John Meyer Slatin

John Meyer Slatin John Meyer Slatin, a pioneer in making the Internet accessible to people with disabilities and the author of a leading scholarly work on the poet Marianne Moore, died March 24 at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. The cause of death was complications from treatment for leukemia, which he had battled for nearly three years. He was 55 years old. At the time of his death, John was director of the Accessibility Institute, professor of Rhetoric and Composition, and a member of the English Department graduate faculty at the University of Texas at Austin. John traveled internationally to spread the message of making the Internet fully accessible to people with disabilities as a cornerstone of all Web page design. He was consistently featured as a keynote speaker at conferences on the topic of web accessibility. He co-authored "Maximum Accessibility," a leading text on the subject, with Sharron Rush. He led the effort for University of Texas to become ranked as #1 in web accessibility. In 2007, he served as co-chair of the Worldwide Web Consortium (W3C) on Accessible Design, to lead an international committee of experts in drafting standards for Website accessibility that could be implemented by designers in any language for people with vision, hearing, mobility and other impairments. John's achievements as a professor Department of Rhetoric and English Department included his innovative directorship of the Computer Writing and Research Lab. In 1986, while teaching in the UT English Department, the Penn. State Press published his book on Marianne Moore, "The Savage's Romance," a work that grew out of his Ph.D thesis at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore. John went to Hopkins immediately after receiving his Bachelors Degree from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor in 1973. After he received his Masters degree and doctorate, he taught at Middlebury College in Vermont for one year before accepting his position in the English Dept. at UT Austin. John recently participated in a dance called "Sextet" created by choreographer Allison Orr. The dance featured two professional dancers, two blind people and their guide dogs. "Sextet" was performed at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. in 2006. In Austin, John led a rich life with friends and colleagues from UT, the world of accessible technology, and family members. With his wife, Anna Carroll, he danced frequently with Austin Body Choir, an improvisational world music dance group held at the Austin Yoga School. John grew up in Buffalo, NY, where he was born in 1952. He was the son of Myles Slatin, a professor of English at the State University of New York at Buffalo, and Diana Bluestein Slatin. Along with Anna, John is survived by children, Mason, and Ledia, and grandchild, Wolf, all of San Francisco; his father, Myles, of Buffalo; and his brother, Peter, of Manhattan. John's longtime guide dog, Dillon, who also is suffering from cancer, lives in Austin with Anna. A Memorial Service will be held on Sunday, March 30th at 2:00 p.m. at the University of Texas Alumni Center, 2110 San Jacinto Blvd. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made in John Slatin's name to VSA Arts of Texas, 3710 Cedar Street, Austin, TX 78705 or Guide Dogs for the Blind, P.O. Box 151200, San Rafael, CA 94915.