This spring, the Office of Disability Resources will acquire a talking computer, a computer with enlarged print for the visually impaired and a Braille typesetter, says Shin. It will also acquire a scanner which will read and then transfer text onto a disk, which could then be used with the typesetter. Shin says he is excited about the purchases.
"[The acquisitions] would be a big help to Cara and me and some students in the graduate schools," Shin says.
Dingman also says he is optimistic about these technologies, and their usefulness to students.
"In the past, we haven't been able to get the biggest bang for the buck because we have students with such different needs," Dingman says. "We'd be getting things one or two students could use."
Dunne herself is active in helping to meet the needs of disabled undergraduates, though in a less official capacity. She is co-chair of the Advocating a Better Learning Enviroment (ABLE), a student group which works to make Harvard both more physically and academically accesible to the disabled.
Dunne is also starting another organization with Laura F. Harris '92. The organization, called Networks, aims, its charter says, "to establish a support network of scholars, alumni, teachers, administatrators and community residents," who will shop or excercise with the disbled, or who will help the disabled put together resumes or take notes. Dunne emphasizes that Networks is not a volunteer organization, but one of "mutual support."
Radcliffe has agreed to sponsor the organization, and Dunne says she hopes the first meeting will take place in a couple of weeks.
Student Life
But beyond advocacy and activism, there is undergraduate life. Dunne is preparing for a Japanese speech contest that will be held in two weeks in Washington, D.C. She regularly transfers the recordings of friend's lecture notes into Braille pages. She spent last fall training with the Harvard ski team, but now she tries to keep in shape by jogging every morning. She spends the weekend with her friends, who, she says, make being at Harvard worth it.
"I really love the Harvard atmosphere," she says. "I love the people. I love the things they do."
Dunne says she sees her Harvard experiences as another challenge, and says she hopes, by the time she graduates, to have changed the school a little.
Shin takes his class notes on his laptop computer with a module that transforms the lines of print on the screen into Braille. He makes his way back from the Yard to Currier with his yellow labrador, Ziggy, on the careful path a friend showed him. He likes his life in Currier, and calls the atmosphere "comfortable" and "homey."
Shin also makes his way down to Quincy, where he is a counselor for the Eating Concerns Hotline and Outreach (ECHO). He is also active in the King's Fellowship, a campus Christian group.
And after experiencing problems with his calculus exam last year, he does not worry so much about testing. He says he is sure the people in the Office of the Registrar know his name.
"[I think they recognize my name and] say, 'Oh, yeah, right. This kid is sensitive about a lot of things.' I don't mind. I hope I'm sensitive...a sense of justice, whatever you want to call it, that when they say, `We want to make everything equitable,' yeah, I'm all for that and nothing else," Shin says.
"My blindness is at best, inconvenience. And if I have to make an extra effort because of that inconvenience," Shin says, "I'm all for that."