NRCGSH@ritvax.isc.rit.edu (Norm Coombs) (09/22/90)
Index Number: 10611
Bill:
Thanks for posting my concern for travel funds to attend the international
conference on computers and the handicapped this December in Zurich. It did
not turn up funds but put me in contact with another participant. The even
better news is that my university came up with the funding. As you will see in
the following article, I was chosen professor of the year for New York State.
The Provost decided that made me a worthy project to attend my conference. So,
thanks for your try, and I am looking forward to meeting my new contact (made
via you) when we both are in Zurich.
ROCHESTER DEMOCRAT AND CHRONICLE
Tuesday, September 18, 1990
Norman Coombs
named Professor
of the Year
Norman R. Coombs, a blind professor of history at
the Rochester Imstitute of Technology, has been named New York State
Professor ofthe Year by the Council for Advancement and Support
of Education.
The organization chose Coombs from 537 state nominees for his
extraordinary commitment to teaching, service to RIT and his
profession, and his impact on students, according to RIT.
About 2,900 colleges and universities belong to the council, the
nation's largest association of educational institutions.
Coombs, who has worked at RIT since 1961, is known for teaching
his classes along with telecourses in the College of Continuing
Education through RIT's computer network. He conducts class
discussions and sends and receives assignments all on the computer.
A voice synthesizer enables him to "read" his students'
electronic messages. "I tell them I'm blind, but
it's irrelevant," Coombs said in the written announcement. "I work
on the computer the same as they do. The computer obliterates my
handicap."
Coombs is on a sabbatical leave to adapt three of his black
history courses for computer delivery. Coombs wrote Black
Experience in America and he has published extensively on
computerized instruction. He has a master's degree and a
doctorate in history from the University of Wisconsin at Madison.