Deafweekly May 3, 2006 Deafweekly
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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.