As English professor James Senden takes a bite of his sesame stick, a few seeds trickle down his buttoned shirt onto the tidy cluster of brown Starbucks napkins spread across his lap. His palm slowly traces along the dingy, sunken couch of his Clemens Hall fifth floor office until he finds the arm, where he balances his lunch.

His black lab P.J., panting softly, is curled at his feet on the linoleum tiling dusted with a collection of dirt from people’s shoes. Andreas Maroulis, one of Senden’s English 201 students, sits across from the couch, meticulously following his index finger along each line of his essay as he reads out loud.

“However, COMMA, the events in the movie are mostly set in chronological order, COMMA, as opposed to the novel where many times events of the past are referred to as flashbacks as the story moves on PERIOD.” As Andreas continues through his essay, Senden interrupts him mid-sentence: “change ‘but’ to ‘and’,” he says. On the second page, Senden stops him again. “I wonder if that might warrant a footnote?” he suggests from behind his wide sunglasses.

Dr. James C. Senden doesn’t insist his students read their pieces aloud because he has a computer program that will do so for him, but if they choose to, they must vocally indicate each comma, period, ellipsis, semi-colon, and even line indentations within their speech—unless they learn to print in Braille. Senden is, in fact, a blind man working in a field where sight would seem imperative; yet, his dedication and commitment are valued much more than a pair of eyes, and his blindness is no impediment to his desire to teach and inspire students’ young minds.

Senden is an adjunct professor in the University at Buffalo’s English department, as well as a part-time professor at Erie Community College. And while he would prefer to unchain his inner hippie and teach courses on psychedelic rock poetry, the policy of the University for adjunct professors is limited to teaching English 101 and 201. At ECC he deals in a more remedial setting teaching a course called English 020, or Developmental Writing.

As both a professor and a father, Senden still needs a little extra help to keep up with UB students, ECC students, as well as taking care of his seven-year-old son Emerson. His assistant, Yvonne, helps take care of the tasks that absolutely require a working set of eyes, such as paying the bills, checking the mail, babysitting, and driving.

When teaching his writing classes he relies almost completely on his students. Most of them will take extra time to meet with him privately to read their papers, voice record them, or even just put them on a CD as a document so he can use his computer to read them aloud.

“My background is a series of inevitable luck,” the professor admits when reminiscing about his past. Senden was born in Germany in the late 1950s with an inheritable form of cancer called retinal blastoma. It’s a rare cancer that strikes during infancy, where a small tumor forms in front of one or both eyes causing blindness and if not properly dealt with, possibly death.

When the cancer was discovered, he was entered into a risky study at Columbia Presbyterian where, he says, “I was basically a guinea pig,” adding, “and I was one of the few that survived.” Today, the disease’s mortality rate is around ten percent, but was virtually unheard of in the 1950s and therefore much more deadly.

His father, who was working as a diplomat in Germany at the time of Senden’s birth, put in for a transfer to Montreal where young James received the first two years of his education at the renowned Montreal Institute for the Blind. “I learned a level of independence,” said Senden, who was enveloped in an entirely sightless environment where even the instructors were blind. From this experience, Senden learned from those who knew best how to cope with being sightless in a sighted world.

At the age of six, Senden’s father again put in for a transfer, this time to Tijuana, Mexico, so that James was able to easily skip across the border to be enrolled in California’s “mainstreaming” school program for children with disabilities. That program consisted of simply “mixing everybody up and dealing with it,” says Senden.

Again, Senden was handed what he refers to as “an extreme bit of luck.” “It forced me to deal with the world,” he said, but at the same time, “it gave me an incredible sense of ego.” As a mainstreamed student he could begin to develop a unique personality through his particular talents, many of which reside in the arts; this led him to short stories, poetry, play writing, and even composing musical theater.

He acquired a particular taste for playing the piano and composing, and soon excelled with the help of a blind professor, Werner Riplinger, who knew how to work with the visually impaired. The “old sonofabitch,” as Senden refers to his former mentor, left him with much more than the ability to tickle the ivories, having enlightened him about philosophy, psychology, atheism, nihilism—even Freud. Riplinger nurtured Senden’s natural talents in music and particularly his love for performance.

“I never wanted to be a teacher…I wanted to be a rock ‘n’ roll musician,” he admitted. Knowing full well that his parents wanted him to be a lawyer, he states, “There’s a blind lawyer on every goddamned street corner.” So Senden, ever the nonconformist, went to college to study music.

After six long years, comprised of time spent at four different colleges and a short break for an independent study where he produced a musical, Senden finished his undergraduate degree. The next step was attending graduate school at San Diego State. Here, he got his masters in writing and began teaching in the academic skills department. “I did it as a joke initially,” he says, but “literally overnight fell in love with it.”

Senden first began teaching at Buffalo State College in the fall of 1991, having never imagined that he would stay, when he met Professor Zan Robinson who convinced him to step up, seize his immense potential, and walk away with that coveted Ph.D.

So, in 1995, he enrolled at the University at Buffalo where he met his strongest supporter and longtime friend Professor Joseph Conte.

At the time, Conte was teaching a graduate seminar on Modern Poetry when he met Senden, or “J-Chris,” as he then referred to himself. He was informed in advance that he was to have a blind student but reserved judgment until he saw the student in action. Within a short time, he already began to recognize the promise inside of J-Chris, but it wasn’t until he gave a presentation to the class that Conte realized he was “dealing with somebody with a phenomenal talent.”

“He wasn’t gifted because he was blind; he was gifted because he was gifted,” Conte stressed. “At a certain point I stopped considering the fact that the long dissertation he wrote required the additional effort,” he says, “I read the text for what it tells you, not for the fact that it’s an achievement that overcomes a disability.” He adds, “I read it as the product of a very distinctive mind.”

In his forty-eight years, Senden has effectively lived more than many do in ninety. With his natural talent he has composed full-length musicals; with tenacity and perseverance, he completed an exceptional dissertation, far exceeding his professor’s expectations; and with compassion and support, has raised a bright and self-reliant seven-year-old son Emerson (yes, after Ralph Waldo).

The professor’s inherent flair for performance is revealed when he steps into the classroom in front of his drowsy 9 a.m. students with effervescence, though their heads may be cradled and buried in their arms on their desks. Before beginning his energetic lecture, he reminds the students of when their journals are due. He also discusses his itinerary for the remainder of the semester, which includes finishing Arthur Miller’s The Crucible as well as spending four class days on J.D. Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye—one of his favorites.

The professor has an unfortunately low level of participation from his yawning student audience this morning—unfortunate especially for a professor whose fundamental objective is to encourage students to ask questions and expand their minds. He would feel more accomplished as a teacher, “if I could get one student to talk out and leave,” and not just to go to the bathroom or get a drink, but because they truly contest an idea.

“Most of the people at UB are here…but they don’t know why.” This often causes Senden frustration in teaching university students after a session with his ECC class because, while the community college students may be behind in the fundamentals of writing, they are much more attentive and involved in their education.

“I don’t care if a person knows how to use a comma, I care if they have a thought,” he says. The ECC students allow him to push them and know why they’re there, so those experiences are frequently the most rewarding.

Back in his office an old radio hums beside him, yet Professor Senden is entirely absorbed in the steady current of polished English coursing from Andreas’ mouth. He never lets his students read the whole essay in their twenty-minute sessions because, he says, “After three or four paragraphs it’s either working or it isn’t.” At the end of the semester he will read—or listen to—all of his students’ work.

By the time his students reach the 201 level, about three-quarters of them opt to read their papers aloud, responding to Senden’s repeated requests. This gives the student a chance to, perhaps, explain themselves and their work to the professor, whereas most English students will drop a paper on the desk and leave the rest to the harsh hands of fate.

“No one better appreciates being a brat than I do,” he says. Senden was always aware of what he could get away with. Back in college, he says, “I could’ve ‘copped a j’ in the quad and teachers would say ‘Hey! He can roll his own joint!’” He took the right kind of advantage of his disability to prove to people like Professor Conte that he was “a blind person doing something beyond selling pencils on a street corner.”

He doesn’t insist on students speaking perfect grammar or having flawless punctuation habits because when looking at the bigger picture of life, it’s not all that important. What’s important is being an individual, grasping your own ideas and ideals, and being able to express them and stand by them.

Professor James C. Senden encourages students to open their minds, keeping them securely and invariably aware that he won’t let them down, and will never hold them back. And as it was throughout his life, he passes this message to all whom he might teach, or reach in any way: “I’m not gonna carry you,” he says, “but if you start walking I won’t ever let you fall.”

Jon Sham is a senior English major and Features writer for Generation