DeKalb | Advanced orientation and mobility teaches students who are studying to enter the special education field what it’s like to be blind by walking around NIU campus with goggles that obscure vision. 

Eric Sticken, orientation and mobility specialist, is a professor who teaches as part of the department of education.

“It’s been taught at NIU for years,” Sticken said. “I actually took it when I was getting my masters here at NIU.”

He said the class isn’t about how to be blind, but to teach those students how to help people who are blind or have impaired vision.

Joe Jorgenson enrolled in the class and said he has experience with blind family members. He said the class has given him a new respect for people who are blind.

Meghan Fredel, a first year graduate student studying O&M, was a teacher for visually impaired students and said the class was a “natural progression.”

“I worked closely with orientation and mobility specialists there and there’s opportunity at Northern with the grants and everything to go to grad school for free,” Fredel said.

Sean Johnson, first year graduate studying orientation, mobility and rehab teaching, said he enrolled in the class because he likes to be outside and work with people.

When he is done with school he said he wants to work in a Veterans hospital helping blind veterans. 

Sticken said the class is a six hour course for graduates under the department of teaching and learning in the college of education. He said it prepares students to be a certified orientation and mobility specialist.

“The way I see it, one way to gain respect is to be able to get yourself from your house to your job, which is what we can teach,” Sticken said. “But there is still a huge misconception among people in positions to hire people that someone who is blind is going to be unable to perform the duties of a job.”

The visual disabilities program has been around NIU for decades, said Gaylen Kapperman, professor and coordinator of the visual disabilities program. The department gets applications from in-state and out-of-state students, he said.