Michelle Macalalad, a 1995 graduate with a bachelor of arts degree in psychology, will receive an outstanding achievement award later this year from one of the nation’s leading nonprofit organizations servicing those with visual disabilities.
Recording for the Blind & Dyslexic (RFB&D), based in Princeton, N.J., will award Macalalad with the Mary P. Oenslager Scholastic Achievements Award at its gala and banquet on Nov. 4 at the Marriott Marquis hotel in New York City.
It has made its scholastic achievement awards since 1958 to blind seniors graduating from four-year U.S. colleges, based by a panel’s judgment on eligible candidates’ scholarship, leadership, enterprise, and service to others.
Macalalad, a Norwich resident now studying vocational rehabilitation with the Department of Counseling Psychology in the School of Education, completed her undergraduate degree with a 3.45 grade-point average and was active in many activities related to disability, advocacy and peer counseling.
Legally blind from the age of 19 due to a brain tumor, she has since undergone three surgeries because of her illness. She continues to work, however, towards her goal of becoming a counselor to those who have experienced catastrophic events in their lives. She spends leisure time hiking, canoeing, snowshoeing, horseback riding and camping.
“I refuse to have my brain tumors rule my activities,” says Macalalad. “Instead, my tumors fuel me with determination to fulfill my goals. In fact, since my last brain operation, I received A’s in all my courses.”
Nancy Belowich-Negron, director of Disabled Student Services, said that, despite illnesses and operations, “Michelle was an honor student throughout. She is at once fragile, yet tough and resilient, a very fine and accomplished young woman, one of those rare persons you can always count on to get the job done.”
Added Richard Read, executive director of the Center for Computing and Disability, “Michelle continues to demonstrate to all of us that she and we can compete and excel regardless of a disability. Her scholarship, her confidence, her support of advocacy for disability issues is a shining example for all of us.”
RFB&D is a private organization serving those who cannot read standard print because of visual, perceptual, or physical disability. The organization maintains a lending library of 75,000 academic textbooks on tape, the world’s largest collection of its kind. During her undergraduate career, Macalalad used 86 of RFB&D’s taped books.
“Reading and learning go hand in hand, and learning is a never-ending process,” said Macalalad, who adds she will be requiring RFB&D books to a large degree in her graduate work.
Vinny Reda