Hill continues to impact lives

Dr. Helen Hill sat in her office wearing a bright smile as she reflected on her 25 years of helping students at Georgia College & State University as the director of the Disabled Student Support Services. This office helps facilitate learning for disabled students and faculty at GC&SU.
“I hear from students I worked with twenty years ago and it’s always interesting to hear from them and hear them say ‘see what you’ve done for me,’” Hill said.
“We deal with any kind of disability,” she continued, counting on her fingers as she spoke. “We have people with psychological problems and with physical problems. We have learning disabilities and ADD. We’ve also had students with closed head injuries like in football and motorcycle wrecks.”
Hill said she was attracted to counseling the disabled by a desire to see them develop into happy and productive people.
“I love to see [students] succeed,” she said. “I want to lay out the options and watch them develop in whatever area they want to go in.”
Disabled Student Support Services provides a wide range of counseling services for the disabled, such as support for the blind.
“I administer tests to them,” she said. “We get them books on tape and textbooks on tape. Many use the Kurzweil machine, which we buy for a lot of these students. They can scan books into it and it can read books to them. They can underline areas and print out any part of a book. It can be voice activated. We have a computer that uses Braille. It can go from English to Braille and Braille to English. Very few students use those because a lot of the blind students don’t read Braille. ”
Blind student Brian Spencer is one of those for whom Hill helps make the college experience possible.
“She’s really calming and good with people, a cheerful personality and a real helping hand,” he said. “She helps me with learning books. She reads exams to me, and if they’re multiple choice, she fills them in. I use a note taker [computer].”
Hill’s face lit up in a wide grin at the mention of Spencer’s name.
“Brian’s quite a character,” she said. “You can’t help but like him. I read his tests to him. He can scan any book on his computer. His main problem is math because he’s been blind from birth. He’s not one who had vision and lost it. I’ve had some who had vision and some that still have a little. They’re legally blind, but not completely.”
Hill has dedicated most of her life to helping people.
“Since 1953, I’ve been in some area of counseling or something related to that,” she said. “All the people I work with have some kind of disability, and a lot of them will have it all their lives. A student has to identify himself as having a problem. They must have documentation, and I assist them in getting documentation. I work very closely with the Georgia Vocation and Rehabilitation on learning accommodation for the blind, hearing impaired or any type of impairment that would keep one from going to work.”
“Vocation and Rehab is a state and federally funded agency,” she continued. “They have one objective: to put people with disabilities to work. That’s why I work so closely with them.” Hill has been on the Vocation and Rehabilitation council in the state of Georgia for six years and advocates for services for those with disabilities.
Faculty members who have been at GC&SU long enough to see Hill’s work in action over the years have seen the impact she has made.
“We came here pretty close to the same time, so I’ve known her for at least twenty years,” Dr. Michael F. Digby, chair, department of government and sociology, said. “For years, Dr. Hill has had one of the toughest jobs at GC&SU, handling special case students,” he said. “Her calling has been to help those students with physical disabilities. Such students are often among the very best students we have, but some have an enormous array of physical problems that have to be worked with. One problem gets solved and then another pops up to take its place. Her job has been to help them work through those physical problems and to enable them to have a student experience that is as standard and as typical as is possible.”
“Dr. Helen Hill is one of those individuals that truly cares about people and who is always willing to spend whatever amount of time is needed to alleviate a problem,” Dr. W. Clifton Wilkinson, Jr., assistant professor of government and sociology, said. “Some people, when they describe others, use terms such as altruist, dedicated and a team player. However, Dr. Hill is really all of those and more. I have needed assistance with several of my students and she has always solved the problem.”
In her earlier days at GC&SU, Hill was active in other aspects of college life.
“I was Associate Dean of Students,” she said. “I was advisor to SGA for a while, and I was advisor to Greek Council. I started the Black Student Alliance.”
Helping to enrich and improve the quality of the educational experience at GC&SU is not her only passion in life.
“I’m an antique buff, and I have quite a collection,” she said. “I have one day a week that I can play, and I usually visit antique shops. I know some towns that are antique centers and I’ll visit those. I also go to antique auctions. I do needlework and needlepoint, and I’m a cat lover.”
She stopped, and that smile returned with a gleam in her eye.
“I like luxury cars, too,” she said. “I have driven BMWs and Mercedes.”
“She brings professionalism to the student services office and an open-door enthusiasm for students,” Clifton said. “Dr. Hill has made my life as a professor much more enjoyable. I think of her not only as a colleague, but most of all, a friend.”
“She has brought a good natured but determined will and a sharp intellect to solving problems and to empowering [disabled] students to fend for themselves,” Digby said. “Her style is not to baby or to coddle anyone, but rather to show how to solve problems and to take charge of one’s own academic career. This is a valuable service, and we’ve been fortunate to have her.”
Hill reflected on what keeps her job interesting and exciting after all these years.
“I like the fact that it’s not a real structured day-to-day repetition of everything,” she said. “I never know what’s going to happen when I come in the office each morning. All the students are unique individuals, and they have unique needs. There’s no one recipe that fits them all. I enjoy the different personalities of my students. They’re never dull.”
Would she change anything right now if she could?
“Now if I was thirty years younger, I would have no trouble going to a big university, but at my age I can’t transfer. Nobody wants you when you get a certain age except the people that already have you,” she said with laugh.
There are many here at GC&SU who believe nothing is further from the truth.

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Mar 19 2004. Filed under Other. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry