Non-traditional student finds new life
in NIU's Programs in Vision

by Mark McGowan

Marge Podewils had spent nearly two decades as a paraprofessional teacher's assistant in the Milwaukee Public Schools when her life took a turn: She was assigned to a resource room for visually impaired high school students.

“I really loved working with the kids,” says Podewils, who was completing a bachelor's degree in community education at the time and quickly realized that her future would include graduate school study.

What she didn't realize is that another turn lay ahead.

The Milwaukee high school's orientation and mobility instructor, an NIU alumna, pointed Podewils to Gaylen Kapperman, coordinator of NIU's Programs in Vision, housed in the College of Education's Department of Teaching and Learning.

Podewils and Kapperman spoke of the possibility of a distance learning program that would allow the Wisconsin native to earn her master's degree from home. She took the Graduate Record Examination, filled out the paperwork and made plans to study at NIU even if the online opportunity never materialized.

Then her husband, Dale, was diagnosed with cancer.

Podewils deferred her acceptance one year, and then a second year. Finally, in the spring of 2004, when it seemed like Dale might beat the disease, the couple drove to DeKalb to look for and deposit money on an apartment: Marge would go to school Monday through Friday and spend her weekends at home.

When they returned to Milwaukee, however, Dale's cancer gained the upper hand. He died last September.

“She called me sometime later and asked whether her admission was still open, and I said, ‘Absolutely.' I thought that really showed a lot of intestinal fortitude and ability to bounce back from some very hard times,” Kapperman says. “She just decided she was going to change her life, and I'm glad she's able to do what she wants to do in following a career. It's all working out for her, although she's overcoming some really severe odds.”

After deferring graduate school another year, Podewils started the process of moving on.

She sold her house in Milwaukee, bought a home in Rochelle and started classes at NIU this fall despite her worries that she could no longer afford to study full-time without a job. Kapperman came to the rescue with a grant that pays her tuition.

“I knew he would be there for me,” she says.

“Marge is, from my perspective, a very nervy, gutsy gal. It isn't like she's just going down the block to go to school. She's pulled up stakes, sold her house in Milwaukee, moved here to our area, bought a house and has really made a commitment to working with blind adults,” Kapperman says. “We're extremely fortunate to have her in the program.”

Kapperman's course of study is among the country's best and largest programs in blindness and visual impairment, preparing students to become teachers of visually impaired children, rehabilitation specialists for newly blinded adults and instructors of orientation and mobility.

Podewils is learning to become a rehabilitation instructor. She will work with newly blinded adults as they learn to live with their visual impairments. The job includes teaching Braille and reacquainting her clients with daily living skills.

“I'll be going to their homes, helping them with cooking and vacuuming, money management, medicine management – things we used to do with sight and now we have to do blind,” she says. “My reward is being able to help someone function in their life, going in and giving them that one tool that really makes them feel more independence and quality of life. I'm a people person.”

“She's going to make a terrific contribution in helping adults who have lost their sight to regain the independence as much as they can and learn to live as blind persons,” Kapperman says.

“When you have had sight, and then you lose it, it takes a major, major adjustment in the way you do things, the way you live your life. It's something that doesn't just come naturally. You have to have a trained professional help you make that transition,” he adds. “That person has to have a really great personality as well as dedication as well as being well-trained. Marge has all of those.”

Unfortunately, the need is great for more of those trained professionals.

“The Baby Boomers are coming,” says Podewils, who at 41 is among the youngest of that generation, “and people are living longer.”

For now, Podewils is wrestling with whether to complete her master's degree in rehabilitation instruction next August or to add a second emphasis as a teacher of programs in vision that would require a second year.

The non-traditional student seems destined to choose the one-year option, however.

“I was in schools for 18 years,” she says. “I really want to see what it's like working with adults.”

10-24-05