Deafweekly May 3, 2006 Deafweekly

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

Deafweekly May 3, 2006 Deafweekly Deafweekly May 3, 2006 deafweekly May 3, 2006 Vol. 2 No. 28 Editor: Tom Willard Deafweekly is an independent news report for the deaf and hard-of-hearing community that is mailed to subscribers every Wednesday and available to read at www.deafweekly.com. Please visit our website to read current and back issues, sign up for a subscription and advertise. Deafweekly is copyrighted 2006 and any unauthorized use, including reprinting of news, is prohibited. Please support our advertisers; they make it possible for you to receive Deafweekly at no charge. ++++ADV+++++ADV+++++ADV++++ IP-VRS JUST GOT BETTER Good news! IP-RELAY.com just launched a new feature making your Video Relay experience better than ever! Now, upon connecting to IP-VRS, you are greeted by a welcome screen. No more guessing if you are connected to IP-VRS. You will be pleased to see how fast we answer your call and connect you to a certified video interpreter. Try it now! You can reach IP-VRS by dialing tv.ipvrs.com from your videophone or http://www.ip-vrs.com/ on your computer. See for yourself why so many people choose IP-RELAY.com as their VRS provider of choice. IP-VRS: We’re Working for You ++++ADV+++++ADV+++++ADV++++ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ GALLAUDET +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ JANE K. FERNANDES NAMED GALLAUDET’S NEXT PRESIDENT Jane K. Fernandes has been appointed Gallaudet University’s ninth president. Fernandes, Gallaudet’s provost since 2000, will take office in January 2007 after I. King Jordan retires. Her appointment was announced at a campus convocation Monday by Celia May Baldwin, interim chair of the university’s board of http://www.deafweekly.com/backissues/050306.htm[6/15/2011 1:59:31 PM] Deafweekly May 3, 2006 trustees. “Gallaudet is extremely fortunate to have Dr. Jane Fernandes as our next president,” said Baldwin. “It would be difficult, if not impossible, for the board to find anyone with greater breadth or depth of experience.” Said Fernandes: “I am humbled and honored by the decision of the board.” NEW PRESIDENT HAS A VARIED BACKGROUND Gallaudet’s new president is a deaf Worcester, Mass. native who attended public schools and earned degrees in French and comparative literature from Trinity College in Connecticut. Jane Fernandes went on to earn M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in comparative literature from the University of Iowa and work for Northeastern University before coming to Gallaudet as chair of the Department of Sign Communication. She later moved to Hawaii, where she established the Interpreter Education Program at Kapi’olani Community College and served five years as director of the Hawaii Center for the Deaf and Blind. Fernandes returned to Gallaudet in 1995 as Vice President for the Laurent Clerc National Deaf Education Center. Her new book, “Signs of Eloquence: a Study of Deaf American Public Address (with husband James Fernandes), will soon be printed, and she is scheduled to give the keynote address at the First World Congress in Bangkok, Thailand later this month. STUDENTS QUICK TO BEGIN PROTESTING Gallaudet students began protesting the selection of Jane Fernandes as president as soon as her selection was announced Monday afternoon. The Washingon Post noted in its online edition Monday that “within moments, hundreds of students had blocked the main gates of the campus. Some shouted. Some scrawled angry word on their stomachs ... Hands flying in American Sign Language, they roared, ‘We want to be heard!’” Criticism of Fernandes has centered on personality, said the Post, with many calling her cold, aloof and condescending. Harkening back to 1988's Deaf President Now movement, which ushered in I. King Jordan as Gallaudet’s first deaf president, students quickly came up with a new rallying cry: “Better President Now.” CAMPUS GATES REMAIN BLOCKED ON SECOND DAY OF PROTESTS By Tuesday, several dozen Gallaudet students were engaged in a second day of protests, with about 20 students laying prone inside the main gate of the campus, preventing cars from entering or exiting. Other students parked cars at a second exit to block it, reported the Washington Post. A third group kept a vigil through the night and planned to meet with university administrators. “This generation of students has new expectations and new demands,” said the Post, but they found “that the board of trustees once again was ignoring the campus community.” I. King Jordan, in an email, endorsed Fernandes and said the board would not revisit its decision. TENT CITY POPS UP ON THIRD DAY OF PROTEST By the third day of protests, 1,000 protestors had gathered for an afternoon rally, said the Washington Post, and organizers urged people to bring tents and sleeping bags for a overnight candlelight vigil. A letter with a list of demands was presented to Jane Fernandes and I. King Jordan, who said he would turn it over to the board of trustees. Late in the day, a hill on the Northeast Washington, D.C. campus was packed with students in tents and on blankets, with banners taped to the gates. But not everyone approved: “What you saw today, it’s only how part of this university feels,” said Geoff Whitebread, a graduate student. “We feel the process was fair. There’s no reason to rescind the board’s decision.” BOARD OF TRUSTEES CHAIR DEFENDS PROCESS Celia May Baldwin, interim chair of Gallaudet’s board of trustees, informed the community in a memo Saturday that she and the board had met with the Presidential Search Committee (PSC) and was “convinced http://www.deafweekly.com/backissues/050306.htm[6/15/2011 1:59:31 PM] Deafweekly May 3, 2006 that the PSC carried out its task in a thorough and just manner.” She acknowledged that others may not share her assessment, but “we believe that the PSC worked hard and with integrity toward meeting their charge from the Board.” Baldwin said 38 people were nominated and 24 applied for the job, with 21 being deaf or hard of hearing. Six were then chosen as semi-finalists, with three of the six being either women or people of color. The PSC then selected three finalists: Jane Fernandes, Ronald Stern and Stephen Weiner. “Was it difficult for the committee to decide on the three finalists, given the quality of the candidates?” she wrote. “Absolutely; but that is the nature of a presidential search.” BATTLING RESOLUTIONS SHOW DIFFERENCE OF OPINION A resolution from the Gallaudet University faculty last Monday, April 24, called on the board of trustees to postpone selecting a president until the fall and add "persons of diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds to the existing pool of candidates.” Faculty members passed a second resolution, two days later, saying the first resolution had been passed by a small group of 35 people. "We do not support the Resolution passed at the General Faculty meeting on April 24, 2006,” it stated, while also thanking and acknowledging Glenn Anderson for more than 10 years of service as chairman of Gallaudet’s board of trustees. Anderson, who is black, resigned as chairman when he applied for the presidency but was not chosen as a finalist for the job. BLACK DEAF ADVOCATES HOLD PRESS CONFERENCE The National Black Deaf Advocates announced that it would hold a press conference addressing the selection of Gallaudet’s president. According to the NBDA’s Tom Samuels, the Black Deaf Student Union and Asian Pacific Associations of Gallaudet University would participate in the conference, scheduled to take place yesterday morning at Shiloh Baptist Church in Washington. Additional organizations, while not participating, “had publicly gone on record to support the lack of diversity” in the search process, he said. The announcement called it “paradoxical” that the search committee had “managed to eradicate” the university’s goals of diversity, inclusiveness and multiculturalism “by deeming even the former President of the Board of Trustees unqualified as a finalist.” GALLYPRESWATCH WEBSITE GOES DARK The GallyPresWatch website, which had kept a close eye on the presidential selection process, disappeared mysteriously this week, shortly after it announced Jane Fernandes’ selection as president and registered more than 35 pages of comments in response. Tayler Mayer, whose Los Angeles-based TaylerInfomedia designed the site for creators who never revealed their identity, said 33,677 people visited the site during the brief time it was up, leaving 415,742 footprints and posting 4,055 comments – 1,025 in the final 24 hours after Fernandes' selection was announced. “I haggled with [the creators] trying to postpone the site closing,” said Mayer, but to no avail. Visitors to GallyPresWatch.com are now directed to Fomdi.com, Mayer’s captioned movies website. Mayer plans to send a CD of the website to the Gallaudet archives for historic purposes. NUMBER OF WEBSITES KEEP EYE ON SITUATION A number of other websites can help keep you filled in on the reaction to Gallaudet’s selection of Jane Fernandes as its next president: http://pr.gallaudet.edu/presidentialsearch – The university’s official site, where, among other things, you can read the letters of application and resumes of the three finalists and see who is on the board of trustees. www.deafspot.net/gallypost/index.html – GallyPost.com, an uncensored site not sanctioned by the university. http://www.deafweekly.com/backissues/050306.htm[6/15/2011 1:59:31 PM] Deafweekly May 3, 2006 www.notwithoutus.org – “The Gallaudet community for a fair Presidential selection.” www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/654622934?ltl=1146661190 – a petition site that has attracted more than 2,000 signatures to reopen the presidential search process. www.xanga.com/elisa_abenchuchan – Xanga blog with detailed on-the-scene reportage. www.ridorlive.com – “Observe But Do Not Interfere,” Ricky Taylor’s blog with information and comments about the protest.
Recommended publications
  • FY 2018 Annual Report of Achievements
    Annual Report of Achievements October 1, 2017–September 30, 2018 Front cover photos, left to right. Second row, middle photo: Seniors excitedly show off their tassels after making the rounds at Gradfest. Gradfest is a “one‑stop shop” event First row, first photo: Shellane McKitty raises her arms as part of a Black for graduating students to gather information, pick up their regalia, Student Union performance at UnityFest, an annual festival celebrating purchase their class rings, and finalize all arrangements for their the different cultures and traditions on campus. upcoming Commencement. Annual Report of Achievements First row, middle photo: Dr. Khadijat Rashid, Dean of the School of Second row, last photo: Dr. Daniel Lundberg teaches a chemistry course October 1, 2017–September 30, 2018 Education, Business and Human Services, delivers welcome remarks and in the department’s state of the art chemistry lab. Dr. Lundberg is one thanks to all who attended the Pan African Dinner. The dinner was one of the many Gallaudet professors preparing students to make a real of the many activities leading up to the Nigerian MOU signing. difference in the sciences. First row, last photo: Recent Gallaudet graduate Marissa Rivera poses in Last row, first photo: A member of the Gallaudet swim team glides to the the hallway of the Longworth House Office Building where she interned finish line with practiced precision and ease during a meet. with Congressional representative Mark Takano (D‑Calif). Last row, last photo: Dr. Audrey Cooper, assistant professor and director Second row, first photo: In the Motion Light Lab, founder and creator of the International Development Program, gives a classroom lecture to Melissa Malzkuhn demonstrates motion capture while signing graduate students.
    [Show full text]
  • Themes and Symbols in ASL Poetry: Resistance, Affirmation, and Liberation 1
    -- Themes and Symbols in ASL Poetry: Resistance, Affirmation, and Liberation 1 Karen Christie and Dorothy M.Wilkins (3) ~ Deaf Worlds Submitted 19/09/06 125 2007 I vol 22 (3) Accepted26/10/06 Forest Books ~ ISSN 1362-3125 Page Key words Analysis of signed poetry, De'VIA works, Post-colonial Literary Theory, :try: Resistance, Cultural Resistance, Cultural Affirmation, Cultural Liberation 'ns "Much of my work depicts the Deaf experience. .the suppression, and the beauty, of Deaf Culture and American Sign Language as I see it.. ."2 tal audism Betty G. Miller so Abstract This paper analyzes themes and symbols in a number of works of poetry in American Sign Language. In particular, the expression of themes of resistance to oppressive elements of the dominant (hearing) culture and affirmation of the values of Deaf American culture will be identified and eaf/hearingfamily S71 described in various poetic works. For analysis, definitions of resistance and affirmation are borrowed from Durr and Grcevic (1999) and Durr (1999/2000) who applied these concepts to the works of Deaf artists ation and Deaf People: striving to represent the Deaf experience. Our analysis confirms that there exists a thriving tradition of ASL poetic works which can be described as S86 having themes and symbols of resistance and affirmation. Because a number of poems were found to depict the journey from resistance to affirmation, ... -.. ... ...... .., ...~" ~"" V).."'v» 111""L i'U<;lI}: "C~I~Wncc, AlIlrmation, and Liberation Karen Christie and Dorothy M. Wilkins. DW(22)3:2007 a third theme, called liberation, was created. Furthermore, we propose that Ormsby (1995), Peters (2000), Sutton-Spence (2001), and Taub (2001) these poems can be viewed as part of both postcolonial literature literary have focused on close analysis of particular ASL/BSL poems and the studies and the basic tenets established by the De'VIA Manifesto.
    [Show full text]
  • Themes and Symbols in ASL Poetry: Resistance, Affirmation, and Liberation Karen Christie
    Rochester Institute of Technology RIT Scholar Works Articles 2007 Themes and symbols in ASL poetry: Resistance, affirmation, and liberation Karen Christie Dorothy Wilkins Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarworks.rit.edu/article Recommended Citation Christie, Karen and Wilkins, Dorothy, "Themes and symbols in ASL poetry: Resistance, affirmation, and liberation" (2007). Accessed from http://scholarworks.rit.edu/article/1001 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by RIT Scholar Works. It has been accepted for inclusion in Articles by an authorized administrator of RIT Scholar Works. For more information, please contact [email protected]. -- Themes and Symbols in ASL Poetry: Resistance, Affirmation, and Liberation 1 Karen Christie and Dorothy M.Wilkins (3) ~ Deaf Worlds Submitted 19/09/06 125 2007 I vol 22 (3) Accepted26/10/06 Forest Books ~ ISSN 1362-3125 Page Key words Analysis of signed poetry, De'VIA works, Post-colonial Literary Theory, :try: Resistance, Cultural Resistance, Cultural Affirmation, Cultural Liberation 'ns "Much of my work depicts the Deaf experience. .the suppression, and the beauty, of Deaf Culture and American Sign Language as I see it.. ."2 tal audism Betty G. Miller so Abstract This paper analyzes themes and symbols in a number of works of poetry in American Sign Language. In particular, the expression of themes of resistance to oppressive elements of the dominant (hearing) culture and affirmation of the values of Deaf American culture will be identified and eaf/hearingfamily S71 described in various poetic works. For analysis, definitions of resistance and affirmation are borrowed from Durr and Grcevic (1999) and Durr (1999/2000) who applied these concepts to the works of Deaf artists ation and Deaf People: striving to represent the Deaf experience.
    [Show full text]
  • Through Deaf Eyes Weta and Florentine Films/Hott Productions, Inc
    THROUGH DEAF EYES WETA AND FLORENTINE FILMS/HOTT PRODUCTIONS, INC. JANUARY 10, 2007 THIS SCRIPT INCORPORATES THE CORRECTED NARRATION. ###MARKS THE BEGINNING AND ENDING OF OPEN CAPTION SECTIONS. THESE SECTIONS DO NOT REQUIRE CLOSED CAPTIONS. Words Appear: “The following program is available in high-definition TV.” Now, Actor and Director CJ Jones signs as he speaks. CJ JONES: I was driving down on the freeway, oh it was a beautiful day. All the birds were flying and all the birds were singing and all the birds dropping, hey you, quack quack quack, I got you. He swerves and shows a bird hitting his face, then falling. All of a sudden I look through the rear view mirror, the guy behind me was so angry, honk, honk, honk. “Hey you, what are you deaf, huh?” Well that makes me angry, of course I’m deaf and proud. So I step on the gas. Oh, by the way I have a Mercedes 500 ACL. I’m rich and deaf, thank you very much. Finally I caught up with that car. Automatic window. It rolls down. Hey you, what are you hearing, huh? I. King Jordan, former president, Gallaudet University, signs as he speaks. I. KING JORDAN: When you talk to people who can hear and you ask them what do you think it would be like to be a deaf person? Then all of their thinking is well, I couldn’t do this. Can’t, can’t, can’t, can’t, can’t. They would start listing all the things they can’t do.
    [Show full text]
  • A Second Look at Identity Politics in Relation to the 1988 and 2006 Protests at Gallaudet University
    Perforating Tympanic Walls: A Second Look at Identity Politics in Relation to the 1988 and 2006 Protests at Gallaudet University Paige Elizabeth Franklin Bachelors, Psychology, May 1991, Gallaudet University Masters, Deaf Education, May 1995 Gallaudet University Masters, Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages, December 1999, American University Masters, English Language and Literature, December 2005, University of Maryland A Dissertation submitted to The Faculty of Columbian College of Arts and Sciences of The George Washington University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy January 31, 2010 Dissertation directed by Daniel Moshenberg Associate Professor of English The Columbian College of Arts and Sciences of The George Washington University certifies that Paige Elizabeth Franklin has passed the Final Examination for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy as of December 3, 2009. This is the final and approved form of the dissertation. Perforating Tympanic Walls: A Second Look at Identity Politics in Relation to the 1988 and 2006 Protests at Gallaudet University Paige Elizabeth Franklin Dissertation Research Committee: Daniel Moshenberg, Associate Professor of English, Dissertation Director Robert McRuer, Professor of English, Committee Member Tonya M Stremlau, Professor of English at Gallaudet University, Committee Member ii Copyright 2010 by Paige Elizabeth Franklin All rights reserved iii Acknowledgements I am grateful to my dissertation committee, Dan Moshenberg (chair), Robert (Bob) McRuer, and Tonya Stremlau, for patiently working with me through my writing process. I am also grateful to James J Mahshie for agreeing to serve as the fourth reader and on the defense team. Not only Dan, a women studies and activism studies scholar, cheered me through (Yay! You go!), he also wrote many many emails with praises for each chapter (all six of them) and suggested how I could shape my arguments.
    [Show full text]
  • Important Note to Readers
    View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by UC Research Repository Important note to readers: This paper is the final draft version of the published article. Readers wishing to cite from this work for scholarly purposes are advised to consult the definitive, published version (below). Citation: Kensicki, L.J. (2001) Deaf President Now! Positive Media Framing of a Social Movement within a Hegemonic Political Environment. Journal of Communication Inquiry, 25(2), pp. 147‐166. Source: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0196859901025002005 Deaf President Now! Positive Media Framing of a Social Movement Within a Hegemonic Political Environment Linda Jean Kensicki The University of Texas at Austin 503 Franklin Boulevard Austin, Texas 78751 USA Tel. 512.467.7190 Fax. 512.467.7190 [email protected] Deaf President Now! Positive Media Framing of a Social Movement Within a Hegemonic Political Environment Introduction In the past forty years, social movements have galvanized thousands of people into collective action. Modern movements have closed nuclear plants, created affirmative action legislation, raised the working salaries of women and saved certain species from extinction. The power of collective action has forever altered modern society. By examining movements from a historical context and researching what factors created success or facilitated a movement’s failure, scholars have the opportunity to better inform present movements and thus effect social change. Discovering how one movement succeeded in achieving their goals in the past may help explicate why another will fail in the future. The Deaf President Now movement has much to teach those who study movements and those who hope to benefit from what is learned.
    [Show full text]
  • The Best American Poetry You'll Never Read
    The Best American Poetry You’ll Never Read Larry Polansky 3/18/13 revision: 5/2/15 “the poets who do not write. … they make poetry out of handfuls of air” (John Lee Clark) A few months ago, my friend Kenny Lerner sent me a link to a new poem on YouTube, called “Made in the USA,” by himself and collaborator Peter Cook. Together, as Flying Words Project, they perform often, all over the world. They live in different cities, so their habit is to create new poems in hotel rooms while on the road. “Made in the USA” is a poem about epidemics, sneezing, DNA, social ills, the great connectivity of the universe, and lots of other things. Full of inventive imagery, each line propulsively spawns the next. Typical of Flying Words Project poems, it starts personal, gets political, and ends up back where it started. One particularly effective and unusual moment in the poem depicts a ray of sunlight piercing a bead of sweat. If it were a conventional poem, I could quote that part here, and you could decide for yourself if it was “effective and unusual.” I can’t do that. Lerner and Cook work in American Sign Language (ASL). The image I refer to involves Cook using the same handshape simultaneously in both hands — in this case the bent index finger — to represent a ray of sunlight piercing a dripping bead of sweat. Both hands use the same motion, perpendicular to each other. Two ideas, one piercing the other. One image. I considered how I might translate this into English.
    [Show full text]
  • SASL Journal, Volume 1, Number 1
    Society for American Sign Language Journal Volume 1 Number 1 Article 1 SASL Journal, Volume 1, Number 1 Follow this and additional works at: https://tigerprints.clemson.edu/saslj Part of the American Sign Language Commons, and the Education Commons Recommended Citation () "SASL Journal, Volume 1, Number 1," Society for American Sign Language Journal: Vol. 1 : No. 1 , Article 1. Available at: https://tigerprints.clemson.edu/saslj/vol1/iss1/1 This Full Issue is brought to you for free and open access by TigerPrints. It has been accepted for inclusion in Society for American Sign Language Journal by an authorized editor of TigerPrints. For more information, please contact [email protected]. et al.: SASL Journal, Volume 1, Number 1 SASL Journal Volume 1, Number 1 Fall/Winter 2017 A Society for American Sign Language Publication ISSN: 2474-8277 (online) Published by TigerPrints, 1 Society for American Sign Language Journal, Vol. 1 [], No. 1, Art. 1 SASL Journal Volume 1, Number 1 Editor-in-Chief Jody H. Cripps Department of Audiology, Speech-Language Pathology & Deaf Studies Towson University 8000 York Rd. Towson, MD 21252 [email protected] Fax: 410 704-4131 Copyeditors Betsy McDonald Sheryl B. Cooper Georgetown University (Retired) Towson University Andrew P. J. Byrne Framingham State University SASL Board of Directors Samuel J. Supalla - President Deirdre Schlehofer - Vice President University of Arizona Rochester Institute of Technology Andrew P. J. Byrne - Secretary Harvey Nathanson - Treasurer Framingham State University Austin Community College Gabriel Arellano Jody H. Cripps Georgetown University Towson University Ronald Fenicle Russell S. Rosen Montgomery College CUNY - Staten Island Copyright © 2017 A Society for American Sign Language Publication.
    [Show full text]
  • Identity Politics Gone Wild Thursday, April 5, 2007 10:24:03 AM America/Denver
    PREVIEW: Identity Politics Gone Wild Thursday, April 5, 2007 10:24:03 AM America/Denver Identity Politics Gone Wild The Deaf culture wars at Gallaudet University. by Charlotte Allen 04/02/2007, Volume 012, Issue 28 Last September and October it was the 1960s all over again at Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C. All the elements were present from that bygone era of militant campus radicalism: the student protesters with their linked arms and picket signs, the hunger strike, the sprawling, slovenly tent city where students camped out instead of sleeping in their dorms, the occupation of buildings, the invasion of administrators' offices, the cessation of classes, the shutdown of university business, the campus lockout that included chained gates and a denial of entry to all except those who supported the protesters. Finally, on October 13, there were mass arrests of gone-limp demonstrators--133 in all--that made presumed martyrs out of those who suffered minor injuries in the scuffles. All that was missing from this 2006 version of those heady days of 40 years ago was Mark Rudd and his famous bullhorn. That would have been unnecessary, however, for Gallaudet is a university for the deaf, founded by an act of Congress in 1864, the nation's only liberal-arts college with the specific mission of providing higher education for students who cannot hear or are hard of hearing. Gallaudet, named after the famous 19th-century deaf-educator Thomas Gallaudet, is structured as a private institution, with about 1,800 students (1,200 of whom are full-time undergraduates), but U.S.
    [Show full text]
  • Deaf Theatre ~ Presents
    .. - -- -- -- --- -- --.- -.-..-- -- --------.-.--~0"" ;.1 ~! i LIGHTS ON! Deaf theatre ~ presents: • D1Dg- A PLAY OF OUR OWN" Rochester School for the Deaf November 12.15, 1992 • • • • • Directed by Vicki Nordquist • Written by Dorothy Miles • Producted by LIGHTS ON! Deaf theatre • \''b--~\o'~~ ~L>L~ ~~[\0.\N<S" A PLAY QE OUR Ol'lN In three short Acts Dcvtlloped by the HARTFORD THESPIANS under the direction of Dorothy rUles t-'\.~'\ \q~~ Recorded in writing by DOROTHY MILES CHARACTERS IN ORDER OF APPEARANCE DOnA DANIELS: Deaf. Age between 45 and 50. At her first enterance, in Act I, she is wearing some kind of apron or smock over her dress to show that she is doing housework. At the beginning of Act II, she is dressed for going out--something plain but suitable for wearing at dinner later. She should be fluent in the sign language, but may choose between using idiomatic signs and "Signed English," except where the script calls for specific idioms. She does not speak, but can mouth words. Deaf. A little older tban his wife. At his first enterance, he is wearing pajamas with a bathrobe over them--though he may need to be partly dressed ~nder the pajarr~s for a quick change before his second enterance. At this enterance, he is dresRed casual:y--slacks, with a shirt or sweater--bu~ ;;a:nefu::'ly enough to be acceptable to the visitors later. ;Ie wears bed .. uu:~ sltppel''; until after his second exit, then chanBes to socks and shoes. His choice of communication is the same as his wife. THENEIGHEOR: Dear or hard of hearing.
    [Show full text]
  • The “Deaf President Now” Movement at Gallaudet University
    The Week the Deaf Community Made the Hearing World Listen: The “Deaf President Now” Movement at Gallaudet University Dashed Hopes It was March 6, 1988, and a crowd was making its way to the Gallaudet University campus in Washington, DC in anticipation of a historic announcement. Finally, it seemed, the world’s only liberal arts college for the deaf would have a deaf president. Throughout Gallaudet’s 124-year history, it had only been led by hearing people – a painful irony for an institution that was not just a university for the deaf, but also “a beacon for deaf people [around] the world.”1 Still, it was no exception to societal viewpoints “that hearing people are the normal ones and that they should take care of deaf people.”2 For years, deaf people had been stereotyped as “lonely, dependent, uneducated, often tragic figure[s],” rather than as independent and capable individuals.3 As a result, they had struggled against discrimination in fields ranging from education and employment to driving and adoption rights. The appointment of a deaf president at Gallaudet, at long last, would show that deaf people were capable of leading themselves. All that remained was the official announcement from the university’s board of trustees. Two of the three finalists for the presidency – I. King Jordan and Harvey Corson – were deaf, and it seemed certain that the board would select 2 Case Studies one of them rather than the lone hearing candidate, Elisabeth Zinser, who lacked any experience whatsoever with the deaf. “We were so positive that they [would] pick a deaf person,” one activist recalls.4 Upon arriving on campus just before the scheduled announcement, university alumni and employees were stunned to learn that a press release had been hastily passed out two hours earlier, declaring the selection of Zinser as president.
    [Show full text]
  • Collective Identity, Learning and the Deaf Rights Movement
    COLLECTIVE IDENTITY, LEARNING, AND THE DEAF RIGHTS MOVEMENT L'IDENTITÉ COLLECTIVE, L‟APPRENTISSAGE, ET LE MOUVEMENT SOCIAL DES DROITS DES SOURDS Susan S. Lee Social movement learning, as a research area, brings together the scholarly discourses on social movements and learning. The concept of collective identity is well suited for the analysis of social movement learning since learning is an integral component of this new social movement perspective. The criteria for the collective identity concept, as theorized by Alberto Melucci, include cognitive knowledge, a network of active relationships, and emotional engagement, while the analytical components include three axes along the continuums of solidarity and aggregation, maintenance and breaching of limits, and consensus and conflict. This paper will take a case study approach to apply the theory of collective identity and the dimensions of learning to a catalyst in the Deaf rights movement, namely the Deaf President Now protest at Gallaudet University in Washington, DC. The intersections of collective identity and learning within social movements will also be analyzed in relationship to social and legislative changes. Keywords: social movement, learning, collective identity, Deaf rights movement, Gallaudet University, Deaf President Now L‟apprentissage des mouvements sociaux en tant que champ de recherche rassemble les discours scholastiques variés sur les mouvements sociaux et l‟apprentissage lui- même. Le concept de l‟identité collective est pertinent à l‟analyse de l‟apprentissage
    [Show full text]