Gallaudet Follies

The moral cowardice of university boards of trustees appears to know no bounds. First Harvard caves to the faculty whose hobbies (ie, academic freedom and “research") were threatened by a president who though the university should be teaching the students it charges tens of thousands of dollars each year. Now the Gallaudet board acquiesces to the hysteria of students, some faculty, and some alums who have learned to practice the academic politics of the non-negotiable demand.

sheldon, at 7:35 am EST on October 30, 2006

protesting

Lets see what the students could have done but did not do..

1. They did not burn down anything 2. They did not flip any cars 3. They did not physically attack anyone 4. They did not shoot anyone 5. They did not terrorized anybody 6. They did not convert into Militants 7. They did not moon at anybody 8. They did not totally shut the campus off 9. They did not think Jane could lead them.10.They did not back down to oppressors.

They DID manage to make it peaceful and Non violence. Martin Luther King could have not been more prouder of his example.

Byron Bridges, Professor at Austin Community College, at 11:01 am EST on October 30, 2006

Ira

All the difference in the world separates “courage and commitment” from an uncontrolled temper tantrum.

JBM, at 12:05 pm EST on October 30, 2006

Effective Protest or Temper Tantrum

JBM (and d):

What is effective — and what is necessary. I will note that student protests started quite softly last spring — and ramped up as the university refused to engage in true dialogue over a six month period. You might favor civility at all costs, but where would the world be if (for example) the American colonists of 1774 had “remained civil” or the crowds in East Berlin in 1989, or the Irish in 1916. “Civility” in political protest — when there is a massive power imbalance — is simply another form of surrender. Sometimes repression (including the refusal to communicate) demands more aggressive tactics. Perhaps “d” would fault those lunch counter sitters of the early civil rights movement (they surely cost waitresses tips and wasted police time and might even have upped the child care requirements of the Woolworth’s managers), and clearly JBM would see the protests against the anti-Gorbachev coup in 1991 Moscow as being uncivil and thus unacceptable. But I think that creating change, and asserting the voice of the “consent of the governed” isn’t always pretty, but it is essential.

Ira Socol, Michigan State University, at 1:15 pm EST on October 30, 2006

Employment, Grad School, Govt funding

The Board of Trustees made a wise decision because what a Washington Post editorial describes as hooligans would never allow Dr Ferandes to be successful just like the faculty have never allowed her success after the President appointed her without going through at least the motions of shared governance. They also made it clear that the University must make lawbreakers accountable for their behavior but it remains to be seen what will be done.

I, too, am concerned about those deaf persons who were not involved in this mess being stereotyped and denied employment opportunities commensurate with their education and abilities. Many thousands more deaf persons attend regular university programs and they take their education seriously and should not be punished because of the actions of a few hundred students at Gallaudet who laughlingly boast that they were arrested and for weeks disrupted the education of others.

There are reports that the reading level of many graduates of Gallaudet now hovers at the 5th grade level. Surely grad schools will need to better scrutinize applications of Gallaudet graduates and not simply accept their GPA as an indication of their ability to pursue graduate work.

The Federal Government is putting a hundred thousand dollars into Gallaudet. This comes to a subsidy of over $50,000 of our tax money per student and look at the results. There are many other programs that would benefit deaf students and Congress should have a hard look at this waste of taxpayer dollars and redirect it to programs which will actually increase the educational level of deaf persons and make them law-abiding, productive citizens.

Concerned Deaf Educator, at 4:35 pm EST on October 30, 2006

I followed along as the protestors held fast in their efforts. At first, this hearing outsider was interested in the escalating events from an issue of governance at universities. And then after communicating with one of the deaf bloggers, Ricky D. Taylor of RidorLive.com, and another advocate for deaf people, I came to the conclusion that the protestors had been seriously overlooked in the presidential selection process.

University and college boards and administrations all over the U.S. are today talking about what happened at Gallaudet, but I hope these caretakers of higher education learn a few valuable lessons that they take into consideration when faced with issues of governance in the future.

Pre-ordained candidates still need to win over, at least on some level, core stakeholders like the faculty and students. The wisdom of community is to be ignored at your own peril. Pricey, high-powered public relations and interviews with the Washington Post cannot cure a bad or ill-thought-out hiring decision. The Internet is a wild-card factor that can no longer be dismissed. Bloggers can connect, report, sway and influence decisions, especially deaf bloggers who feel their positions are more often than not misrepresented by mainstream media. Students with passion are still relevant. The “big stick” doesn’t win hearts and minds. Boards of trustees must move beyond rubber-stamping to independent investigation.

Faculty and students are still what it’s all about. They are the hearts, minds and soul of Gallaudet and for that matter, every college and university.

sheila, Lessons Learned at Gallaudet, at 4:35 pm EST on October 30, 2006

The _Washington Post report that even after they canned Fernandes, students went wild, shredded a large effigy of the women, then burned it is what one might expect out of urban terrorists like we’re seeing now in France. Since the Federal Government subsidizes this school to the tune of $105M, maybe it’s time for Congress to hold hearings on why this much money is being spent on this school, and what kinds of problems this protest might be masking.

Wayne Martin, at 4:40 pm EST on October 30, 2006

Scared of Dissent

d, and others (such as Wayne Martin):

All protests are not equally motivated, but neither is all protest — beyond what is acceptable at your cocktail parties — dangerous. Burning someone in effigy is hardly the world’s most dangerous crime, and blocking campus gates to have student concerns considered is hardly against “the American grain.”

The fact that students and faculty were left out of a pre-rigged search process for an institution this important to a certain community is enough to indicate that the protesters had a very legitimate gripe. The Board could have handled the search correctly — they didn’t. The board and Dr. Fernandes could have truly engaged the protesters last spring — they didn’t. Hell, even Nixon went and talked to the protesters in 1970 Washington (the famous Lincoln Memorial appearance), but this simple kind of grace and contact was beyond the Gallaudet Board or its handpicked President.

What is more disturbing here, as a person with a “disability” who works with students with “disabilities” is the level of anger expressed by some here with the Gallaudet students who say that they do not want “to be fixed” by a society that prizes conformity above all. I am sorry folks, we do not all want to speak like you, write like you, act like you, hear like you, walk like you — or most of all — be like you. Many of us in the wider “disability” community are behind these students because they are fighting for the right to be who they are, and not clones of “you.”

The fact that so many here consider this issue unimportant is just evidence of how far we have to go to changing the attitudes of even the most educated Americans.

Ira Socol, Michigan State University, at 8:51 pm EST on October 30, 2006

Graduation Rate

I’ve been following this story since it began last Spring and I am not surprised by the outcome. Now that the students and faculty have won their hard-fought battle, maybe they will channel a little bit of that energy back into the classroom and convince the rest of us why we should spend $100 million a year on a college that has an appalling graduation rate of barely 50%.

Rick Frei, Assistant Professor at Community College of Philadelphia, at 4:15 am EST on October 31, 2006

Ira,

You’ve yet to address directly the collateral damage of the protesters that has been posted here. I’ve never said the gripe was illegitimate, in fact I’ve said the whole process was terrible and supported their complaint. But the ends they desired do not always justify the means. I’m not upset by all forms of their protest- just the shaming ones and the ones who cost many with disabilities their livelihood and education (beyond the higher ed factor- I’m talking the K-12 issues here- they didn’t just shut down their school).

I think you’re stuffing a lot of words into a lot of mouths— I haven’t seen anyone here refer to issues as “unimportant” or attack the identity of anyone. Perhaps you can find it in your heart to allow some of us, of “disability” or no, to be disturbed by the way this all turned out. After all, it was the last major presidential protest at Gallaudet that landed the students in this present problem to start with.

d

d, at 1:10 pm EST on October 31, 2006

Ira’s Position

Well Ira, I must commend you on your knowledge of Community College of Philadelphia’s graduation rates and how much our fair city spends to educate our students. Since you want to compare apples and oranges, let’s do the math...

The city of Philadelphia spends approximately $25 million to educate over 30,000 inner city youths and adults from all walks of life. Many of these students come to the college completely unprepared for higher education due to our city’s deplorable public school system and do not graduate. Still many others transfer to four year institutions before they earn their associates degree (which also lowers the graduation rate considerably). The vast majority of our graduates remain in the city to help create a more educated workforce. The city of Philadelphia’s approximate cost per student: $833.

Gallaudet, which according to their own web site “leads the world in undergraduate liberal arts education, career development, and outstanding graduate programs for deaf, hard-of-hearing, and hearing students” had an enrollment last spring of 1,839. http://64.233.161.104/search?q=ca...hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=1 Federal money allocated to Gallaudet in both 2005 and 2006: $104 million. Cost per student: $56,552.

Rick Frei, Asistant Professor at Community College of Philadelphia, at 5:55 am EST on November 1, 2006

Hello,

I agree whole-heartily that Gallaudet has further isolated itself through the actions of a few militants. They obviously do not approve of Dr. I. King Jordan’s decision to recommend Dr. Fernandes and these students and faculty member now have dishonored their only culturally Deaf president by forcing him into a corner.

I once applied to Gallaudet University because of my hearing losses. They told me I wasn’t deaf enough even though I was born deaf and presently considered moderately-to-profoundly deaf. I too learned ASL later in life as a means of communicating with a group that I can associate with, not because I needed to. However, I never felt completely accepted, not because of my lack of efforts, but because I was hearing impaired and not “deaf enough.”

Dr. Ferandes’ vision was to integrate people with all hearing loss, both deaf and hard of hearing, into Gallaudet, creating a unique environment for education opportunities on both sides of the hearing spectrum. A vision and idea that is desperately needed in today’s non-integrated educational environment.

Now too that is lost because of few people supporting an unforgiving culture insisting of isolating itself from the hearing impaired and hearing societies alike.

ChrisUniversity of Memphis

Chris, The University of Memphis, at 12:35 pm EST on November 5, 2006