People who think of Perkins as a venerable school for the blind have missed what you turned it into—a multidimensional powerhouse of support for people with impaired sight, involving almost one million students, teachers, and parents in more than sixty countries. In addition to serving students at its Boston campus, Perkins initiatives now include early intervention programs for infants, the training of teachers, a prolific publishing house, and even international lending libraries. An increasing amount of this work makes adaptive use of new technology and takes place in countries that prohibit blind children from even attending school. Perhaps most notably, you led the development of the New Generation Perkins Brailler as a liberatingly portable and affordable tool of communication. As one scholar of leadership has put it “[Steven] Rothstein took an organization that had barely left the 19th century and turned it into the signature organization in the world in services to the blind.” As a result of your work as president of Perkins for eleven years, countless children and adults around the world now have access to education and services that enable them to live fuller, more productive, and more meaningful lives.
Megamenu Social