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$NTID L\Tewslil\TE F$ NTID FOCUS Publication of the National Technical Institute for the Deaf at Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, NY 14623 Fall 1984 2 From the 11 A Movable Feast 26 Nancy Cook Smith: Director's Desk NTID offers an appealing menu of Spinning Gold resources on deafness. A successful cexrile designer shares her "words on confidence." 3 The Whole World Loves This Clown 13 Stepping Across the Threshold Debbie Rennie wows 'em in Brno. Co-op supervisors find out what it's like co hear the sounds of silence. 18 All Fired Up Patcy Vogel Mullins shapes her 29 FOCUS on ... destiny in ceramics. Jean.-GuyNaud Even sans panes, this teacher commands che respect of his students. 5 Building Dreams Brid11es, hi11hways, roads, and dams . ... This curriculum is orienced around "making things." 31 Newsline NTID Focus is published by the Divi A "Force" for sion of Public Affairs at the National 8 Technical Institute for the Deaf and Disabled Persons Communications at Rochester Institute 21 ''Sexually Speaking" of Te chnology, Rochester, New York. He may «ear black, baa chi.I atRIT Director Writers acwr is no t•illain. Michael R. Franco Emily Andrcano The truch according co Dr. Ruth. Editor Ann Kanter Marcia B. Dugan Richard Schm1dle Publications Photographers Coordinator John Danicic 23 A Gentleman and Kathleen Sullivan A. Sue We1slcr Art Director Contributing a Scholar John Massey Photographers lan Cook Desi ner From Omaha, Nebraska, LO NTID g Steve Hocbtctn .... Professor Ed Scoucen's Rohert Chandler Th., Louis Studio distinguished career m deaf Rodman Reilly education. Peter Tigler This material was produced through an agreement between Rochester lnstirute ofTechnology and the U.S. Department The shaded nature trails found behind Grace of Educauon. Warson Hall offer a cool alternative tO a hot summer day on campus. 1 Leadership in the Classroom .. and Beyond he term "outreach" at NTID You will read in this issue of NTID From the Director's Desk symbolizes the many ways in Focus about British actor David Prowse, Twhich the Institute shares infor better known to millions as "Darth mation about the academic programs of Vader" of the Star Wars film series, who NTIO and the other colleges of RIT, its is affiliated with NOD and other disabil students and graduates, and deafness in ity causes in his native England. general. Outreach goes beyond distrib You also will read about outreach that uting publications, brochures, and prod occurs when NTID hosts visitors who ucts to interested audiences worldwide; leave the Institute with a new perspec it also involves faculty and staff members tive on deafness and the technological who, in a variety of ways, share their programs available to deaf students expertise about deafness and represent through RIT. NTID at RIT outside the Institute. Radio talk show host Dr. Ruth West NTID outreach includes involvement heimer and textile designer Nancy Cook in organizations of and for deaf persons, Smith, both of whom recently visited such as the National Association of the RIT, are examples of this. Smith, a Deaf, the American Deafness and Reha hearing-impaired woman who has a suc bilitation Association, the American cessful retail career in California, related Speech-Language-Hearing Association, that her interaction with NTID students the Con fcrence of Executives of Ameri and faculty members has inspired her to can Schools for the Deaf, the Conven learn sign language, a skill that she did tion of American Instructors of the not acquire during her mainstreamed Deaf, the Registry of lnterpreters for the education. Deaf, and the Alexander Graham Bell Finally, outreach is accomplished Association for the Deaf(AGBAD), the every day through the efforts of faculty last of which I recently ended my term as members such as Ed Scouten and Jean president. Guy Naud, and graduates such as Patty The two years that I spent as leader of Vogel Mullins and Debbie Rennie. that organization were productive in NTlD is committed to continuing and terms of creating awareness of deafness expanding its role as a resource for edu -and NTID at RIT -for audiences cational and general information about around the world. I am fortunate tO still deafness and NTID. In so doing, we perform that role as past president of hope to inform an ever-widening audi AGBAD and through service on the ence that there is a place where hearing board of directors of the National Orga impaired persons can obtain a quality nization on Disability (NOD), a non technological education, and that place profit organization dedicated to improv is Rochester Institute of Technology. ing the lives of America's 35 million disabled persons, including those who are deaf. Prize of the Wo rld Federation of the "I haven't established rules," she says. lfo:hard Schmidle By Deaf. "l can actually run, or change to a mime "When they announced the winner, I run. I'm closer to clowning techniques. I t three minutes after 9 o'clock was confused," Rennie recalls." I thought prefer more of the traditional clown." on a dreary winter morning, the prize was being awarded to the Fair, Shunning the customary whiteface A Debbie Rennie bursts into the mount Theatre, to the whole group. l and black costume of formal mime, she room, rosy cheeked and a little out of didn't know that they had singled out breath, and tosses her coat onto a chair. my performance." She is animated and expressive, a petite President Reagan later wrote to con, engine running at full steam. The images gratulate her: "While some may con, fly from her hands and fill the room: a sider deafness a handicap, you and your greeting, an introduction, an explana, colleagues have dedicated yourself to a tion, an apology. very challenging art form with very Eyes wide, arms outstretched, she encouraging results. l commend your describes a monstrous pile of snow efforts and I hope that you continue to blocking her driveway. With her back meet with success." bent under the weight of an imaginary Tr aditional mime artists follow strict shovel, she works her way across the rules of movement, but Rennie has her floor: scoop, toss, scoop, toss, in search own style. of her buried car. The performance is spontaneous, her plight is genuine. In her snowbound tra, vcler you see Everyman and Everywo, man, beset by trouble and determined to overcome it. Empathy opens your heart bounds around the stage in bright and laughter tumbles out. checkered pantaloons, wide red suspend, Humor comes naturally to Rennie, ers, and a green cutaway overcoat. Her both in casual conversation and on hazel eyes, giant smile, and cherry,red stage. Last November, the NTID student nose are framed by a huge bow tie and wowed an international audience in wild curls of shoulder,length chestnut Brno, Czechoslovakia, where she com, hair. A single white daisy sprouts from peted with 200 mimes from 12 nations her tasseled hat. at the Eighth Annual international Pan, But Rennie is not a three,ring circus, tomime Festival of the Deaf. Her clown, pie,in,the,face clown. Her message is mime performancewith the Cleveland, simple and subtly delivered: open up, based Fairmount Theatre of the Deaf communicate, share joy, and appreciate won the festival'st0p award, the Grand life. broadened her acting skills. Last fall, she returned to RIT to study graphic design. "Debbie thinks she is underplaying, but she is three times bigger than life," says Jerome Cushman, associate profes sor of theatre ar NTID. "She can make things seem so vivid, so clear. "In the theatre, she has always played the comedienne, the clown-like charac "I love it when the audience falls in ter, mostly because of her pliable, expres "I want ro keep performing forever," love with my clowning," she says. "Then sive face. She is very intelligent. The au Rennie says. "But I can't depend on it I fall in love with the audience." dience laughs with her and at her, but at for a living. My plans are nor definite. Opening your heart to people on stage the same time is delighted by the intrica One possibility is a career in graphic can be risky, she admits, "but I'll give cies and complexities of her character. design with free-lance clowning. my love no matter what, even if they Basically, she is reaching sign language "One of my strongest desires is to don't give back. My love may still make and movement." work with deaf children. They miss an impression on them larer." Of all the emotions she displays on abstractions when they are young. lt is Love and pantomime may be univer stage, Rennie says sadness and dejection easier for them to learn concrete con sal, but Rennie recalls a skit in Brno are easiest to convey; anger is the most cepts-chair, book, table. Through the when local culture got in rhe way. On difficult. Offstage, the problem is the performing arts, they can learn ab stage, she struggled with an imaginary same. stractions." catsup bottle that refused to pour. In the "If I'm angry, people think I'm teas The humor sneaks in without warn United States, the routine draws laughs; ing. They don't think I'm serious." ing. She is fingerspelling, halfwaythrough the Czechs were only mildly amused. Rennie's frequent displays of im a long word, when her right hand stum Catsup, she discovered later, is not a promptu humor arc punctuated by bles. The conversation stops. She scowls common table item there. serious moments. A question about her in rebuke at the uncooperative fingers.

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