Two NIU special education faculty members have received a three-year grant from the U.S. Department of Education to help prepare educators of the hearing-impaired to work in rural areas.

John Luckner, assistant professor in the Department of Educational Psychology and Special Education, and Barbara Luetke-Stahlman, associate professor in the Department of Leadership and Educational Policies, are the recipients of the grant.

The $150,000 grant will be received in three installments, and will provide tuition and fees for five students who will be selected for the program. Luckner said he and Luetke-Stahlman had to fill out an extensive proposal for the grant and were in competition with about 100 other applicants. A total of eight grants were funded.

Luckner said the program he and Luetke-Stahlman are planning involves training students to become teachers with the necessary skills to work in rural areas with hearing-impaired students. He said the skills required of a teacher of hearing-impaired students include teaching sign language and working with the parents of hearing-impaired students.

Rural special education teachers also must have the ability to teach all ages of hearing-impaired students from preschool to adulthood and work with administrators who have had no experience with the hearing-impaired. “The principal problem is that it’s just hard to be everyone,” he said.

Luckner said NIU offers services such as interpreters and notetakers for hearing-impaired students.