 budgets slashed and other state agencies being swallowed up into a big umbrella agency, there may not be enough money to send people out of state, and their request may be refused. Certainly, such clients have the right to appeal, but in the meantime, their training is put on hold, for who knows how long? Without the necessary funds, isn't it at least possible that, for some clients, informed choice will be an unfunded mandate? This was precisely Dana Ard's main point during the debate over the resolution.
I apologize for the length of this letter. I am writing to you as a colleague. I am serious about the questions I have presented, because the people who asked them are serious. In closing, I would like to extend two invitations to you. First, we would welcome an article from you in either addition of the NAGDU newsletter "Harness Up." In your own words, you could help people see that no slight was intended. The deadlines for submissions are: for the fall "Harness Up," October 31, and for the spring "Harness Up," April 15. The editor is Eugenia Firth. She will accept any medium except handwritten print. You may send your article to her either by e-mail or "snail mail." Her e-mail address is firthg@mindspring.com and her "snail mail" address is: 1019 Martinique Avenue, Dallas, Texas 75223. As for the second invitation, you have a standing invitation to visit and speak at any and all NAGDU meetings. Our first meeting is always a business meeting. It is always from 7:00 to 10:00 PM. It always occurs on Seminar Day (the day before registration). Our second meeting is the very popular seminar, "A Guide Dog in Your Life." It is always the evening of Tour Day from 6:00 to 10:00 PM. During this seminar, in addition to topics for experienced handlers, we also provide much useful and factual information to cane users who are considering whether or not to switch to guide dog mobility. We recognize that neither cane use nor guide dog use is for everyone. Since most guide dog users have also traveled extensively using the white cane, we are in the best position to know the advantages and disadvantages of both methods and to present them objectively. You might be interested in how we present the facts and in the range of questions we answer. In any case, you are always welcome to join us. I know you are extremely busy at convention, but I hope you will come whenever you can.
Thank you for taking the time to read and respond to this letter. I value your input as I answer the honest, searching questions of members of this division.
Sincerely,
Suzanne Whalen, President
National Association of Guide Dog Users
Usually when one sees the title of Editorial, it leads the reader to believe they are about to learn the position of the publication or the organization being represented. This is not the case here. The following comments are my opinion only, and I am making no attempt to represent anyone's views but my own. This article is a rather painful one for me to write because to do so I must revisit some unpleasant experiences.
As Suzanne already mentioned in her message, I am not seeking another term as secretary of this division. I have found my duties as secretary for the division rewarding, and I am proud to say that I played my part in our accomplishments these last six years. I once told someone on our NAGDU list that members had an obligation to support the organization's policies or take positive steps to get them changed if a position was one with which the member could not agree. I believe in most of the Federation's public views on blindness, but I cannot support the organization's attitude toward guide dogs as stated in Resolution 2003-101. Since I can't support it, my only other option is one I don't believe I can accomplish, to get the resolution changed.
My belief that I can't be an instrument for change comes from the very reality of the Federation's swing from advocate to rehabilitation agency. This past year, from time to time, I have been forced, as a division officer, to relive an experience which underscores the very direction toward which this organization is headed.
In 1973, The Seeing Eye had a grants program. As part of the program, Robert Whitstock, a graduate and field representative for the school, had gone to Arkansas Enterprises for the Blind to assist them in starting their Optacon training. The Seeing Eye had also provided funding for the program as well. AEB had followed, until that time, a no dogs allowed policy. I know this because in 1969, when I went to my required college preparation class, I was told so by staff members. I had asked because I was scheduled for The Seeing Eye's August class, and I wanted to know if there were any guide dog users on site for me to talk with about their experiences.
In 1974, I attended Arkansas Enterprises for the Blind again in order to take a class called the Civil Service Information Specialist. I was led to believe that I had been hired for a job in New Orleans with the US Civil Service Commission. I did not know, and was not told, that someone else had also been sent to take the evaluation for the job as well. Although by this time dogs were allowed at the center, they were anything but a welcome sight for the Director of Training. My dog and I worked well together, but we were a new team. She did not like the way the inexperienced students handled their canes. I am convinced that if I had followed some of our center's suggested methods for handling the situation I would have had a ruined guide dog. My dog was allowed to work. In fact, we went on mobility trips together.
However, the agency had a few restrictions which caused me problems, and these restrictions were imposed with no forethought on the part of the staff. Students were required, for example, to leave their dogs at their tables while going through the cafeteria line. Unfortunately, there was no way for the dogs to get under the tables, thus putting them in danger of being trampled by other students as they returned to their tables with their trays. In one instance, a staff member told a student to place her dog next to another unattended dog, and the dog took exception to it. A dog fight almost ensued.
I was a very enthusiastic praiser back then, and I was a little too loud with it. I was told so by the Director of Training, but I was told so in such a way to make me almost fearful of giving my dog praise. However, the man must have decided that I was not taking his advice seriously enough because he decided to call a conference, a conference in which I had no way to win. Present at this so-called skills assessment meeting were myself and about nine staff members who took it upon themselves to tell me all the reasons why I should not have a dog and all the reasons why I should give her up. They had me crying, but I had already made up my mind that, no matter what, I was keeping my dog. At the end of the meeting, the Director of Training said: "I'll tell you one thing. If you keep that dog, you're not getting into this class."
This conference was the culmination of several events which, fortunately, I had been describing to Mr. Whitstock at The Seeing Eye. The agency couldn't stop me from talking on the telephone, even though I'm quite certain they heard what I said and didn't like it. I'm sure my conversations on the phone caused the conference because earlier in the week an attempt had been made privately to convince me that a guide dog was not for me. If so, they must have been horrified to hear me tell one of their grantors that I had just been given an ultimatum to either give up my dog or my job, a dog which I had gotten from that very grantor. I didn't put all this together until later. The Optacon classes, which I had attended the previous year, never even once entered my mind.
The very next day, after telling all to Mr. Whitstock, I was informed that I was excused from mobility and that a Seeing Eye instructor, Dick Krokus, was arriving to work with me. It developed that The Seeing Eye did my mobility evaluation for my job, another bone of contention at that horrific meeting. I had had the audacity to tell the staff, as they were criticizing my dog's work, that they were not qualified to evaluate me.
Although I kept the job in New Orleans for only three years, I recently was able to pay back my time into the retirement system. The Seeing Eye is responsible for that because they put a stop to the discrimination which was occurring by performing the mobility evaluation. Mr. Krokus expressed it well at the time when he said "They are going to have to make up something for you not to get in now."
I don't know if the Federation of the seventies would have helped me then, but I wonder if the Federation of today could justify it, especially after passing Resolution 2003-101. The Arkansas Enterprises for the Blind of today, which is now called Lions World, has a superior policy toward guide dogs than our own centers. It was suggested to me that I listen to Alan Harris give an interview on ACB Radio in which he defended the state of Iowa's position regarding the presence of guide dogs in rehabilitation programs. In this interview, Mr. Harris set forth the idea of building accessibility versus program accessibility, the idea that a center cannot forbid someone to bring their dog into a building but may forbid a student from bringing a dog into a rehabilitation program. That idea, my fellow Federationists, is not new. I was subjected to it in the seventies. Those in the know may recall that the