‘Where the bats hung out’: How a basement hideaway at UC Berkeley nurtured a generation of blind innovators

STAT ^ | March 28, 2022 | Isabella Cueto

[thecodont]

BERKELEY, Calif. — If, in the fall of 1987, you found yourself at the University of California, Berkeley, and you made your way through the sloping, verdant campus to Moffitt Library, you could walk through the doors and take two flights of stairs down to the basement.

Turn right and you would find a door tucked in the corner — room 224, though the placard isn’t written in braille. After unlocking the door using a key with a ridged top, you’d walk through a small lobby with tables, chairs, and a “sofa” made of seats pulled from a van. The smell of lived-in-ness, a mix of takeout and coffee and books, permeates the cramped space and makes the tip of your nose perk up.

This is how Joshua Miele and other blind students found their way to this underground hideaway. Its university-sanctioned name was the blind students study center. But pretty much everyone called it The Cave. “It’s where the bats hung out,” Miele explained.

It was loosely organized, loosely supervised; if it was run by anyone, it was the students.

A physics major from New York state, Miele was a freshman that year. He spent hours every day in one of eight bunker-like rooms lining The Cave’s windowless hallway, studying, running his fingertips along pages of braille, and dictating his homework to a reader who transcribed it. Today, he’s a MacArthur “genius grant” winner who builds adaptive technologies at Amazon, work that has made it an industry-wide expectation that consumer devices are accessible to people who are blind and have other disabilities.

He is just one of a generation of leaders, innovators, creatives, and geniuses who are reshaping the world — and have roots in The Cave.

[Robert DeLong]

Extremely interesting article. Makes one ashamed that they didn't apply themselves more when they didn't have disabilities to contend with at all. I applaud these people who have more gumption than most people in the world.

Thanks for sharing. 🙂

[thecodont]

I found the article very inspiring and refreshing. These people fought hard to live normal productive lives and did not let disability stand in their way.

[Robert DeLong]

Agreed. 🙂

[aquila48]

Joshua Miele...