Turning up the Volume

ABCDE ^kl 1)(/1 Tomorrow: Thunderstorms 86/70 details, C12 SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 2011 pZlabg Turning up the volume At Gallaudet, a longtime haven for deaf students, more undergrads are products of a hearing world without the need for sign language BY DANIEL DE VISE teachers. Together, the changes are redefining a school that sits at the he quiet campus of Gallau- very epicenter of American deaf soci- det University in Northeast ety. Washington was always a A new generation of deaf and hard- place where students could of-hearing children can study where speak the unspoken lan- they please. Changes in federal law Tguage of deaf America and be under- have rerouted deaf students from stood. residential deaf schools to main- That is no longer so true. For the stream public campuses, which are first time in living memory, signifi- now obliged to serve them. Cochlear cant numbers of freshmen at the implants are gaining acceptance and nation’s premiere university for the changing the nature of deafness, al- deaf and hard of hearing arrive lack- though the deaf community remains ing proficiency in American Sign divided on their use. Language and experience with deaf The influx of “non-signers,” who culture. can hear and speak or who read lips or Rising numbers of Gallaudet stu- text, may be necessary for Gallaudet’s dents are products of a hearing world. survival. Yet it has sparked passionate The share of undergraduates who debate on whether the university is come from mainstream public becoming “hearing-ized” and wheth- schools rather than residential er deaf culture is slipping away. schools for the deaf has grown from “We want a signing environment, 33 percent to 44 percent in four years. because how often do deaf students The number of students with cochle- get that environment?” said Dylan ar implants, which stimulate the au- Hinks, 20, student body president. ditory nerve to create a sense of “This is the place where I want to have PHOTOS BY NIKKI KAHN/THE WASHINGTON POST sound, has doubled to 102 since 2005. comfort and ease in my communica- Easter Faafiti, a 22-year-old junior at Gallaudet, Gallaudet is also enrolling more tion.” first learned of the school when she took a sign hearing students in programs to train language course at a community college. sign-language interpreters and gallaudet continued on A16 During lunch at Gallaudet University in the District last week, students use sign language to communicate. KLMNO A16 From Page One EZ SU SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 2011 There was talk of a vanishing deaf culture at Gallaudet five years ago, when protesters shut down the campus over the appointment of then-Provost Jane Fernandes as president. More than 100 demonstrators were ar- rested. Trustees eventually re- voked the appointment. The consensus on campus today is that the protest centered on the propriety of the presidential search. Protesters said outgoing President I. King Jordan hijacked the proceedings to elevate Fer- nandes, his protege. But Fernandes portrayed her- self as a casualty in a deaf-culture war. Born deaf, Fernandes grew up speaking English and learned to sign as an adult. She claimed that, to students advocating the primacy of sign language, she was “not deaf enough.” Fernandes now serves as provost of the University of North Carolina at Asheville. In an e-mail interview, she said, “There re- RICKY CARIOTI/THE WASHINGTON POST mains entrenched at Gallaudet a Sophomores Matthew Williams, left, and Kiara Young converse in sign language. strong deaf culture that perpetu- ates a very narrow way to live as a deaf person.” One year during her tenure as resembles that fractured campus. erage ACT reading scores for en- provost, Fernandes said, upper- President T. Alan Hurwitz, re- tering freshmen are at their high- class students hazed freshmen, cruited away from a rival deaf est point in recent history. Under- ordering them not to speak in any school within New York’s Roches- graduate enrollment has re- of their classes so that they were ter Institute of Technology, has bounded to 1,118. forced to sign. raised standards and largely unit- Hurwitz has calmed the culture “I had freshmen in tears, telling ed Gallaudet around a new vision wars with a schoolwide policy me that Gallaudet recruited them of bilingual deaf education. that affirms the primacy of sign RICKY CARIOTI/THE WASHINGTON POST under false pretenses, because “People are beginning to realize language but also posits Gallau- Freshman Jeffery Willoughby, center, and sophomore Michael Schmitz during lunch at the school, which now considers itself bilingual. they were told Gallaudet wel- that American Sign Language is a det as a bilingual school. comed all deaf students,” she said. value added,” said Hurwitz, who Professors now must prove After Fernandes’s ouster, ac- has been deaf since birth and is a mastery of sign language to get creditors from the Middle States fluent signer. tenure. Students, too, are expected Commission on Higher Educa- Hurwitz was so wary of Gallau- to sign. In a campuswide e-mail tion put Gallaudet on probation. det’s history that he turned down last fall, Hurwitz wrote: “Everyone The censure dealt a stunning blow the search committee several on campus — no matter his or her to Gallaudet’s academic currency. times before consenting to an in- signing level — should make every Some feared that the school terview. On the day he was intro- effort to communicate in sign lan- would close. duced as president, Hurwitz said, guage when in public areas on Accreditors found academic “We didn’t know if everyone was campus.” standards virtually nonexistent. going to stand up and protest.” But upholding that standard is The university admitted students Twenty months into his admin- increasingly difficult on a campus who could not graduate and em- istration, there is little to protest. where nearly half of the freshmen ployed professors who could bare- Gallaudet’s graduation rate has now come from mainstream high ly sign. The institution was not risen from 25 percent to 41 per- schools and dozens arrive not keeping pace with the changing cent in four years. The share of knowing how to sign. To help deaf world. Undergraduate en- graduates who continue their ed- them, university leaders last year rollment had slipped from 1,274 in ucation has nearly doubled to 63 created a six-week crash course fall 2005 to 1,040 in 2007. percent. The school has raised for 46 new signers, an orientation The Gallaudet of today scarcely admission requirements, and av- to Gallaudet and to the deaf KLMNO A16 From Page One EZ SU SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 2011 g world. fortable with spoken English. An explosive opinion piece in “I would prefer to speak,” Tat- the school newspaper last fall de- um said. “But if I’m going to speak cried the rise of non-signers on to someone who can’t hear me, campus and the potential demise that makes no sense.” of “the one deaf space we can have Leila Hanaumi, a 21-year-old in this country.” senior, attended a deaf school and Some students agree. Others knew Gallaudet and its history favor a more patient approach to when she enrolled. She’s one of a new signers. few on campus who fully appreci- “They’ve been speaking for ate how much the school has im- years, and then they come here proved; at an institution where and they’re expected to sign,” said the population turns over every Tony Tatum, a 23-year-old senior. few years, memories are short. “It’s a hard habit for them to “In my class, we have the high- break.” est retention rate in I don’t know Tatum sat with four other stu- how long,” she said. Most of her dents in the campus dining hall class will graduate within five on a recent day. Three of them, years, “and that’s pretty much un- including Tatum, came from pub- heard of.” lic schools and learned to sign at The university’s future may de- an advanced age. pend on reaching further into the “Before I came to Gallaudet, I mainstream of American educa- thought I was the only person in tion. Gallaudet recruiters have tri- the world who was hard of hear- pled the number of annual visits ing,” Tatum said. Now, he plays on to public schools since 2006. Gallaudet’s celebrated football A trip might focus on one or team, a squad that invented the two students who know nothing huddle in the 1890s as a way to of Gallaudet. Charity Reedy- hide signs from the other side. Hines, the chief recruiter, recalled Easter Faafiti, a 22-year-old ju- a recent visit to a public high nior, didn’t know about Gallaudet school in Mississippi where re- until she took a sign language cruiters met with two deaf stu- course at a community college. dents. Her hearing parents “knew noth- “Both of them had never met ing about deaf culture, not one another person like themselves,” thing.” she said. “They hadn’t even met At the lunch table, Faafiti and each other.” Tatum communicated in sign, [email protected] even though both are more com- NIKKI KAHN/THE WASHINGTON POST Students walk near the Merrill Learning Center at Gallaudet. The influx of “non-signers” — who can hear and speak or who read lips or text — has sparked a debate over the school’s deaf culture. ABCDE ^klmhkfl 11(0+ Tomorrow: Thunderstorms 82/67 details, C10 SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 2011 pZlabg KLMNO A8 Politics & The Nation EZ RE SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 2011 ABCDE Prices may vary in areas outside metropolitan Washington.

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