Tools

Audio-Reader earns inaugural 'academic partner of the year' award

When WellSpring | MTTI Lawrence Campus director Rachael Gehringer enrolled the natural health and wellness school’s first legally blind student, she was excited yet a little overwhelmed at the task of turning all of the school’s massage therapy textbooks and written assignments into a non-visual format. After weeks of researching different options, Gehringer settled on Kansas Audio-Reader Network, a reading and information service for blind, visually impaired and print-disabled individuals in Kansas and Western Missouri.

Over the next several months, the WellSpring | MTTI campus worked closely with Audio-Reader to have all of the student’s textbooks and written assignments read aloud and recorded, ensuring that the student received a quality and equal educational experience to her peers.

“If it was not for Audio-Reader, our student would not have been able to excel and succeed in her classes,” Gehringer said. “The service is absolutely amazing and life changing.”

Because of its outstanding service and above-and-beyond dedication to this massage therapy student’s success and learning, WellSpring | MTTI has awarded Kansas Audio-Reader Network its first-annual Academic Partner of the Year award.

The project was the largest Kansas Audio-Reader Network had ever tackled, said Jennifer Nigro, coordinator of volunteers for Audio-Reader.

“While most of our listeners want their special request recordings as soon as possible, we were very conscientious of the course deadlines,” Nigro said. “We wanted to make sure the student receiving the recordings was getting them in time for them to be helpful in her classes.”

In order to do that, Nigro had to organize multiple volunteers to lend their voices to the project. Typically at Audio-Reader, a single volunteer completes a project from start to finish. But because of the scope of the project, two to three volunteers would be assigned to each book.

“This required not only coordination on the staff's part to ensure the right books and pages were being read on time, but also coordination between the different volunteers working on each book,” Nigro said. “This is especially challenging because the volunteers don't see each other—they left notes for each other with the book and communicated through me.”

Audio-Reader staff and volunteers feel humbled by the award and changing a student’s life and career, Nigro said.

“Audio-Reader volunteers are a passionate bunch—passionate about reading, passionate about helping others and passionate about learning,” she said. “But we hear so little feedback from our listeners, so it's nice to get a pat on the back sometimes. It re-energizes us to tackle the next big project and to keep working to fulfill a mission that is so very important to all of us.”