A professor felt he had the choice to refuse to clip a lapel microphone with a transmitter so that I could more clearly hear his lecture. "Oh I have a loud voice. You will hear me without this microphone."

There were no laws backing up my request, at least none about which I was aware--nothing compared to the Americans With Disabilities Act, and an empowered deaf community, which also positively spilled over to hard of hearing self-advocates like myself.

Now 2011?

If I were a student now, I would request realtime captioning as well as a wireless *hearing clearly* device for all my graduate classes.

This is an enormous and welcome shift with University of Michigan: a model for access. Every yard of progress takes nine yards of blood, sweat and tears. We've come a long way and still have a long long way to go re: communication / human rights.