The Vision-Aid team was honored and delighted to present a memento, as a token of our deep appreciation and affection for Dr. Chuck, a legendary Coursera educator from the University of Michigan who is visiting India currently. Ms. Jayanthi, Program Coordinator for Vision-Aid’s programming course had a delightful meeting with Dr. Chuck, and expressed sincere thanks to him on behalf of all our visually impaired students who learn programming from his highly accessible, universally popular course “Programing for Everyone” taught via Coureera, which is rated by Class Central to be one of the top 20 MOOCs in the world!
Dr. Charles “Chuck” Russell Severance is an American computer scientist and academic who currently serves as Clinical Associate Professor of Information at the University of Michigan. His programming course, offered over Coursera is very highly rated and popular.
Dr. Severance studied at Michigan State University, gaining his BS in 1984, his MS in 1990, and his PhD in 1996, all in computer science. After graduation, he became an Adjunct Assistant Professor at Michigan State, also serving as Director of the Division of Engineering Computer Services. He left this role in 1999 to become Associate Director for Advanced Technology at the University of Michigan’s Media Union, and left the institution entirely in 2001 to serve as Director of Product Development for Strategic Interactive.[1] In August 2002, he returned to the University of Michigan as the first Chief Architect of the Sakai Project, later becoming a member of the Sakai Foundation Board of Directors, and then its first Executive Director.[2]
Vision-Aid has taught Dr. Chuck’s course to our visually impaired students for over 5 semesters, and several students have gone on to become proficient in Python programming, and gone on to pursue higher educational opportunities, as well as participate in events such as the Inclusive Stem (i-Stem) hackathons and securing internships and employment.
The Vision-Aid team is grateful to Dr. Chuck and to the University of Michigan, for making the wonderful world of programming accessible to many visually impaired students, opening up their horizons to exciting new possibilities with this world class course!
