have teachers who specialize in the area of visual impairments,” said Dr. Jessica Vogel, Superintendent of SDSBVI. Finding teachers has been difficult and SDSBVI went into this school year with multiple positions unfilled. “We had to do some rearranging in-house. But we have people who will want to retire in the next 5 to 10 years and there are just so few teachers of the visually impaired,” said Vogel. Currently, Northern is the only university in South Dakota that offers this specialization. Even across the USA, there are a limited number of universities offering a visual impairment specialization. “The program at Northern has the capacity to grow, and having a specific scholarship fund that can offer financial assistance is an important part of recruiting and retaining students,” said Dr. Cheryl Wold, associate professor of special education and graduate coordinator of the master’s in special education. “This is a highly specialized area which requires knowledge and understanding of the impact of visual impairments as well as expertise in using braille and other assistive technologies to help support persons with visual impairments.” Northern has offered the visual impairment courses at the undergraduate and graduate level for many years, Wold said. And in fall 2021, a Master of Education in special education with the visual impairment specialization was launched. The Visual Impairment Scholarship will support students who are in their second year of the program. Two scholarships have been awarded so far, one to Molly Moes and the other to Cody Brouwer. Wold and Vogel worked together to launch this new scholarship in conjunction with GiveNDay 2023. Donations to the scholarship are welcome and anyone who is interested in contributing should contact the NSU Foundation, Wold said. “Our goal is to raise additional funds so that we can use the scholarship as a recruitment and retention tool for students in the program,” said Wold. “Ideally, we would like to provide some significant funding for each year of the two-year program.” The team up with SDSBVI is nothing new for Northern. The two schools have a long-standing, mutually beneficial partnership that was strengthened by the Educational Impact Campaign, which provided funding for the new SDSBVI building, as well as Dacotah Bank Stadium and Koehler Hall of Fame Field. “Since the creation of the special education master’s with the visual impairment emphasis, we’ve really tried to ramp up our relationship to make it more cohesive, to make sure that we were educating students and creating a successful transition into visual impairment services,” Vogel said. The partnership allows students to gain experience and confidence in working with people with visual impairments. Vogel said she’s heard from many future educators that they were nervous because they’d never met someone who was blind and had no idea what to do, but after spending time at SDSBVI, they loved it, because it was just like a typical school. “It scares people who don’t know anyone who is blind or visually impaired, but working with the students is actually easy, because they are people, just like the rest of us,” Vogel said. “You don’t have to have prior experience to work with kids who have visual impairments or to help in the community. Our kids can tell you what they need.” A NSU's partnership with the South Dakota School for the Blind and Visually Impaired allows area students to gain knowledge while using braille and other assistive technologies. You don’t have to have prior experience to work with kids who have visual impairments or to help in the community. “ ”
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