Miss-Delectable
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http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06302/733913-84.stm
The standoff at Gallaudet University looks a little ragged. Some of the hand-drawn signs hanging on the campus fence are weatherbeaten. Many of the tents in which the students were sleeping have fallen over on the lawn. Litter is strewn across the roped-off entrance.
But the protest, now entering its fourth week, goes on.
Gallaudet University, the nation's premier liberal arts school for the deaf, is embroiled in a dispute between an administration committed to incoming President Jane K. Fernandes and students and faculty members who defiantly believe she is the wrong person for the job.
The university's 20-member board of trustees has scheduled a meeting for today to address the situation.
Dr. Fernandes was unanimously elected by the board May 1 to replace retiring President I. King Jordan. Dr. Fernandes, who has been provost at Gallaudet since 2000, is to take office in January.
The outcry from students, many of whom have longstanding complaints about Dr. Fernandes, was immediate. Then it seemed to die down with the end of the 2005-06 school year in the spring.
It didn't. It simmered all summer, and when classes resumed in the fall, it came to a full boil. Students boycotted classes, erected a "tent city" on the campus lawn and blocked the main gates to the university.
On the night of Oct. 13, Dr. Jordan ordered police to clear students from one of the gates, citing educational and safety reasons. Parents, professors and alumni watched and wept as 133 students were arrested.
Among those taken into custody were Emily Jo Noschese, 19, of Shaler, a second-year student at Gallaudet, and her older sister, Nellie, a fourth-year student. They were charged with misdemeanors and fined $50 apiece.
"It was nice to be arrested with my sister," said Emily Jo Noschese, whose parents and younger brother also are deaf. "My dad, he was like 'Cool! What's going on? Tell me what was jail like? What's happening?'
"My mom bawled."
Miss Noschese has been involved with the protest since the beginning, sleeping in "tent city" and attending secret student meetings in the middle of the night. For three weeks, she boycotted classes.
"Then things started to return to normal," she said through an signing interpreter. "Now, I go to classes, and it's getting cold outside [so she's returned to her dorm room on campus]. I feel guilty about that, honestly."
She has not, however, wavered in her commitment to the cause. She and the hundreds of other deaf students attending a rally in the student union Wednesday night vowed to continue the sit-ins at the gates, despite criticism from several fronts and another round of arrests.
They are determined, Miss Noschese said, to keep up the fight until Dr. Fernandes resigns -- which she has said she would not do -- or the board of trustees votes to find another president.
Already the protesters have made some progress. They have attracted widespread media coverage and, via the Internet, sparked interest and support among the deaf community all across the country. Several trustees have indicated they would change their votes, and Dr. Fernandes said some have asked her to resign for the sake of the university.
The complaints against Dr. Fernandes are varied and complex. Although she has been deaf all her life, and her mother and brother are deaf, she did not learn American Sign Language until she was 23. Critics say she advocates an oral philosophy, including speaking and lip-reading, arguing that those tools allow deaf people to better exist in a hearing world.
She also has been criticized for "her management style and her aloofness" during her term as provost.
Students, alumni and members of the faculty -- 82 percent of whom recently cast a "no-confidence" vote against her -- also fault the selection process that put Dr. Fernandes in place, saying that more-qualified candidates did not receive serious consideration. Dr. Fernandes was the "hand-picked" successor of Dr. Jordan, they say, and the Board of Trustees simply rubber-stamped his choice.
All of which is surprising to some in the deaf community, because it was a student protest in 1988 -- the famed "Deaf President Now" demonstration -- that brought Dr. Jordan, Gallaudet's first deaf president, into office.
Dr. Jordan has said the two protests have little in common. The first was for a cause. The current one, he said, is against a person.
Not 'deaf enough'
Gallaudet University, which today has an enrollment of 1,800 deaf and hard-of-hearing students, was founded by an act of Congress in 1864 and its charter was signed by President Abraham Lincoln. Much of its funding -- more than $100 million, 70 percent of the university budget -- comes from the federal government. Three members of Congress -- Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.;Rep. Ray LaHood, R-Ill.; and Rep. Lynn C. Woolsey, D-Calif. -- sit on the board of trustees.
"Gallaudet is more than just a university. It's a symbol to the deaf community," said Don Rhoten, superintendent of the Western Pennsylvania School for the Deaf in Edgewood since 1994. He served as the first director of the Gallaudet Southeast Regional Center at Flagler College in St. Augustine, Fla., in the mid-1980s and was working there during the Deaf President Now protest.
"[Gallaudet] is a place of reassurance for deaf people and professionals in the field and those who haven't even attended the university or worked there. To them it's a monument, very much like the Statue of Liberty or the Liberty Bell.
"That's really why this election of the president is so important. Not only does he or she lead the university, they're also seen as the leader and the face of the deaf community. That's why the selection process evokes such emotions."
Claudia Pagliaro, who teaches deaf education at the University of Pittsburgh, earned her doctorate from Gallaudet University in 1996. She suspects the underlying issue is that some protesters don't believe Dr. Fernandes "is deaf enough."
"Basically, there are two perspectives of deaf people: a medical perspective and a cultural perspective," Dr. Pagliaro said.
"The people who are of the medical perspective look at deaf people as basically broken or impaired. As something that needs to be fixed.
"Then there's the cultural perspective. Deaf people who don't consider themselves disabled but different. It's a different community that sees [its] culture as equal to other cultures in America.
"They have their own language. Their own history, their own behaviors. Cultural beliefs. This would be a group that probably would not have a cochlear implant [to simulate hearing]. They wouldn't see the need for it. Some do have them, but they are few and far between."
Such is the perspective of Maryjean Shahen, 43, of Brookline, a professor's assistant at Pitt who attended Gallaudet during the Deaf President Now protest.
"For the deaf community and the deaf students, we have been suffering," said Ms. Shahen, who is deaf. "Our mission is to focus on education. However, [Dr. Fernandes's] goal is technology. And the medical view. And we don't want that.
"We are happy to be equal. But the way we communicate is different. That is the only way we are different."
Ms. Shahen also rejects the concern of some who worry that the Gallaudet protest is turning deaf person against deaf person.
"It's the same thing as a black person criticizing another black person, or a white person criticizing a white person," she said. "Why can't we deaf people criticize other deaf people?"
But Mr. Rhoten said he fears the repercussions of the protest.
"I have wonderful friends who are on both sides of the fence," he said. "They're all very bright, very reasonable people, but they have definite opinions about how this should transpire.
"This is not something where, at the end of the day, [deaf] folks at Gallaudet and across the country are going to shake hands and let bygones be bygones. This has become very, very personal.
"There are going to be open wounds and scars at Gallaudet and across the county for a real long time. It's going to take a tremendous amount of time for folks to recover from this."
The standoff at Gallaudet University looks a little ragged. Some of the hand-drawn signs hanging on the campus fence are weatherbeaten. Many of the tents in which the students were sleeping have fallen over on the lawn. Litter is strewn across the roped-off entrance.
But the protest, now entering its fourth week, goes on.
Gallaudet University, the nation's premier liberal arts school for the deaf, is embroiled in a dispute between an administration committed to incoming President Jane K. Fernandes and students and faculty members who defiantly believe she is the wrong person for the job.
The university's 20-member board of trustees has scheduled a meeting for today to address the situation.
Dr. Fernandes was unanimously elected by the board May 1 to replace retiring President I. King Jordan. Dr. Fernandes, who has been provost at Gallaudet since 2000, is to take office in January.
The outcry from students, many of whom have longstanding complaints about Dr. Fernandes, was immediate. Then it seemed to die down with the end of the 2005-06 school year in the spring.
It didn't. It simmered all summer, and when classes resumed in the fall, it came to a full boil. Students boycotted classes, erected a "tent city" on the campus lawn and blocked the main gates to the university.
On the night of Oct. 13, Dr. Jordan ordered police to clear students from one of the gates, citing educational and safety reasons. Parents, professors and alumni watched and wept as 133 students were arrested.
Among those taken into custody were Emily Jo Noschese, 19, of Shaler, a second-year student at Gallaudet, and her older sister, Nellie, a fourth-year student. They were charged with misdemeanors and fined $50 apiece.
"It was nice to be arrested with my sister," said Emily Jo Noschese, whose parents and younger brother also are deaf. "My dad, he was like 'Cool! What's going on? Tell me what was jail like? What's happening?'
"My mom bawled."
Miss Noschese has been involved with the protest since the beginning, sleeping in "tent city" and attending secret student meetings in the middle of the night. For three weeks, she boycotted classes.
"Then things started to return to normal," she said through an signing interpreter. "Now, I go to classes, and it's getting cold outside [so she's returned to her dorm room on campus]. I feel guilty about that, honestly."
She has not, however, wavered in her commitment to the cause. She and the hundreds of other deaf students attending a rally in the student union Wednesday night vowed to continue the sit-ins at the gates, despite criticism from several fronts and another round of arrests.
They are determined, Miss Noschese said, to keep up the fight until Dr. Fernandes resigns -- which she has said she would not do -- or the board of trustees votes to find another president.
Already the protesters have made some progress. They have attracted widespread media coverage and, via the Internet, sparked interest and support among the deaf community all across the country. Several trustees have indicated they would change their votes, and Dr. Fernandes said some have asked her to resign for the sake of the university.
The complaints against Dr. Fernandes are varied and complex. Although she has been deaf all her life, and her mother and brother are deaf, she did not learn American Sign Language until she was 23. Critics say she advocates an oral philosophy, including speaking and lip-reading, arguing that those tools allow deaf people to better exist in a hearing world.
She also has been criticized for "her management style and her aloofness" during her term as provost.
Students, alumni and members of the faculty -- 82 percent of whom recently cast a "no-confidence" vote against her -- also fault the selection process that put Dr. Fernandes in place, saying that more-qualified candidates did not receive serious consideration. Dr. Fernandes was the "hand-picked" successor of Dr. Jordan, they say, and the Board of Trustees simply rubber-stamped his choice.
All of which is surprising to some in the deaf community, because it was a student protest in 1988 -- the famed "Deaf President Now" demonstration -- that brought Dr. Jordan, Gallaudet's first deaf president, into office.
Dr. Jordan has said the two protests have little in common. The first was for a cause. The current one, he said, is against a person.
Not 'deaf enough'
Gallaudet University, which today has an enrollment of 1,800 deaf and hard-of-hearing students, was founded by an act of Congress in 1864 and its charter was signed by President Abraham Lincoln. Much of its funding -- more than $100 million, 70 percent of the university budget -- comes from the federal government. Three members of Congress -- Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.;Rep. Ray LaHood, R-Ill.; and Rep. Lynn C. Woolsey, D-Calif. -- sit on the board of trustees.
"Gallaudet is more than just a university. It's a symbol to the deaf community," said Don Rhoten, superintendent of the Western Pennsylvania School for the Deaf in Edgewood since 1994. He served as the first director of the Gallaudet Southeast Regional Center at Flagler College in St. Augustine, Fla., in the mid-1980s and was working there during the Deaf President Now protest.
"[Gallaudet] is a place of reassurance for deaf people and professionals in the field and those who haven't even attended the university or worked there. To them it's a monument, very much like the Statue of Liberty or the Liberty Bell.
"That's really why this election of the president is so important. Not only does he or she lead the university, they're also seen as the leader and the face of the deaf community. That's why the selection process evokes such emotions."
Claudia Pagliaro, who teaches deaf education at the University of Pittsburgh, earned her doctorate from Gallaudet University in 1996. She suspects the underlying issue is that some protesters don't believe Dr. Fernandes "is deaf enough."
"Basically, there are two perspectives of deaf people: a medical perspective and a cultural perspective," Dr. Pagliaro said.
"The people who are of the medical perspective look at deaf people as basically broken or impaired. As something that needs to be fixed.
"Then there's the cultural perspective. Deaf people who don't consider themselves disabled but different. It's a different community that sees [its] culture as equal to other cultures in America.
"They have their own language. Their own history, their own behaviors. Cultural beliefs. This would be a group that probably would not have a cochlear implant [to simulate hearing]. They wouldn't see the need for it. Some do have them, but they are few and far between."
Such is the perspective of Maryjean Shahen, 43, of Brookline, a professor's assistant at Pitt who attended Gallaudet during the Deaf President Now protest.
"For the deaf community and the deaf students, we have been suffering," said Ms. Shahen, who is deaf. "Our mission is to focus on education. However, [Dr. Fernandes's] goal is technology. And the medical view. And we don't want that.
"We are happy to be equal. But the way we communicate is different. That is the only way we are different."
Ms. Shahen also rejects the concern of some who worry that the Gallaudet protest is turning deaf person against deaf person.
"It's the same thing as a black person criticizing another black person, or a white person criticizing a white person," she said. "Why can't we deaf people criticize other deaf people?"
But Mr. Rhoten said he fears the repercussions of the protest.
"I have wonderful friends who are on both sides of the fence," he said. "They're all very bright, very reasonable people, but they have definite opinions about how this should transpire.
"This is not something where, at the end of the day, [deaf] folks at Gallaudet and across the country are going to shake hands and let bygones be bygones. This has become very, very personal.
"There are going to be open wounds and scars at Gallaudet and across the county for a real long time. It's going to take a tremendous amount of time for folks to recover from this."