"It's hard, it's daily," she says. "I've never had so little support in school in my life."

Shin says he was not so disappointed.

"As far as a support system goes," he says, "I didn't expect one."

Assisting Special Needs

There are, of course, resources in the Harvard community for the blind. Blind students can speak with the coordinator of Programs for Persons with Disabilities or the Office of Disability Resources. Final exams--though not midterms--can be arranged by the Office of the Regiatrar. And both Shin and Dunne say the housing and transportation they receive here are good.

But they are not as positive on academic concerns, and the offices for the disabled, as they stand, cannot possibly handle all the extra work and organization the four undergraduate blind students are responsible for in a large research university.

Assistant Dean of Harvard College Thomas A. Dingman '67, who directs the Office of Disability Resources, says his office takes very seriously its mission to give blind students equal academic opportunities.

"Our mission is to insure that we help to make arrangements that allow students with disabilities an equal chance on the playing field," Dingman says.

Dingman says the office has a "tricky" job. He says it shies away from conducting all the administrative affairs because the issue is one of allowing--or teaching--students independence. For instance, the University does not provide students with readings of texts because it believes blind students should learn to use outside resources like Readings for the Blind, a private organization which publishes books on tape.

"If we step in to do everything, we will not be preparing them well for life outside of Harvard," Dingman says.

But the issue of the University's role in helping students with their special needs is more complicated. Harvard, after all, is a school, and Dunne, for one, says she feels that its responsibility should be one of academic preparation rather than a more abstract life preparation.

"If you're here," she says, "you've pretty much proved yourself."

Dunne says she believes that teaching students to demand what they need is not the responsibility of the University. She says she thinks Harvard has given her too strong a taste of bitter reality.

"The philosophy is screwed up. The philosophy should be, `We'll help the disabled students, we'll support them,'" she says. "It doesn't mean tying their shoes, but it means assisting them with the things sighted students take for granted."

Dunne, an economics major, says she was expected to do her economics coursework on tape last year, a task she says was nearly impossible. She adds that the University was also not helpful in getting her economics graphs transferred into a form she can read. Graphs can be remade so that each section is raised and textured to distinguish it from the others, Dunne says.