MSU’s visual impairment education program could be eliminated today at a university meeting.

A moratorium was placed on the program’s enrollment last summer, when it was being reviewed. Three students graduated from the program last spring.

But ASMSU, MSU’s undergraduate student government, wants to see the program continue. It will bring up the program at today’s Academic Council meeting, at which members could vote to cut the program.

University officials say the roughly 30 students enrolled in the program do not compensate for the amount of money spent on the program.

ASMSU Academic Assembly College of Engineering Rep. Shaun Philips said the student government wants the proposal struck from the University Committee on Curriculum’s report.

“We supposedly have one of the best colleges of education in the nation and to say we don’t have a visual impairment program in our special education program would really be a shame,” he said.

Philips said he hopes a movement to strike the proposal will be sufficient in stalling the elimination of the program, although ASMSU members don’t want to vote down the entire report.

MSU Assistant Provost Barbara Steidle said the program was too expensive to maintain with low enrollment. The students in the program will be allowed to complete the program.

She said she doesn’t think the elimination of MSU’s program will affect Michigan. Eastern Michigan University is the only other university in the state with a visual impairment education program, but MSU has the only program for deaf and blind education in the Midwest.

“I think there is sufficient capacity in the state to meet the needs,” she said. “All students who were enrolled in the program before the moratorium were guaranteed they would have access to the courses they needed to finish.

“Basically, it was a very low-enrollment program and we had difficulty finding students for it.”

Steidle said the deaf-blind education area at MSU will not be eliminated because it is the only such program in the state.

Superintendent of Public Instruction at the Michigan Department of Education Thomas Watkins Jr. said the department has contacted MSU officials to share concerns from educators and people with visual impairments statewide.

“People with visual impairments feel the elimination of the program will have a detrimental impact of the provisions of services within the state,” he said.

Michael Hudson, director for the Resource Center for Persons with Disabilities, said today’s Academic Council meeting will be his first.

“I’m blind and I know about the importance of these teachers,” he said. “I would not be in the job I’m in right now without quality teachers in K-12.”

Hudson said most of the students who graduate from the program find jobs.

“I don’t think there is a lack of interest in it, but a lack of awareness in the program,” he said.

Hudson said the state would be in a bad position if MSU eliminated the program because of the number of visual impairment teachers MSU provides.

“I am really concerned about the elimination of this program,” he said. “It’s a very long-standing and nationally-respected program, I think the loss of it will be devastating to many blind children in Michigan and their parents.”

A report issued by the Council for Exceptional Children in 2000 showed a national shortage of 5,000 teachers for the blind.

“As a future teacher it kind of makes me nervous that there won’t be others to take over for me, or that I will have a big class load because there aren’t enough teachers who can handle the students,” said Erica Ziegler, a special education visual impairment senior.

Ziegler said she is glad there are some people who will fight for the program.

“ASMSU is the only group that has showed any support for it, especially students,” she said. “I just think MSU is in a position where they could be a leading school in the field of visual impairment and we have the resources that could make the program the No. 1 in the nation.

“It makes me kind of question if MSU can be the number one college of education in the nation, yet show no commitment to special education.”

Megan Frye can be reached at fryemega@msu.edu.