Elizabeth Dennison Portrait

Elizabeth Dennison

Director

   Elizabeth Dennison, M.S., is a teacher of the blind and visually impaired with 47 years of experience working with young children with visual impairments.  She received her masters in education of the blind and visually impaired from the University of Northern Colorado.  She considers herself a practitioner at heart and has a passion for her work.

   Elizabeth (Bess) has been working with both the SKI-HI Institute at Utah State University and the Utah Schools for the Deaf and Blind for 40 years. During this time she has maintained an active caseload of young children in early intervention as well as preschool programs through the Utah School for the Blind Parent Infant Program and Outreach. She has also assisted in planning parent workshops, training staff, mentoring new teachers, child data collection for the program, and teaching toddler groups.

    At the SKI-HI Institute, she coordinates the outreach training efforts for the INSITE and VIISA early intervention models.  In her work at SKI-HI, she has written grants, developed curriculum and training materials, and conducted many training sessions in the US as well as overseas.  She currently teaches preschool vision courses for the Vision Personnel Preparation program at the University of Utah. She has presented at national conferences for AER and DEC and served in leadership positions in the preschool division of AER. She has also contributed articles to a variety of newsletters in the preschool vision field.

   In 2000, the National Associations for Education and Rehabilitation of the Blind and Visually Impaired awarded he her the  Berthold Lowenfeld Award for her contributions to the field.  In Fall of 2020 the Utah School for the Deaf and Blind gave her the teacher of the year award.

    Bess lives in Mendon, Utah with her husband, John, who teachers Physics at USU.  They have three children and a 9 year old grandson.  Both daughters are teachers, one in special education and the other in 6th grade science. Their son is an environmental lawyer for the Sierra Club. Bess enjoys being in the out-of-doors hiking or cross country skiing as well as playing the piano.