Camden student's GPA is at cum laude level
Aaron Bradley makes his way easily across the concrete walkway on Rutgers’ Camden Campus with Licorice, a jet black Labrador retriever, his guide dog.
Despite the challenges of being blind, nothing has stopped the 27-year-old junior from excelling in his course work. His GPA is at the cool, cum laude level of 3.7, which allowed him to make the dean’s list in the spring of 2010.
Bradley does not think of his blindness as a disability.
“I view blindness as something that enhances me, that makes me unique,” said Bradley, who has been blind since birth due to Leber’s Congenital Amaurosis, a rare genetic disease.
He also believes that being blind has made him a fairer individual who is less critical of others. “I say this,” Bradley explains, “because there’s a lot less judgment made when you don’t have the visual perception. You tend to see people for who they really are.”
Bradley grew up in West Philadelphia and moved to Moorestown, New Jersey, in 2004. He transferred to Rutgers-Camden from Burlington County College (BCC) last spring to pursue a degree in social work, after which he hopes to earn a master’s in the field.
He keeps up with his school work by using software that converts the screen text to speech. “Anything I type, like a web page or email, gets read out loud,” he said. He listens to textbooks on audio CDs.
Bradley enjoys dorm living, a huge improvement, he says, over the days when he took the bus from Moorestown to the Pemberton campus at BCC. Now he gets more sleep and has time for extra curricular activities. He is a member of the newly formed Coalition for Disability Awareness, and has joined with students from Professor Julianne Baird’s madrigal course to form an a cappella group.
Before life with Licorice, Bradley used a white cane and “echo sonar” to navigate his surroundings. The technique involves listening to sound waves, which reflect off objects in
the environment. “I could tell the locations of buildings and driveways by way of air pressure,” he says.
Licorice came into his life as a result of a frightening accident he had leaving a SEPTA train station in Philadelphia. He asked for directions, got some bad advice, and ended up falling six feet off a train platform onto the tracks. Fortunately, he wasn’t seriously hurt, but the experience shook him.
Upon a friend’s urging, he applied for a guide dog and was paired with Licorice, a 3-year old black Labrador. Their connection began with a month-long training program at dog school and now – after four months and many walks through Rutgers-Camden’s 40-acre campus – their bond has grown to a deeper level.
Recently, Bradley left Licorice with a friend while he attended open mic night on campus for a few hours. When he returned, Licorice “leaped up on me and started licking my face and nibbling on my ears … and she had never done that before.”
What Bradley most enjoys is strolling on campus with Licorice, and chatting with people. So next time you see Bradley next to the lush grass of the new School of Social Work’s building, or having a meal at a Camden waterfront pub – don’t be afraid to say ‘hi.’ But don’t distract Licorice by calling her by name. She has a job to do.
Originally published in The Gleaner