Quick Navigation

Northern Illinois University

NIU Office of Public Affairs


News Release

Contact: Mark McGowan, NIU Office of Public Affairs
(815) 753-9472

March 2, 2004

NIU graduate student overcomes
vision challenges with grand ambitions

DeKalb — Northern Illinois University graduate student Marisa Saldana plans someday to become a newspaper travel writer, painting colorful pictures in words about the places she visits.

Of the beaches in Australia, where she studied for nine months in 2000 while earning her bachelor’s degree in journalism, she remembers the white sands and the blue waterfalls that twirl and swirl into turquoise pools.

Her stories, if read aloud, will hold special interest for readers who are visually impaired: Saldana herself is totally blind. She lost her vision to glaucoma at age 13.

“When you have friends who are very descriptive, they explain how things look,” she says. “It helps to have seen before. I have a better concept of how color looks, what things look like. I want people who are visually impaired to know how things look, to have a perspective from another person who’s visually impaired.”

Saldana, now 26, will complete a master’s degree this spring in rehabilitation teaching for adults with visual disabilities. There is a desperate need for well-trained individuals to work in the field, and NIU’s program is considered one of the nation’s best.

Led by longtime NIU Professor Gaylen Kapperman, coordinator of Programs in Vision in the College of Education’s Department of Teaching and Learning, the curriculum includes preparation for those who will work with newly blinded adults in the area of independent living skills. Jodi Sticken, the program’s director of orientation and mobility, and associate professor Toni Heinze also teach courses.

“Marisa is an extraordinarily high-functioning blind person who does very, very well in every endeavor which she chooses to undertake. She absolutely will not let anything get in her way when she wants to achieve something,” Kapperman says. “Whatever employer is fortunate enough to hire her will be indeed lucky. People like this are very rare.”

Saldana currently is an intern at the Lions Center for the Blind in Oakland, Calif., where she works alongside a staff of 14, three of whom are also visually impaired.

“You teach adults who have lost their vision how to cope and how to do things you would normally do, but you don’t have vision: how to cook, balance your checkbook, how to get help to read your mail, how to read Braille,” she says. “I can relate to them and what they’re going through in terms of feelings – mainly, the depression.”

Saldana had a long time to prepare for blindness, although she wasn’t ready for some of the consequences.

She was born with glaucoma, which creates pressure in the eyes. Left untreated, it can damage the optic nerve. Her parents, she says, “really didn’t push for me to go to the doctor.”

By age 6, she had begun learning Braille, something she hid from her friends. “As a child, I didn’t know what was going on, obviously,” she says. “When I grew up, into my teens, I didn’t tell anyone I was losing my sight because I didn’t want to admit it.”

After she became totally blind, however, she began using the white cane which guided her all through high school. With support from her teachers and friends, and a fierce determination to beat the odds, she graduated at the top of her class from James H. Bowen High School on the South Side of Chicago, with nearly a dozen offers of college scholarships at her feet.

A guide dog named Acer came into her life when she was 19, opening the door to independence while widening the chasm between Saldana and her parents, who she says wanted her to accept her situation rather than challenge it. She chose Acer over living in their home.

“My parents are against independence. They don’t want to see me do things on my own. They’re afraid,” she says. “But (independence) is a good thing because you have no choice but to move on. My experiences throughout my life have made me a stronger person.”

Saldana enrolled at NIU, eventually changing her major to journalism from English.

After graduation, while she examined her options for a master’s degree, Kapperman approached her with an offer of full tuition.

She also received the 2003-04 Graduate School Minority/Jeffrey T. Lunsford Fellowship, awarded to superior minority students fully admitted to the Graduate School. These fellowships enable minority students to pursue degrees other than doctoral degrees.

“Marisa is an inspiring example for the people with whom she’ll work, especially people who’ve had their sight and have gone blind. It’s a tough challenge. It’s really hard to overcome that,” says Kapperman, who is severely visually impaired but also had “low” vision during his younger years. “But with a lot of work, a lot of diligence and a lot of gumption, your life does not have to end because you’re blind. There’s no question it’s hard – a person who goes blind has mountains to climb – but it’s doable.”

The coursework is difficult – even for someone with their vision, he says – but Saldana has emerged as the top student with a perfect 4.0 grade point average.

She admits to struggling with some of the classes, especially those that require an understanding of how people with different eye conditions view things, but has enjoyed the challenge.

“Dr. Kapperman gave me an opportunity to teach and tutor, which prepared me for my internship,” she says. “He knew where I was coming from, and he understood me better than anybody in the department because of his visual impairment. He’s a great connection.”

Saldana hopes to return to Oakland as a full-time teacher and is making plans to earn a Ph.D. in journalism at a university overseas.

“I just want to prove to myself and to other people who have a visual impairment that being visually impaired is a challenge, but you can overcome it,” Saldana says. “Yes, it is a long road, and it’s going to be tough at times, but we have two choices. Either we sit and do nothing and receive Social Security, or we get up and do something for ourselves. Life is what we make it.”

# # #