Gallaudet University: A Message Heard Loud and Clear

In the United States, there are many reasons why one decides to pursue a college education. College is often regarded as a rite of passage that equates to adulthood and social mobility. It is often seen as a place to explore, to learn, and to grow as an individual. It is often credited as a “pathway to career success” (Pepicello, 2013), and perceived to be “the engine of American civilization’s national purpose” (Urgo, 2013). With so much weight placed on college and its purpose, the process a student goes through to select which college to attend is incredibly overwhelming. Students most often consider factors like the quality and reputation of academic programs, the faculty, the potential for job placement after graduation, the cost of tuition and the availability of financial aid, the safety of campus, as well as diversity and a social atmosphere (Dolinsky, 2010).

While these factors are all important, they do not include things like classroom acoustics and lighting, language deficiencies of faculty and staff, the quality of (or even the mere presence of) special accommodations for students with disabilities (Weber, 2016).

These factors are just some of the additional considerations made by students who are deaf and hard of hearing when selecting which college to attend. In 2002, there were more than 25,000 students with hearing loss enrolled in higher education programs in the United States (National Center for Education Statistics, 1999). No doubt that number has significantly grown over the years, and as a result of the Americans with Disabilities Act, all public colleges and universities must ensure deaf and hard of hearing students have equal access to all activities, regardless of funding.

A learning experience devoid of sound is a reality for students at Gallaudet University - a university located in Washington, DC which has served students who are deaf and hard of hearing since 1864. While more and more deaf students are attending colleges that make provisions for accommodating their disability, it is interesting to consider the lifeline of an institution like Gallaudet University, which has secured its reputation as one of, if not the, foremost places of higher education primarily for students who are deaf and hard of hearing.

Gallaudet University can trace its roots back even before the Civil War. In 1856, the Columbia Institution for the Instruction of the Deaf and Dumb and the Blind was opened in Washington, DC by Edward Miner Gallaudet, whose father - Thomas Hopkins (T.H.) Gallaudet - co-established the Connecticut Asylum for the Education and Instruction of Deaf and Dumb Persons, now known as the American School for the Deaf. Columbia Institution opened with twelve deaf and six blind students. A few years later, in his first presidential message to Congress, President Abraham Lincoln described what the North was fighting for in the Civil War:

“On the side of the Union, it is a struggle for maintaining in the world, that form and substance of government, whose leading object is, to elevate the condition of men - to lift artificial weights from all shoulders - to clear the paths of laudable pursuit for all - to afford all, an unfettered start, and a fair chance, in the race of life.” (Armstrong, 2014).

With the presence of a school like the Connecticut Asylum and the sentiments celebrated by Lincoln in his speech, Edward Miner Gallaudet saw the need for an institution for children with disabilities to receive proper care. He saw the need to prepare deaf people for lives as productive citizens at a place other than an asylum or charitable institution. Enrollment and activity at the Columbia Institution continued to grow, and it became a prominent place for instruction at the secondary school level. Once the Morrill Act was passed in 1862 to establish a system of state land grant colleges, the United States saw the rise of mass higher education in the United States. Gallaudet wanted more attention to be paid to students and knew that establishing a college would significantly impact students’ learning experience and their living potential. Gallaudet felt that deaf youth were being shut out of the benefits that other students were reaping by attending the colleges being opened throughout the country after the Morrill Act. They were missing out on true learning experiences that would prepare them for the “race of life,” as Abraham Lincoln had mentioned years before. With this in mind, Gallaudet began to advocate for the establishment of a college, which he found quite easy to do because the Columbia Institution had not set a limit of time or age at which its students must be discharged. In other words, the students enrolled at the time could continue on to higher learning as long as the institution could teach them.

The journey to the establishment of a college department bore success, and on June 28, 1864, President Lincoln authorized the Columbia Institution to grant collegiate degrees. This momentous occasion marked the first time in history that deaf people gained access to higher education, in an environment devoid of communication barriers. Deaf people now had the opportunity to go to a college that was exclusively inclusive. The college department would later be renamed Gallaudet College in 1894, in honor of T.H. Gallaudet, and then renamed Gallaudet University in 1986.

Establishing a college arm within the Columbia Institution came with a new set of challenges that Gallaudet had not faced before. Beyond simply ensuring formal education for deaf youth, he also had to consider the advancement of curriculum, recruitment and enrollment of students from the existing twenty-four schools for the deaf in the country, a shaping of student life that was comparable to that of other hearing institutions, and the impact on students’ personal and professional lives after graduation with a college degree.

With regards to enrollment, the college offered a preparatory year that most entering students would be required to complete before being formally admitted to the collegiate program. This was implemented as a way to not only prepare students for college-level learning, but also to send a message to the public that graduating students were indeed qualified to enter the college based on their aptitude and merit, not merely on their disability. When the college opened its doors, four pupils (two males and two females) began the preparatory year, while only one student was eligible to attend the collegiate program because of his previous experience as a teacher at the Columbia Institution: Melville Ballard. In 1866, Ballard became the first recipient of a bachelor’s degree from the college. By the second year, enrollment in the preparatory year grew to 25, which included two women. In the 1880s, the first international students began to arrive on campus and by the early 1900s, the bachelor’s program had surpassed one hundred (Armstrong, 2014, p. 6-9).

It is significant to note that Gallaudet University’s earliest students were females. It was only about twenty years before Gallaudet’s doors opened that a female earned a bachelor’s degree for the first time (U.S. News, 2009). At this time, women were still achieving many of their “firsts” within the realm of higher education. While it was not until 1887 that women successfully passed the preparatory year at Gallaudet and officially entered the college for the first time, Gallaudet University was a place that aimed to provide deaf women the equal opportunity as men to access higher education. Whether or not they were equally supported throughout their preparatory year is certainly a cause for debate. However, in welcoming women to vie for college admission during its earliest years without reservation, Gallaudet University’s spirit as a place for inclusion of the marginalized beyond the basis of ability can be seen.

As for the curriculum, there seemed to be an increasing departure from “classical” education in the Greek and Latin languages within the overall higher education climate into a more “populist, practical education in English, math, science, and other “useful” subjects. (Armstrong, 2014, p. 7). The curriculum grew to include course offerings in “agriculture, printing, advanced mechanical drawing, library management, domestic science, and domestic art. These options reflected societal views on the appropriate future careers for deaf adults.” (Armstrong, 2014, p.40). While Gallaudet University aimed to educate and establish a deaf workforce, it is obvious through these course offerings that the employment market as a whole was restricted to fields that required limited communication and interaction with others. The University was building an environment of normalcy for its students, but the world in which they would be entering after graduating still saw them as “others.”

The faculty at Gallaudet University was mostly comprised of alumni of the school itself. “The Normal Department of the Columbia Institution for the Deaf was the first normal school in the United States dedicated exclusively to preparing teachers to work with deaf students” (Peruzzi, 2010). Melville Ballard, Gallaudet’s first bachelor’s degree recipient, went on to continue teaching at the institution for more than fifty years after his graduation. Both deaf and hearing teachers enrolled in the Normal School. While deaf teachers were able to teach students from an applicational standpoint due to their shared deafness, hearing teachers were most likely able to offer a unique approach to pedagogy based on their auditory abilities - one that was able to incorporate influences from the hearing world, which would no doubt have a significant impact on how students would later assimilate into a predominantly hearing job market.

Gallaudet University has progressed through some of American history’s most significant milestones: World War I and II, innovations in technology particularly in communication, the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, and the Americans with Disabilities Act (Animated Atlas). Because of its lengthy existence, there have been many political and social influences on its growth.

African American students at Gallaudet experienced discrimination and segregation during their time at the institution. At first, they were placed in separate sleeping rooms and at separate tables, but then in September 1905, all the institution’s African American students were transferred to a separate facility in Maryland. (Armstrong, 2014, p. 30-35).

“Students participated in war-related activities, including the formation of an auxiliary Red Cross unit that prepared bandages during World War I and general participation in blackout and other preparations for possible attack during World War II” (Armstrong, 2014, p. 49).

Public policy changes like President Eisenhower’s Public Law 83-420 in 1954 appropriated funds for substantial expansion of Gallaudet University - more buildings, improved facilities, and advanced resources appeared on campus. This was very much in line with the correlation between resources and reputation that was being conveyed across the nation within the context of higher education.

Gallaudet University’s students were socially engaged outside of the classroom through activities like athletics and other student organizations that seemed to “normalize” deaf students (Armstrong, 2014, p. 49). However, social engagement reached new heights through student activism when students advocated for an increased presence of deaf people in college leadership, particularly through Deaf President Now (DPN), which was a “student protest that shut down Gallaudet University during the week of March 6-13, 1988. It accomplished far more than just the selection of the world's first deaf university president. It proved, convincingly, that deaf people could band together effectively for a common cause and succeed. The protest experience taught deaf people the need and value of being more assertive” (Gannon, 1989, p. 15). DPN was also affirmed by politicians, activists, and the media, as a civil rights movement (Greenwald, 2014, p. 6).

Today, Gallaudet University has more than forty degree offerings at the bachelor’s level, and nearly thirty program offerings at the graduate level. The curriculum stresses the value of liberal arts, as explained by the university’s Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, Genie Gertz (Ellis, 2013):

“Gallaudet students are often drawn to such fields as linguistics, counseling, education, and American Sign Language, but Ms. Gertz says more students are turning to nontraditional career paths, like graphic arts and law. Gallaudet emphasizes collaboration across disciplines to prepare students for fluid careers.”

The Gallaudet University website reports there are 225 faculty members who often pursue a full range of research interests related to their academic disciplines. Total enrollment for the Fall 2015-16 academic year was 1,942, with international students comprising eight percent of the student body. The undergraduate program also admits a small number of hearing students.

Similar to Genie Gertz’s description of the careers that graduates enter, I. King Jordan, the university’s first deaf president shared in 2005:

“In the past, the epitome of success for a Gallaudet graduate would be to become the superintendent of a school for the deaf. While that position is still extremely important, we have graduates who are highly successful lawyers, businesspeople, and scientists. In fact, we have highly successful deaf people in nearly all professions.”

There is no doubt that Gallaudet University has had an extremely rich and colorful history. What has remained consistent, however, is its tradition of educating and empowering students who are deaf and hard of hearing. The overwhelming financial support for the university has also remained constant. Although it is a private university, it continues to have federal ties and thus receives funding through various federal programs. Alumni also play an important role in fundraising. In fact, Gallaudet University’s alumni support has been compared to that of Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) because of the unique culture tied to the institution (Drezner, 2005).

A significant change that Gallaudet University has seen is its student population. While African American students faced mistreatment in much of Gallaudet University’s early years, their experience has been improved by programs like Keeping the Promise: Educating Black Deaf Males (KTP-B), introduced in 2008 with the goal to graduate more Black deaf male students (Feintuch, 2010).

Thirty years after DPN, Gallaudet’s President continues to be deaf - a significant change from the long history of hearing presidents instituted by the school’s founder Edward Miner Gallaudet, himself a hearing person.

The overall learning experience of students has also changed over time. In addition to a growth in program offerings that encourage graduates to enter a variety of different careers, the technological revolution has allowed students to communicate with each other at a distance, rather than face-to-face (Armstrong, 2014 p. 179). Teaching methods go beyond signing, with other visual aids such as closed captioning being implemented in the classroom.

There are no institutions quite like Gallaudet University. There certainly are universities that are inclusive and create special centers and accommodations for students who are deaf and hard of hearing: the Southwest Collegiate Institute for the Deaf at Howard University, the National Technical Institute for the Deaf at Rochester Institute of Technology, the National Center on Deafness at California State University, Northridge. However, none of these schools were born out of the need to provide education to the deaf; certainly none have as rich a history.

As such, the narrative of Gallaudet University is truly unique. It is the only institution that has always placed deafness at the center of its mission to ensure the intellectual and professional advancement of deaf and hard of hearing individuals. Gallaudet University has positioned itself as the foremost leader in addressing the three most significant issues for students to adjust to higher education: developing social skills, establishing an identity, and acquiring independence and interdependence (Lang, 2002, p. 269).

The school that Edward Miner Gallaudet opened in 1856 to twelve deaf and six blind students grew to become a world-renowned beacon of knowledge and advancement for a population whose learning and living experience is often underappreciated or forgotten. Gallaudet University enables the deaf community and has propelled them forward in the “race of life” once mentioned by Abraham Lincoln. Its message of education and empowerment is a message that everyone, regardless of hearing ability, hears loud and clear.

References:

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