Calgary Journal Online

This week, Danielle Harvey has several final performances, premieres of peer-written music and a term paper due. She’s under a lot of stress as the semester winds to an end. She’s also legally blind.

Harvey, a 22-year-old music major at the University of Calgary, has 20/90 vision, which means that she must be 20 feet from something in order to see it, while the average person can be 90 feet away

She also has a number of eye conditions including nystagmus, which is involuntary eye movement; limited depth perception; and ocular albinism, which causes photosensitivity and may cause problems seeing white on black, namely, lines on roads or chalk on a blackboard.

Despite the fact that she is legally blind, Harvey hasn’t let that stop her from her dream of becoming a music teacher.

“With all the support I’ve gotten from my teachers over the years, I would love to be able to give that back to students in the future,” Harvey said.

Danielle Harvey, a legally blind music student, practices xylophone at the University of Calgary.

Photo: Courtesty of Danielle Harvey

“They have been very helpful in giving me access to the right materials to succeed,” Harvey said. “They write letters to all of my professors to tell them about my disability to ensure I get extra time on exams and that kind of thing.”

Campus programs, such as the Disability Resource Centre at the University of Calgary or Accessibility Services at Mount Royal University, offer special technologies, resources and materials to assist students with specific disabilities.

The programs identify reasonable academic accommodations that will contribute to the successful completion of the student’s program. The students can then find the correct format for their course materials and the best way to complete their assignments and exams.

Some of the accommodations that a visually impaired student can have include having the exam questions read out loud, getting larger print on an exam booklet or having a Braille version of it created.

Ellie Shuster, spokeswoman for the Canadian National Institute for the Blind, said that on-campus support is vital to helping students like Harvey succeed in their studies.

“Someone who is blind or partially sighted needs to have access to the same information as their sighted peers,” Shuster said. “All students should be able to excel in their schooling regardless of their sight.”

According to Shuster, equal accessibility to the resources needed to be successful is a key component to on-campus support programs.

Harvey’s sister, 24-year-old Sarah Harvey, said that Harvey’s growth as a person, musician and student comes from hard work, passion and having her abilities reinforced by people who believe she can do whatever she sets her mind to.

“She loves drumming so much that she won’t let her eyesight or anything else get in the way of it,” Sarah Harvey said.