After 10 years working with students in Israel with learning disabilities, Susan Vogel earned the prestigious Fulbright Award.

Vogel, a distinguished research professor emerita, taught in the Department of Literacy Education at NIU for 14 years, retiring in 2004. Vogel received the Fulbright Award in March to continue her work at Tel Hai Academic College in Israel.

Beginning in April, Vogel spent 21 days working with the institution as well as colleges and universities throughout Israel. Vogel assisted the institution in developing support services and research regarding students throughout the country who had learning disabilities and dyslexia, she said.

According to Fulbright’s sponsors, the U.S Department of State, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs Web site, the goal of the program is to “increase mutual understanding between the people of the United States and the people of other countries.” The Fulbright Foundation was established in 1946 by Senator J. William Fulbright of Arkansas.

Fulbright scholars are nominated by those within a university to receive a specific Fulbright grant of the various offered. Once the person is accepted by the Fulbright Foundation, another country can request services of this person. Vogel received the “Fulbright Senior Research Specialist” Fulbright Award — one of the most prestigious, annually renewed grants offered by the foundation.

During her time in Israel, Vogel gave several public lectures in Hebrew and English that were open to support service providers in centers for students with disabilities in the country, she said.

Opening in 1996, Tel Hai College was the first and most comprehensive school with services in the country, Vogel said. The school provides an intensive eight-week summer collaboration course for students in colleges and universities with disabilities.

Though a six-day workweek is expected in Israel, Vogel said the program was “very invigorating and exciting.”

“They don’t have a weekend per say, so even Sundays I was working,” Vogel said. “[It was] a lot of pressed time to accomplish many things.”

Two weeks after Vogel returned home, a major breakthrough in Israel occurred from her work. The government ministry, which provides health insurance and support rehabilitation services, agreed to provide monetary support and financial aid for students with learning disabilities in universities, Vogel said.

“I’ve been to Israel now many, many times in the past 10 years working on this project,” Vogel said. “I don’t know what the future will be, whether I will be continuing to get Fulbright support, but my work with Israel will be continuing.”

Norm Stahl, chair of the Department of Literacy Education in the College of Education, said Vogel is very dedicated to her work.

“Susan has a very productive career that continues now that she’s in retirement,” Stahl said. “She has certainly been a person in the forefront of trying to work with individuals who are learning disabled and has written some very important books in that area.”

Stahl said one of the several books written by Vogel include “Learning Disabilities in Higher Education and Beyond: An International Perspective,” published in 2003 and written by Vogel and three other colleges, as well as “College Students with Learning Disabilities,” a handbook solely written by Vogel and published in 2005.

Vogel is also working on a 20-year follow-up study on adults with learning disabilities — one of the longest longitudinal national and international studies. The purpose of the project is to study former college and university students with learning disabilities to determine the outcome, any continuing problems, and their success rates, she said.

Funded by the government in Israel, Vogel is also working with the program Skype, to allow tutoring for Israeli students through e-mail and a computer camera.