Harper disability specialist retiring after 30 years

For more than 30 years, Tom Thompson has advocated for those with disabilities.

He hadn't planned to do it; he'd intended to be a marine biologist, even studying it in college, and when he landed his first job as a vocational rehabilitation supervisor, he didn't even really know what the title meant.

He smiles, thinking back, and then jokes, “I suppose this was an accidental career.”

Many have reaped the benefits.

Thompson will retire in November, on the heels of a career that's seen him secure millions of dollars in funding for the College's Access and Disability Department; earn numerous awards for his work, including the 2010 Honor of Meritorious Contribution from the Association on Higher Education and Disability, a group he helped found; serve the community as a member of the Little City Foundation board and the Illinois Board of Higher Education's Disability Advisory Committee; and step up as a consultant for a variety of colleges, helping them develop better services for students with disabilities.

Above all, those who work with him say, he's changed lives.

“Tom has shown all of us that an individual without a disability can be a caring, dedicated, and respectfully empathetic professional who can be an ally and an advocate for disability issues,” says Pascuala Herrera, a professor in Harper's Access and Disability Department who uses a wheelchair. “His compassion, coupled with his professionalism and knowledge of the field, has made my life much better and because of his leadership, Harper has improved the lives of so many students.”

Thompson started his career as a vocational rehabilitation supervisor for the Ray Graham Association in Addison, helping young adults with a range of disabilities, but it was a later role working with high school students with behavioral disabilities that helped lead him to where he is today. After realizing one of the girls was deaf and he had no way to communicate with her Thompson began taking American Sign Language courses, a path that eventually took him to Northern Illinois University for a master's degree in rehabilitation counseling.

“I liked everything about it,” he says of the field. “I liked figuring out how to empower people.”

He came to Harper in the fall of 1980 about three years after he first toured the college's deaf program as a Northern Illinois graduate student and took over the role of the program's coordinator.

At the time, he oversaw about 90 students. Today, with Thompson still at the helm, Harper's Access and Disabilities Department serves about 1,300 students annually, including dozens of deaf and hard-of-hearing students who flock to the program from across the region, the country and the world.

Through the years, Thompson made a habit of going the extra mile to make sure he was doing all he could to champion every student. He began meeting with local high schools, parent groups and deaf organizations to spread the word about Harper's programming, and, more recently, reached out to PASSAGE a local Asperger Syndrome support group knowing diagnoses of that illness were on the rise. He got involved with state and local groups that advocated for those with disabilities, and lobbied for funding for Harper's growing disabilities services. Together with Herrera, he launched a new program that offered individualized help to students with learning disabilities, helping Harper become what he believes is the only two-year college in the nation to offer that kind of specialized support.

“The laws require that we provide access for students, but that's all. The laws don't require that we help students succeed,” Thompson says. “If we just provided the access, we'd be meeting the legal requirements. But we wouldn't be seeing students finish and graduate. I've always tried to figure out what additional things we can do to help them complete their education and move on successfully.”

Today, he still hears from former students, including one with quadriplegia who graduated from Harper's fashion program and went on to earn a master's in the field, and a deaf student who returned to college at age 30, graduated from Harper and is now working toward a medical degree at Colorado State University.

“I told him, ‘I want to be there when you graduate from medical school.' I keep telling him, even now, that I'll do anything I can to help,” Thompson says. “I tell people that a disability is not the core of who these students are. Yes, it can be a powerful influence but it is only one part of their personality.”

He's lost some students who passed away from severe disabilities; he's gone to their funerals, and he once fielded a call of gratitude from a former student before she died. He remembers every one.

“Most people might say, ‘What a downer,' but to me, it's about encouraging these students to find continued direction and joy,” Thompson says. “I feel like I understand the students I work with. I get it, even though I don't have a disability myself. I feel like I speak their language. This field was just a perfect fit. It fit with me.”

After retirement, Thompson plans to continue his teaching role in Northern Illinois University's allied health and rehabilitation program. He'll also continue his consulting work with other colleges, helping them improve the education they deliver to students with disabilities.