[Ncabs] Student Slate and NABS March Bulletin!

[Arielle Silverman]

national Association of Blind Students
>From the Desk of the President
March 10, 2010

In This Bulletin:
1.  Student Slate is Back!
2.  Last Chance to Apply for NFB Scholarships!
3.  Get Ready for Convention!
4.  Announcements
Check out the Student Slate!
Once again the NABS Slate committee has compiled an excellent
newsletter with several unique and useful articles of interest to
blind students! Please see the Spring 2010 issue of the Student Slate
attached to this email. Find out about the progress we made at
Washington Seminar, read about the experience of one of our top NFB
scholarship winners, and learn about your right to informed choice in
obtaining blindness training!

Last Chance for NFB Scholarships:
The deadline for the NFB's national scholarship application is coming
up on March 31!

Each year the National Federation of the Blind awards thirty
scholarships to legally blind college and graduate students across the
country.  The scholarship includes a cash award ranging from $3000 to
$12000, plus a free trip to the NFB national convention and often a
piece of assistive technology such as a KNFB Reader Mobile.  The
scholarship application for 2010 is now on the Web at
www.nfb.org/scholarships
It's not too late to submit your application!

applications are due by March 31, 2010.
Already won a national NFB scholarship? You can apply again and
potentially win a second scholarship, also known as a TenBroek
fellowship.
In addition, many NFB affiliates offer scholarships to blind students.
 You needn't be an active member of the NFB to win.  Contact your NFB
state president for details.

Get Ready for Convention!

The following appeared in the latest issue of the Braille Monitor, the
monthly newsletter of the NFB:

Dallas Site of 2010 NFB Convention
The 2010 convention of the National Federation of the Blind will take
place in Dallas, Texas, July 3-8, at the Hilton Anatole Hotel at 2201
Stemmons Freeway, Dallas, Texas 75207. Make your room reservation as
soon as possible with the Hilton Anatole staff only. Call
 (214) 761-7500         (214) 761-7500.
The 2010 room rates are singles, doubles, and twins $62 and triples
and quads $67 a night, plus a 15 percent sales tax. The hotel is
accepting reservations now. A $60-per-room deposit is required to make
a reservation. Fifty percent of the deposit will be refunded if notice
is given to the hotel of a reservation cancellation before June 1,
2010. The other 50 percent is not refundable.
Rooms will be available on a first-come, first-served basis.
Reservations may be made before June 1, 2010, assuming that rooms are
still available. After that time the hotel will not hold our block of
rooms for the convention. In other words, you should get your
reservation in soon.
Guestroom amenities include cable television, coffee pot, iron and
ironing board, hair dryer, and high-speed Internet access. The Hilton
Anatole has several excellent restaurants, twenty-four-hour-a-day room
service, first-rate meeting space, and other top-notch facilities. It
is in downtown Dallas with shuttle service to both the Dallas/Ft.
Worth Airport and Love Field.
The schedule for the 2010 convention will follow that of last year:
Saturday, July 3            Seminar Day
Sunday, July 4              Registration Day
Monday, July 5             Board Meeting and Division Day
Tuesday, July 6             Opening Session
Wednesday, July 7       Business Session
Thursday, July 8           Banquet Day and Adjournment

To pre-register for the convention, go to
www.nfb.org
We know that attending a national NFB convention can often exceed a
student’s budget. If you would like to attend the convention, talk to
your state president about potential funding. Many state affiliates
provide funding for their members to attend national conventions.
Additionally, the Kenneth Jernigan Fund provides convention
scholarships to first-time convention attendees. Talk to your state
president for details.

State Division Announcements:
>From Montana:

The MAB's Student Division Goes to The Montana School for the Deaf and Blind
by Jim Reed
On Friday, February 26th, 2010, the MAB's Student Division went to the
Montana School for the Deaf and Blind to talk to its Blind high school
students about college and being a blind college student. We met with
five students, and there were at least five staff members who stayed
for our full presentation, or who stopped by to see what was going on.
One of the staff members said that because of our presentation, she
felt she could be more effective working with her blind students.
We talked to the students about techniques and strategies used to
succeed in college. We talked about electronic documents, scanning
print materials, hiring and using readers, and working with DSS. We
also gave a demonstration of a Victor reader Stream playing textbooks
from Recordings for the Blind and Dyslexic and Bookshare, as well as a
textbook that had been scanned and converted into a Microsoft Word
document. We talked about the importance of having good Braille
speeds, and a solid working knowledge of the blindness techniques and
technologies needed as a student.
We told the students about some of the opportunities available to them
through the NFB, the MAB, and the Student Division. We talked about
the NFB College Scholarship program, the MAB scholarship, the Bozeman
Chapter scholarship, and the NFB National Convention Scholarship for
first-time attendees. We talked about members of the Student Division
attending the national convention, the state convention, and
Washington Seminar. We talked about Camp Eureka, and about the NFB's
Youth Slam. We also talked about our training center experiences, and
talked about the Colorado Center for the Blind's high school and
college-prep programs.
After we spoke to the students for about an hour, pizza was delivered,
and as we ate, both students and staff used the time to talk to
members of the Student Division and ask questions.
Before we left, we gave the staff and students a CD-Rom that contained
useful information, links, brochures, applications,  Student Division
contact info, and articles from the Braille Monitor.
I think our trip was a success and that this approach could be applied
successfully in larger towns with bigger school districts.

>From Nebraska:
       On March 26-28, the Nebraska Association of Blind Students will host
our second annual student Seminar. The seminar, entitled “Exploring
the Depths,” is aimed at helping students prepare for college. We are
pleased to welcome Eric Guillory, director of youth services at the
Louisiana Center for the Blind, who will talk about how to handle Math
and Science classes in high school and college. Other highlights will
include a panel on center training, hands-on demonstrations of
technology, and discussions of NFB philosophy. The seminar will also
offer blind students an opportunity to network and socialize.
       If you are interested in attending the seminar, please contact Karen
Anderson at kea.anderson at gmail.com.

Introducing the College Leadership Program:
>From Jason Ewell, who works at the NFB Department of Affiliate Action:
In 2009 the Affiliate Action Department developed the College
Leadership Program to provide an opportunity for promising young
college students to attend their first national convention and
Washington Seminar. Twenty-eight new Federationists attended the
convention in Detroit last summer. Twelve participated in our
Scholarship Alumni/College Leadership seminar in Baltimore in January.
They then went to Washington, D.C. to join the other members of their
state affiliate delegations on Capitol Hill.
After returning home, several sent notes expressing their appreciation
for the opportunity to attend and asking how they can get more
involved in Federation activities in their affiliates. One note, from
a college student who has been blind for only a year and who was
attending her first national event, demonstrates that this new,
exciting program is already helping to build the Federation.

I thank you for the opportunity to come to Baltimore and Washington,
D.C. I cannot really put into words all that I learned and took away
from that trip. I was not sure before but now I know that NFB is where
I belong.

If you or anyone you know would be a good candidate for this program,
please contact me at the National Center for the Blind at
410-659-9314, Ext. 2509, or by email at Jewell at nfb.org.



-- 
Arielle Silverman
President, National Association of Blind Students
Phone:  602-502-2255
Email:
nabs.president at gmail.com
Website:
www.nabslink.org