This November, Mu Sigma Upsilon teamed up with the Lehigh Disability Office to host Dining in the Dark, a blind folded dinner. Students were asked to sign up in advance. Upon arrival, students took a nametag and a blindfold and choose a table. Before the dinner began, there was the opportunity to experience different technologies that helped visually impaired students at Lehigh and try on glasses that simulated different types of eye problems. One technology magnified the text in a book and displayed it on a computer screen, inverting the colors so that the text was white and the page was black. Another used voice software to control a windows computer.
The dinner began, and we were asked to put on our blindfolds. While eating we were all very disoriented. We had no idea where our food was, how much was left on the plate, or even if we had managed to get anything on our forks. When we ran out of water, we poured it ourselves from pitchers on the table, keeping a finger inside the glass to make sure we didn’t spill. During the dinner, conversation flowed normally and I found myself turning my head and using my hands to emphasize my speech, forgetting that the others couldn’t see me. Being blind was very disorienting.
When the dinner was over, we removed our blindfolds and were surprised to see where we were sitting. We had all thought that our orientation around the table had been different. What had seemed like twenty minutes was actually an hour! Most of the students thought the food tasted better because we were so focused on eating instead of everything else that was going on. We discussed as a group how we experienced being blind and shared tips on how we managed to eat our food.
This is the third year in a row that MSU has hosted Dining in the Dark. The organization wanted the event to focus on unity among students, especially women and those with disabilities. They stressed that people with disabilities don’t see it as a disability, simply as the way they have to live their life. Cheryl Ashcroft, who oversees all aspects of support services for students with disabilities was happy to give us a glimpse into the world of visual loss and explained to us that sight is a privilege.
Everyone who attended the event came away with a better understanding of the difficulties students at Lehigh can face and the support that is in place for them. Overall Dining in the Dark was a very successful event and we hope to see it happen again next year.