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Inside Gallaudet - Gallaudet University
Two of Gallaudet’s Fulbright scholars are preparing to embark on projects to study and work with the deaf community. A look at their plans shows international partnerships at work.
Krista Leitch Walker, a Ph.D. student in administration from Germantown, Md., will travel to Dublin and Kerry, Ireland. There, she will work with the Irish Deaf Society and the Kerry Deaf Resource Centre to research and develop a training curriculum for deaf families with hearing children and the educators who work with them. With this project, conducted through Dublin’s Trinity University, Leitch Walker will also provide strategies to develop and maintain strong family-school partnerships.
Gallaudet and Trinity University have had an exchange program since 1999. Fulbright scholarships have allowed six American students to study at Trinity and brought seven Irish students to Gallaudet.
Joseph Hill, a Ph.D. student in linguistics from Cincinnati, Ohio, will travel to Siena, Italy, as part of an international partnership that began in 1986. Hill will work with the Siena School of Liberal Arts, conducting a sociolinguistic analysis of the attitudes of teachers, administrators, and parents toward Italian Sign Language (LIS) in deaf education. The goal of the study is to find the processes that school programs employ to maintain the use of LIS as an instructional method and to explore the attitudes that affect support of this language.
Hill is the 14th Gallaudet student to travel to Italy as a Fulbright Fellow since the inception of the relationship between the Italian deaf community and Gallaudet over 20 years ago. Thirty-six Italian students and professionals have studied at Gallaudet through the Mason Perkins and Roberto Wirth scholarships, with the collaboration in Italy of Dr. Elena Radutzky, director of the Mason Perkins Deafness Fund.
Dr. Ceil Lucas, chair of the Department of Linguistics, says that Walker’s and Hill’s projects will provide new information about deaf education and language. Lucas coordinates the Fulbright program for Gallaudet along with professors Steven Collins (Interpretation), Beth Benedict (Communication Studies), and Marilyn Sass-Lehrer (Education).
Leitch Walker’s research is important because “there hasn’t been much focus on deaf parents and hearing children,” Lucas said. Hill will be the first to look at how parents, teachers, and school administrators view LIS. “This is groundbreaking research,” Lucas said.
The two students’ Fulbright work is also exciting, Lucas explained, because the learning goes both ways. “Both of them are bringing what they learned here at Gallaudet to their projects, and their experience will probably impact both of their dissertations,” said Lucas. “It’s a two-way street.”
Two of Gallaudet’s Fulbright scholars are preparing to embark on projects to study and work with the deaf community. A look at their plans shows international partnerships at work.
Krista Leitch Walker, a Ph.D. student in administration from Germantown, Md., will travel to Dublin and Kerry, Ireland. There, she will work with the Irish Deaf Society and the Kerry Deaf Resource Centre to research and develop a training curriculum for deaf families with hearing children and the educators who work with them. With this project, conducted through Dublin’s Trinity University, Leitch Walker will also provide strategies to develop and maintain strong family-school partnerships.
Gallaudet and Trinity University have had an exchange program since 1999. Fulbright scholarships have allowed six American students to study at Trinity and brought seven Irish students to Gallaudet.
Joseph Hill, a Ph.D. student in linguistics from Cincinnati, Ohio, will travel to Siena, Italy, as part of an international partnership that began in 1986. Hill will work with the Siena School of Liberal Arts, conducting a sociolinguistic analysis of the attitudes of teachers, administrators, and parents toward Italian Sign Language (LIS) in deaf education. The goal of the study is to find the processes that school programs employ to maintain the use of LIS as an instructional method and to explore the attitudes that affect support of this language.
Hill is the 14th Gallaudet student to travel to Italy as a Fulbright Fellow since the inception of the relationship between the Italian deaf community and Gallaudet over 20 years ago. Thirty-six Italian students and professionals have studied at Gallaudet through the Mason Perkins and Roberto Wirth scholarships, with the collaboration in Italy of Dr. Elena Radutzky, director of the Mason Perkins Deafness Fund.
Dr. Ceil Lucas, chair of the Department of Linguistics, says that Walker’s and Hill’s projects will provide new information about deaf education and language. Lucas coordinates the Fulbright program for Gallaudet along with professors Steven Collins (Interpretation), Beth Benedict (Communication Studies), and Marilyn Sass-Lehrer (Education).
Leitch Walker’s research is important because “there hasn’t been much focus on deaf parents and hearing children,” Lucas said. Hill will be the first to look at how parents, teachers, and school administrators view LIS. “This is groundbreaking research,” Lucas said.
The two students’ Fulbright work is also exciting, Lucas explained, because the learning goes both ways. “Both of them are bringing what they learned here at Gallaudet to their projects, and their experience will probably impact both of their dissertations,” said Lucas. “It’s a two-way street.”