Inspirational Mom of 5 Who Is Blind Graduates with Honors, Celebrated Alongside Her Guide Dog

When Amanda Juetten, a 47-year-old mother of five from Tennessee, walked across the stage at Tennessee Tech University on May 9 to accept her magna cum laude degree, she could not see the faces of her cheering family in the crowd—she is totally blind. But despite the darkness surrounding her, Juetten says she felt more certain than ever about her future. “I’m totally blind,” Juetten explained. “So I’ve got my guide dog by my side.” She described how two fellow graduates helped her navigate the stage, saying, “The two guys I was sitting by told me to follow them — we were a team. I’m concentrating on shaking all the hands and getting across the stage. I was thinking, ‘This isn’t the end. It’s really the beginning of what’s next.’”

Juetten’s journey to graduation has not been a straight path. Nearly three decades ago, she began college but set aside her education after becoming a mother right out of high school. She worked to support her new family, putting further studies on hold. Years later, Juetten returned to higher education. However, her progress was interrupted again in 2020, when her vision, already deteriorating due to retinitis pigmentosa, faded entirely. “I was left totally blind with no skills for blindness,” she recounted. “Over the years, I had been taught a lot of skills for using my remaining vision, but not what to do with no vision at all.”

Determined to regain her independence, Juetten enrolled in an intensive eight-month training program at the Colorado Center for the Blind. There, she learned vital skills and met others who showed her what was possible. “Blind people are not sitting in their basements waiting for the end. They’re out there living their lives, and I wanted to do that, too,” she said. Returning home with newfound confidence, Juetten rejoined the academic world in fall 2022, pursuing a professional studies degree focused on organizational leadership. She praised her instructors at Tennessee Tech for their support and willingness to make her coursework accessible:

• “The instructors were asking, ‘What are your needs? How can I make this accessible to you?’”
• “They have been fantastic for doing that. I never got pushback.”

Now, Juetten is channeling her energy and experience into advocacy, striving to give the blind community a stronger voice. “I have a voice and I love to use it. I want to help give people the skills to find their voice. We need more teachers and more people in the field who believe in the full capacity of the blind,” she stated. Her ambitions don’t stop with her bachelor’s degree. Juetten plans to pursue graduate study in blindness rehabilitation and hopes to teach others as a vocational rehabilitation vendor, offering guidance in assistive technology and Braille. She has already traveled to Washington, D.C., to lobby for blindness-related causes and to San Francisco to protest discrimination against people with service animals.

In addition to her advocacy work, Juetten serves on the board of the National Federation of the Blind of Tennessee and is a former president of the Tennessee Association of Guide Dog Users. Her guide dog, Colonel, remains a constant companion and source of support. For those facing blindness, Juetten offers a message of resilience: “You still have the same hopes and dreams,” she said. “All of those things that you wanted to do before you were blind, you still want to do those things. So let's find a way to do that.”