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May 10, 2007 • Volume 15 Number 17

"The school has always had a simple belief: There is no talent that canít be culti-vated because of disabilities. It is an environment with-out hate, anger or ill will, and that's because of the outstanding people we have working here." --Phil DiMattia

'Where There's Love, There's No Burden'

Campus School head DiMattia prepares for retirement

By By Sean Smith
Chronicle Editor

More than 50 years ago, Adj. Assoc. Prof. Philip DiMattia (LSOE) missed a deadline -- and it was probably the best thing he could've done, for himself and the Boston College Campus School.

As a newly minted Boston College graduate in 1954, DiMattia toyed with the idea of going to work in national defense. After he failed to send in his application on time, however, he wound up as a special education teacher. It was a path that 16 years later would lead him to help establish the Campus School, which provides instruction, training and therapy for children with multiple disabilities. He became the school's director in 1988.

DiMattia is stepping down this spring as director, also ending an association with BC that goes back to 1962, when he came to campus as a lecturer in special education. He and other retiring and 25year faculty and employees will be hosted by University President William P. Leahy, SJ, at a dinner on May 23, at which the 2007 Community Service Award winner also will be announced.

Whatever the circumstances may have been, DiMattia's entry into special education proved to be excellent timing on his part, coming as more enlightened views of physical and mental disabilities, especially those in children, were beginning to emerge. The Campus School was a symbol for this new era, says DiMattia, and through its programs and projects, such as EagleEyes, has helped increase understanding of human capabilities.

To say DiMattia is proud to have been part of it would be an understatement. "The school has always had a simple belief: There is no talent that can't be cultivated because of disabilities," he says. "It is an environment without hate, anger or ill will, and that's because of the outstanding people we have working here.

"When I walk through the Campus School, I'm reminded of the saying, ëWhere there's love, there's no burden.' That's straight out of Ignatius, which of course is at the core of Boston College."

"The Campus School is an institution that has provided tremendous programmatic and service options for public school administrators, as well as families, for years," says Jim Early, former special education administrator for Watertown Public Schools. "Phil deserves a lot of credit for this: He's provided excellent leadership, management, dedication and diligence."

DiMattia can reel off any number of accomplishments for the school, but EagleEyes merits particular attention. The program allows the severely disabled to control a computer at the blink of an eye using technology developed at BC. EagleEyes has been hailed as a means for people thought to be cut off from the very act of communication to express themselves, even artistically. "EagleEyes is like mining gold," says DiMattia. "It's an incredible program, because it helps us all see the capacity of the human spirit, the potential that exists within us all. EagleEyes is a reflection of what we firmly believe at the Campus School: These kids are learners, just like everyone else."

DiMattia's introduction to special education came about a year after his graduation when he accepted a job at the Gaebler School in Waltham, among the first freestanding children's psychiatric facilities of its kind. Appointed as the school's principal in 1960, DiMattia was recruited two years later by BC's School of Education to lecture in a new program that trained teachers to work with mentally ill children. "One of the most important things I learned," he says, "was that children are excluded academically before they are excluded physically from school. The mind is meant to be worked, and if it isn't then it starves.

Unfortunately, too often kids with special needs wouldn't be given any kind of stimulation because it was assumed they couldn't learn -- and they didn't.

"I came to believe, and I still do, that it's not the kids who fail, it's the services that are supposed to help them. I wanted to be part of a culture that would challenge this."

In 1968, DiMattia's SOE colleague John Eichorn, the director of special education at BC, began spearheading discussions on establishing a campus facility that would not only serve disabled children but also help to train special education personnel. In many ways, the time was ripe, says DiMattia: National efforts to reach out to the disenfranchised, including the disabled, were taking form, and led to legislation that specifically targeted the educational needs of disabled children.

From BC's vantage point, however, the timing was less auspicious, DiMattia says, given that the University was in a shaky financial condition. But thenAcademic Vice President Charles Donovan, SJ, gave his approval to the idea for the Campus School -- "Just don't bring us any red ink," DiMattia recalls him saying.

"You can't overstate the importance of BC's support for the school," he adds. "The University wasn't in the best financial health, and space on campus was at a premium, but the administration gave its blessing. That says a lot about BC as an institution."

The school was originally housed in McGuinn Hall, with some administrative offices scattered elsewhere around campus, before moving to the old Roberts Center, where it stayed until Campion Hall was extended in the early 1980s.

Over the years, the Campus School has worked with various public and private agencies and public school systems, responding to or anticipating trends and developments in special education and health care -- but always, says DiMattia, "focusing on the poorest of the poor, the kids who face the most challenges."

DiMattia plans to spend more time with his family, do some writing and if possible remain active with EagleEyes. He will, of course, maintain an avid interest in the Campus School and the issues before it.

"One of the most significant developments is that children with multiple disabilities are living longer than ever before," he says. "This has all kinds of implications for health care, education, public policy -- but above all for the children and their families. What quality of life can they expect, and how can we, and others, help them achieve this?

"To me, the Campus School is still coming into its own -- it's an unpolished pearl. So I think the next challenge for the school is take the bushel off the flame and show its light to the world." •