In an announcement today, the University of North Carolina-Asheville has named Dr. Jane K. Fernandes as the new Provost/Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs, effective upon approval of the University’s Board of Trustees.

Fernandes, who most recently served as the president-designate of Gallaudet University and the Provost for six years, beat out more than 160 applicants for the UNC-Asheville job, according to the press release from the University.

UNC Asheville Chancellor Anne Ponder explained that Fernandes’ goals and academic credentials best suits her for the job.

Jane Fernandes is an exceptionally talented and experienced individual whose achievements and expertise ideally suit our University’s goals and mission.

Ponder goes on to state that Fernandes is “…skilled in strategic planning, curriculum and faculty development and has directed university programs that improve K-12 education.”

Fernandes is currently still under contract at Gallaudet as a tenured faculty member in the ASL/Deaf Studies department and is currently scheduled to teach several courses this coming spring semester. Whether this new job will prevent her from resuming her duties at Gallaudet remains to be seen.

Fernandes was largely the source of the October 2006 Gallaudet Protests that returned national attention to Gallaudet University, 19 years after the Deaf President Now movement.

She was accused of mismanagement, unwillingness to work with constituents on campus, and was seen as too much in the mold of retiring President I. King Jordan. Her appointment sparked a protest in May of 2006 that was resumed that following October.

During the October protests, information surfaced regarding how Fernandes was ineffective as a leader, including the Clerc Center letter written by faculty and staff at the Laurent Clerc National Deaf Education Center, accusing her of ineffective leadership as the Vice President of Pre-College National Mission Programs before she became the Provost at Gallaudet.

Fernandes mentioned that she is “looking forward to working with Chancellor Ponder.”

Fernandes becomes the second presidential candidate from Gallaudet University to work in the University of North Carolina system. Dr. Elisabeth Zinser, the 7th president of Gallaudet University, was the vice chancellor of UNC-Greensboro.

Once approved by the Board of Trustees, Fernandes’ position starts July 1, 2008.

One of the methods the military uses to encourage people to sign up for service is offering enlistment bonuses, in addition to free/reduced education costs and healthcare. But who knew that it would actually cost an arm and a leg to return the enlistment bonuses back to the military? Soldiers who suffered serious injuries– such as the loss of arms and legs– while engaging in active combat in less than the time specified are being told to pay some of the money back.

One soldier from Pittsburgh, Jordan Fox, spoke on this issue:

I tried to do my best and serve my country. I was unfortunately hurt in the process. Now they’re telling me they want their money back.

A bomb along a road blew up the vehicle that Fox was in, knocking him unconscious and resulting in an injured back and loss of vision in his right eye. Recently, he received a surprise letter from the military ordering that he return about $3,000 of the $10,000 bonus. Fox’s in good company because the military apparently tried to strong-arm thousands of other injured soldiers in giving back the bonus. Fox was lucky because just before he made an appearance on a national television show to discuss the issue, “the Pentagon reversed course…and vowed not to send its debt collectors after the wounded soldier.”

In this case, the Pentagon was smart to realize that bad publicity isn’t better than no publicity at all. Talk about literally adding insult to injury! Personally, I feel if a solider puts his/her life on the line to fight the good fight and becomes damaged goods as a result, that should automatically be considered fulfillment of his/her duty. “[The soldiers] SACRIFICED for us and we slap them on the face for getting hurt,” a friend of mine pointed out. Another friend whose husband served in the Army retorted, “They offer you to do something life-threatening with a sort of a bribe, and then when I lose a limb or something, you expect me to just fork over the money? Sorry, honey, it doesn’t work like that!”

Senator Hillary Clinton wrote a letter to Pete Geren, the Secretary of the Army, strongly encouraging him to rethink this dubious policy. In part, she noted:

Soldiers who have enlisted in the Army have made a commitment to serve our nation. With our nation at war in Iraq and Afghanistan, we should honor those who make that commitment. By agreeing to serve and then suffering wounds during their service, these soldiers have earned their bonuses. To ask soldiers who are being medically discharged to return their bonuses dishonors their service and undermines the Army’s stated commitment to soldiers and their families.

But interesting enough, thanks to the internet, there’s always a different perspective. I garnered this from a forum:

What kind of military would we have if the enlistees could walk out of their contractual obligations whenver they want? Do you really think that would work?

If they don’t want to risk dying, I understand that 100%. If the don’t like the regimen, fine. I don’t begrudge them one iota. If that is the case, don’t join. No problem.

Find another way to get a free education. Find another way to get your room and board and medical and dental for free. Find another way to get easy home loans with 0% down. Find somewhere else to get inexpensive goods than the PX and exhange. I don’t care.

But if you join, take the bennies, then whine “I didn’t sign up for this” when the going gets tough, I have no pity for you. When you signed that paper and took the oath it was for the good and the bad. Grow up and deal with it, soldier.

So, soldier, grow up and deal with a healthcare system that is turning out to be woefully insufficient. Grow up and deal with the issue of homelessness that affect a significant portion of veterans. Grow up and deal with worrying about just how secure your personal information really is. How can we expect them to deal with the lingering effects of war injuries when we are not doing a good job of providing whatever resources and assistance they may need.

It’s ironic that we seem to be more willing to forgive sport figures who received insanely huge salaries from contracts, and don’t really have anything to show for it. Take Grant Hill, for example. He’s a professional basketball player that never quite reached his potential due to being sidelined for most of his career due to injuries. When Hill signed his seven-year, $93 million contract with the Orlando Magic, no one could predict that he would miss about 73% of the games throughout the years. I don’t see the Orlando Magic asking him for some of the money back.

You can never place a dollar figure on the value of life. But if a basketball player can earn millions while being hurt, our injured soldiers should at least be able to keep the bonus for putting their lives on the line. A nice way for Uncle Sam to say thanks, don’t you think?

My good friend, Rachel Knopf, gave me “the unheard: a memoir of deafness and africa” (words in the title uncapitalized in respect to how it was printed on the cover of the book) by Josh Swiller for a birthday present a few weeks ago. When I pulled the book out of the gift bag, I knew immediately what it was. The book was about a man, born deaf but raised orally, who went to Africa (Zambia) with the Peace Corps in the 1990’s. Rachel, who had visited me in Kenya when I was there for my Peace Corps service from 2002 to 2004, thought I would find it interesting. After all, we were both deaf and we both went to Africa as Peace Corps Volunteers! I had picked up the book precisely for this reason but didn’t buy it.

I don’t know why I resisted it at first. I had read Josh’s blogs and liked his style of writing. But to read his book… I held it off for a while, saying it’d be my treat for winter break, reading a non-school-related-book at last! But I think there was something else holding me back. The book’s gonna be about a guy who couldn’t accept he was deaf and through the Africans who are beset by poverty, disease, and everything-bad-you-can-ever-imagine found he was really lucky anyway to have received a good American education and blah blah blah. I wasn’t in the mood for a predictable tale where the complaining schmuck realizes how lucky he really is.

But, yesterday, Josh came to Gallaudet to give a presentation and meet all the bigwigs at Gallaudet. Watching him share stories with the audience, I found myself nodding spiritedly. I know it was quite spirited because Josh noticed me in the audience. “Were you in the Peace Corps?” “Yes,” I replied, feeling my face turn red. “Where?” he asks good-naturedly. “Kenya” I reply meekly. He nods and continues sharing his tales and includes me every now and then. “Julie, was this the same for you?” I’d nod and smile.

It wasn’t completely true. Josh was telling stories about a violent village where there was mob justice (they dragged a man for miles on Christmas day), where a third of the children under five died everyday during the rain season, where he lived in a mud hut with no running water or electricity. That wasn’t my Peace Corps experience. I lived on a school compound in a house with electricity and running water (although the electricity wasn’t very consistent and the water didn’t really run, it dripped), I didn’t see children dying (I only saw how deaf children were cruelly treated), I didn’t see the locals dragging bodies (I heard stories though about putting car tires on people and setting them on fire for theft).

But there was an element of familiarity in Josh’s words. That’s why I was such a spirited nodder. So last night, I went home and started to read his book. “Just one chapter!” I told myself, “Then you have to finish your Optimality Theory reading!” I agreed and turned the first page. I didn’t stop until page 265, the last page. I kept on reading despite the nagging voice in my head. “Read your Optimality Theory! Read your Optimality Theory!” Optimality Schmoptimality! It couldn’t compare to Josh’s book. To his story which pulled me in and forced me to walk aside him. To meet the people he met. To feel the anger, confusion, solitude, happiness, and peace (sometimes all in the course of a day and for me mere minutes) he felt. To see a world he saw.

When I finished the last page, I got that feeling you only get from reading really good books. A feeling of peace. A feeling of sadness at having finished it already. A feeling of understanding. It gave me words, metaphors, stories that helped me understand my own experiences. And showed me much more. “the unheard” wasn’t just about being deaf or being in Africa, it was about being human. That was what the familiarity was. Josh’s Peace Corps experience wasn’t exactly my experience. Josh’s experience with deafness wasn’t exactly my experience. But it didn’t matter. Josh knew how to beautifully capture what it’s like to be alive in this world. And that is why it’s a great book.

(NB: There is little mention of the plot of the book because (subtext) you should go out and get it for yourself!)

The Maryland Association of the Deaf (MDAD) recently announced that Hillary Clinton will not be attending this weekend’s MDAD Conference. I posted a blog last month, “Hillary Clinton to Appear at Maryland Association of the Deaf Conference“, urging deaf and hard of hearing people to attend, so we could make an impression on the current leading Democratic presidential candidate, according to the latest Gallup poll.

Here’s an excerpt from the official MDAD announcement:

MDAD planned to have Clinton speak at their awards luncheon on Saturday, December 2 at a high class venue with top quality food prepared by a well-known chef. However, because Clinton will not be attending, MDAD is returning to the original plan of having the awards luncheon at That’s Amore which currently is close to capacity.

MDAD is negotiating with several reputable guest speakers and an announcement will be made soon regarding Clinton’s replacement. The replacement will not be a politician but rather key leaders in the Deaf community who will speak regarding the past and future of the Deaf community.

A source informed me that Hillary Clinton usually appears at events where attendance is at least $2,300 a plate. In comparison, the MDAD luncheon is a paltry $40 a plate. The MDAD luncheon was scheduled to take place on Saturday, December 1, from noon to 2 pm. According to Hillary’s website, there is a Montgomery County Team Hillary Meeting from 10 am to noon on that same day. There’s no information about plans for that afternoon.

Some mentioned that Hillary’s decision hurt her standing with the deaf and hard of hearing community, at least those involved with the MDAD. The signing community (the bulk of MDAD’s membership) is only a drop in the bucket. In contrast, those who treat $2,300 as if it is pocket change can probably sway the votes of several hundred or thousand people. Whatever “power” luncheons hosted by people with money to burn, that Hillary plans to attend, will more likely have a greater influence on the outcome of the 2008 election than those burning both ends of the candle trying to make ends meet. On the other hand, the Florida and Ohio outcomes in recent elections show that a few thousand votes can make a difference.

Will Hillary Clinton’s rebuke affect your vote? It probably won’t affect mine.

UPDATE: 

The MDAD distributed their announcement that Hillary Clinton would attend the Conference through several email lists (including DeafTimes, etc.). To see the MDAD announcement that was distributed through the DeafDC.com email list (which is the same one distributed through other email lists), go to:
http://www.deafdc.com/emailbla…..nique.html

At the end of the email is the following message, in italics:

*MDAD is expecting Hillary Clinton’s appearance based on current discussion with her campaign manager and team. Hillary Clinton’s appearance is not guaranteed and her schedule is subject to change at the time of the conference.

DeafHope, a non-profit organization founded and run by Deaf women, will be featured on CNN on Tuesday, November 27 and again on Thursday, December 6. Based in the San Francisco Bay area, DeafHope’s mission is “to end domestic and sexual violence against Deaf women and children through empowerment, education and services.”

Currently, DeafHope provides peer counseling, advocacy, support group, children’s art therapy, youth violence prevention and awareness, community education, technical assistance with placing Deaf survivors in shelters, and a 24-hour email hotline.

Why is DeafHope on CNN? Out of more than 7,000 viewer-nominated persons in 93 countries, 18 finalists–three each in six categories–were selected to be featured on “CNN Heroes,” a special report showcasing ordinary people worldwide who have accomplished extraordinary deeds.

One of those finalists is our own Julie Rems-Smario, DeafHope’s executive director and one of their founders, in the “Community Crusaders” category. Each finalist will receive $10,000 to be used towards their causes.

A blue ribbon panel–including “distinguished leaders, luminaries and humanitarians” such as Lance Armstrong, Deepak Chopra, Jewel, Téa Leoni, Dikembe Mutombo, Jerry Yang, and Muhammad Yunus–will select one person from each category to be honored during the December 6 live telecast and receive another $25,000. The global telecast will be hosted by Anderson Cooper and Christiane Amanpour.

It’s a big deal to have one of our own Deaf leaders to be so honored on a global scale. But it’s an even bigger deal for DeafHope–and their partners nationwide such as ADWAS in Seattle and DAWN in Washington, D.C.–have the crucial issue of domestic and sexual violence in the deaf community be featured on CNN.

That’s a victory for everybody who’s ever had a family member or friend affected by domestic violence.

So, once again, it’s Tuesday, November 27, at 10PM Eastern/7PM Pacific on Anderson Cooper 360º–that’s the program that will feature the three finalists for the Community Crusader category, including Julie Rems-Smario and DeafHope.

Now, to be fair to my readers, I was actually there at the CNN filming last week so you might just see me on TV! Also, photographer Chris Hamilton has posted some wonderful snapshots from that day (as well as past DeafHope events) at his blog, www.hamiltonphotographer.com/wordpress/. It’s also an excellent opportunity to see ASL used in front of the camera, with voice-overs provided by interpreters.

Then the two-hour global live telecast will be on Thursday, December 6 at 9PM Eastern/6PM Pacific to see who will be the six honorees selected by the blue ribbon panel. While all 18 finalists are all heroes, let’s hope DeafHope gets to shine through on that night!

We could do much to counteract the political paralysis in our community if we realized something once and for all: The “hearing world” in a very real sense does not exist.

Now before I get into this, I want to admit that I probably as much as anyone else am guilty of perpetuating the propaganda responsible for causing so many deaf people to believe that it does. When I talk about “Hearing America” being largely closed to deaf people, for example, I’m doing the same thing others are doing when they say that this world is “a hearing world.” I’m creating the image of overwhelming, crushing numbers, united against us in hostility.

For the sake of figures we can work with, let’s leave the 6.5 billion* people (yes, most of them hearing) currently vying for closet space on this smoggy globe of ours out of the argument and focus instead on just America. Because you can bet that when John Average from Somewhere, U.S.A. starts talking about “the hearing world,” he isn’t talking about illiterate Chinese peasants (illiterate in both printed English and Chinese, by the way) currently submerged up to their butt cracks in muddy rice paddies who have never owned or even seen a computer. He means people like himself: in possession of at least a high school diploma with a job, 2.5 kids, and a mortgage loan he probably now sincerely wishes he had never taken out. To him the world is “English-speaking” because that’s the language his paycheck is printed in.

All right, fair enough. Let’s pause here for a second to consider not only what “Hearing America” actually is, but also what it’s capable of doing at any given point in time. Say that the population of this country is currently 300 million, and of that number, 30 million are deaf or hard of hearing. That leaves 270 million hearing people for deaf people to contend with.

And you will contend with them. You will eventually someday have a job interview with a hearing employer, have your knee whacked by a hearing doctor, or try to order a cheeseburger without pickles from a hearing waiter who apparently equates deafness with mental retardation. These will be frustrating, maddening, oppressive, and humiliating experiences. They will collectively grind away at your soul, eroding you from within, increasing your sense of helplessness to improve your lot in life.

But you will speed that process along considerably by multiplying one isolated, hostile idiot by 270 million, because it is highly unlikely that you will face such a number at once. In fact it’s equally unlikely that you will ever face such a number at all.

Other writers have already made the point that, just as 30 million deaf people are not shaped by the same cosmic cookie cutter, hearing people are also probably quite different from one another. I agree with this argument, and don’t want to expand on it very much here. When we refer to deaf people, in many ways there is no “we.” There are Deaf people and deaf people; deaf people with cochlear implants and deaf people without them. There is widespread disagreement amongst D/deaf people regarding how deaf children should be educated, and so forth. We’re united only in our disunity. If any deaf person seriously believes that all deaf people want the same things, many of us would probably place him in the category we’ve assigned to airport accessibility personnel, since that group seems to be the final stronghold for those who believe all deaf fliers should be pushed to their connecting flights in wheelchairs.

But if there isn’t a “we,” then for the same reasons there also isn’t a “them.” Or at least not a “them” that’s 270 million hearing people strong. And that leads me to the topic I really want to discuss here: logistics. The gathering and transport of people to the place they’re needed at the time they’re needed.

Don’t you find it kind of ironic that when D/deaf people scrape together two hundred protesters to go and fight something, their critics will say, “See? This cause is so very important to all deaf people everywhere; only two hundred out of 30 million bothered to show up!” Or twenty. Or two. Well, out of 270 million hearing people, supposedly united in hostility (against that particular cause, anyway, if not against all deaf people everywhere), how many of them bothered to show up? If it sucks so much that a small group of D/deaf people could only organize two hundred active and visible supporters out of thirty million, shouldn’t it suck even worse if “the hearing world” can’t match their numbers at the site of a given conflict? If they’re so numerous and all-powerful and dead set against what’s happening, I mean? When we talk about how the reputation of the Deaf community has been trashed in the eyes of the hearing world (after all of the recent protests that have happened, for example), is it so unreasonable to ask whether or not the minds behind those 270 million sets of hearing eyes actually agree with this statement? I’ve never seen 270 million negative comments under even one negative online editorial in the Washington Post. I’ve seen maybe a hundred, tops, and many of them seem to consistently come from the same people.

I’m not just asking here for an accurate assessment of the actual physical numbers “the hearing world” can definitively align against any given group of D/deaf people who decide to stand up for something. I’m not even only questioning whether or not those opposing forces are going to be neatly divided between hearing and deaf people, because in reality there might end up being many hearing and deaf people who support a given cause, just as there could potentially be many hearing and deaf people who are against it.

I’m asking whether or not D/deaf people who currently feel oppressed and helpless need to keep feeling that way. Especially if they managed to whip up twenty people to join the picket line, while the other side (with 270 million “supporters” supposedly at their disposal) apparently couldn’t whip up anyone to counter them.

Don’t you think maybe that our sense of oppression doesn’t just stem from hearing peoples’ raw numbers? Maybe it’s more about the fear generated from false beliefs. Maybe more than a few of us (and I’m not talking about hearing or deaf people here anymore, I’m talking about anyone who happens to unite for a common cause) have been living our lives as if we expect the other’s side’s cavalry to come charging in at any moment and cut us to ribbons under a million swords. But exactly how is that supposed to happen if the place we’ve chosen to fight doesn’t have room for even one of these cavalrymen to draw his sword without poking the cavalryman seated up high next to him? In fact, how many horses can you actually fit into an area the size of a high school gym? If that’s the place where the conflict is occurring, what you’re going to see is maybe thirty horses inside and the rest of them outside doing little more than standing around creating steaming heaps of horse dung.

Translation: If we need to fight “state governments,” what we’re probably going to actually end up doing is fighting certain individuals within state governments, and not the whole government. Making things seem bigger than they are doesn’t do anyone any good. In any given System, you can always find the terror-stricken and bitter (or both) who will oppose any type of change whatsoever, those who will passionately fight alongside of you for reforms, and the lethargic who don’t really care one way or another. Yes, those you end up fighting can be incredibly powerful. They can be well funded, and have at their fingertips a devastating Propaganda Machine.

But one function of that Machine, part of its way of keeping you down, part of its strategy for smothering every spark of external dissent before it can blaze into a fire, is the repitition of the message that if you take on that group, you’re actually taking on the whole world. That can’t possibly be true. You’re just taking on that group. And even if their group numbers thirty thousand to your two hundred, even if their group has $18 million to your $374.36, there is still an immense psychological victory to be found in cutting their group down to size. Thirty thousand isn’t God. And once it becomes apparent just how determined you are, their thirty thousand can be rendered just as helpless, bumbling, and as scared senseless as your two hundred probably feel right now. Or your twenty. Or two.

So take heart. And the next time you feel helpless and overwhelmed, step out once again into “Hearing America,” albeit this time with eyes that are open to the truth. Your neighbors, the people looking for Christmas bargains in Walmart; that’s Hearing America. The postman delivering your mail, the guy in the beat up Toyota driving up the street right now on his way to his factory job—are they going to oppose you? Do they even know you? Do they know anything about deafness? That’s Hearing America. Multiply them by 270 million. They aren’t organized. They haven’t made any detailed plans to genetically engineer you out of existence. In a determined fight they’re essentially non-combatants. In many ways they don’t matter very much at all, not even when false implications of solidarity are constantly being used to frighten you into submission.

If you want to be effective, narrow down your targets. If all you’ve trained yourself to see is “the hearing world,” everything that you can change blurs out of focus.

*I am grossly (and probably unforgivably) rounding off all of my numbers here. Please do correct me if you have precise figures.

After a long hiatus from Irish bars in 2007, it’s time to regain our cool at Finn macCool’s on December 7! Located in the heart of Capitol Hill’s exciting Barracks Row District, Finn macCool’s offers up plenty of fun activities such as a pool table, a Tornado foosball table, two dart boards, and an awesome 20’ Champion shuffleboard table! This is the perfect place to catch up with friends before the holiday break. The Deaf and Hard of Hearing in Government 10th Anniversary Luncheon will be held at Gallaudet University earlier in the day, so expect an invasion of Feds that evening!

Finn macCool’s
713 8th St SE
Washington, DC, DC 20003

See you there!

November DPHH Pictures

Unfortunately a hard drive crashed and they have been lost forever. We apologize for the inconvenience. This is an opportune time to remind everyone to back-up precious family photographs and files over the Thanksgiving or holiday break. If you don’t back-up frequently, don’t despair. A Newsweek column reports that a Harris Interactive online poll found 35% of us don’t (check out the link, it’s a great article). Speaking of which, have any of you used online file back-up services? Here are some found via a cursory search on Google, and they all have cool names, Elephant Drive, Red Boomerang, Carbonite. Are they worth it? Let your fellow readers know!

Have a great Thanksgiving!

According to an article in The Annals of Family Medicine, the answer is yes. The lead-in to the New York Times article that cites this study reads,

Children who have hearing problems are much more likely than other children to end up in an emergency room with a wide variety of injuries, researchers say.

Score one for deaf children! Or, as I should really say, children with hearing loss–the degree of loss here isn’t mentioned (but hey, this is the Age of Deafhood, who cares about degree of loss?).

The conclusion is that the child’s hearing loss puts them at risk of injury. The study looked at “138,000 injuries in children treated at South Carolina ERs in 2003. The injuries included fractures, sprains and strains, burns and cuts.” Perhaps they should have thrown in accidental scratchings at DBC protests.

And why is this so? Because, as the researchers suggest, children with hearing loss can’t hear important auditory signs like the sound of an approaching car, footsteps, or their parents’ warnings to “watch out!” Eek. It’s dangerous to be a deaf child these days–or has it always been that way?

I’ve never really been to the ER as a kid. The only time I came close was when I was a free-wheeling CID youngster playing at that playground across the street from the parking lot (Hey CID alums, remember that one!? The one with the massive yellow slide?). Somehow I fell and bit my tongue, which promptly began to bleed very profusely. My housemother took me to the hospital, but I’m not sure if we went through the ER or just saw a doctor. All I got was a small hand towel to soak up the blood and orders to put ice on it and wait a couple days for the wound to close.

Ah, but was it hearing loss-related? I think not, unless you account for the fact that I was at a school for children with hearing loss, so you could argue that in an alternate reality, a hearing Adam Stone would have never been a CID student playing at that playground and thus his near-tongue piercing wouldn’t have happened in the first place and then temporal paradoxes pop up and the universe goes awry ajs..f.wsf…..

Nevertheless, the point of this blog post is to elicit funny and crazy ER stories from you, the readers. Yeah, I know you’ve got one. So share it with us!

The other day, I picked up a great local newspaper called the Washington City Paper and started reading an article called “The Office” that focuses on DC Public School Chancellor Michelle Rhee’s efforts to revive, improve, and reform the DC public school system (DCPS).

As I read it, I found myself drawing many parallels between what the DC public schools are going through and what Gallaudet is experiencing. From the administrivia issues at the DCPS Central Office to Gallaudet’s College Hall, upset teachers at high schools to upset professors in HMB, you name it — there was something for everyone.

I worked at Gallaudet from August 2006 to June 2007, and I will be drawing on some of my experiences working there.

(Italicized quotes are from the City article.)

“…the central office has become a metaphor for all that has gone wrong with the D.C. Public Schools—all the stalled reform plans, all the forgotten, expensive consultant studies, all the revolving-door superintendents…”

When I worked at Gallaudet, I saw a lot of plans that had been put in motion over the years, forming a palimpsest of plans on top of plans that ultimately choked all possible innovation. Many of these plans were excellent ones, with excellent intentions.

Consultants had also been involved at many points, with expensive contributions, and their time and expenses were not used to their fullest potential. For example, a consultant was called during the King Jordan administration that reviewed the necessity for centralized communication and made excellent recommendations that were not followed.

The high turnover of the end of the King Jordan and duration of the Davila administration has been seen for everyone. Many good people have left Gallaudet, to search for greener pastures elsewhere. And somewhat ominously, the good people that remain are also looking.

Sometimes you can only extract so much thankless work out of people for so long before they leave, no matter how good things get.

“At the DCPS central office, people have not been held accountable for their work, and I am determined to change this. People who do not do their jobs well should not be working for a school system.”

I can say that accountability is something that is improving at Gallaudet, however, during my time there accountability could be expressed in one phrase: pass the buck. Whenever something happened, nobody stepped up and said, “This is my fault, I’ll take care of it!”

No, it was always “It was that department’s fault. It was that OTHER department’s fault.”

I also got the runaround: endless loops of “Not my responsibility.”

Nobody took full responsibility to ensure that the client, be it the student, faculty, or staff person, was fully satisfied or served. President Davila has taken great strides to improve this, but there is still a long way to go before uncompromising excellence is a byword of the campus.

One tenet that I’ve learned in my corporate travels is that you must treat your employees the same way you treat your customers; specifically, you must treat them both excellently. For if you treat your employees badly, eventually, you will also treat your customers badly. Therefore, there must be a culture in which the most junior staff member feels valued and supported 100%.

“If you’re a teacher, anytime something goes wrong with a paycheck—and things will go wrong with your paycheck—don’t even bother with a phone call.”

I hear stories from student and teacher friends at Gallaudet. They are full of anecdotes of the “Gallaudet Way.”

A friend never got loan money until mid-semester, thereby making it extremely difficult to pay for books, which caused serious delays in her studies. This happened every year.

Another friend applied for a job a few months ago, and Gallaudet reported to the background check of the employer that he was never a student, even though he plainly was and was in possession of a Gallaudet degree. This person had been previously celebrated in Gallaudet publications. How ironic.

Each of us have our stories of Gallaudet inefficiency, screwups, or other kinds of things that we say, “Oh, that’s Gallaudet!” I don’t point them out maliciously here, but as a way of illustrating how much we’ve come to accept that there is a Gallaudet way of doing things, and that it’s far from fast, efficient, and in the best interest of students, faculty, and staff.

“The fix? Henderson says the plan is to move all of the DCPS records to a system called PeopleSoft, which is what the rest of the D.C. government uses”

Gallaudet does already use PeopleSoft, but yet there are a whopping 10+ forms on paper to fill out when you become a new employee at Gallaudet. Yes, this is an artifact of the fact that Gallaudet is a Federal facility, and has Federal health insurance, life insurance, and retirement plans.

In comparison, when I got a job at my current company, I had one form to fill out — the W2 form. All the rest was automatically handled for me, and I just had to log into one centralized website for health care elections, Metro transit deductions, 401k allocations, etc.

In the time I spent at Gallaudet, I noticed that they do have a smooth running but extremely expensive implementation of PeopleSoft that is underutilized. The PeopleSoft system that they had could do much more, if it was given the attention and support from all sectors of the campus.

“Today, Ackerman’s on the faculty at Columbia University, and she speaks surprisingly fondly of her time at DCPS. “D.C. was the hardest district I ever encountered. It was also the most rewarding, because I found incredible people doing things with incredibly limited resources.” She talks about the central-office workers who spent nights in their offices in sleeping bags.”

While I worked at Gallaudet, I met many people who were trying their utmost to make Gallaudet a better place. But like the City paper continues to say, “A broken system will make brilliant people look incompetent.”

This is exactly the problem that Gallaudet faces, and like the DC Public Schools Michelle Rhee, President Robert Davila’s path is clear — keep moving forward and making improvements. Infrastructure, systems, and centralization are hard and unsexy problems to work on. But above all, each and every employee and customer should be treated with the utmost appreciation and respect.

Things to Try

• Think about the experience from a representative staff, faculty and student member. Twice a year, go through the paces. Request transcripts, request a name change, ask about common personnel, accounting, and administration questions. Track how long it takes to complete these tasks. Improve them
• Once a quarter, send a “undercover” person to eat at the eateries on campus, buy from the bookstore, use the health facilities, ask for help from the tech folks, track customer experience, etc.
• Learn more about the Office of Assessment and how they are assessing and collecting metrics about the Gallaudet experience.
• You a student, staff, or faculty member? Tell the administration about things that have always bothered you.

Source for quotes:

The Office, Washington City Paper (a must-read)

I recently came across an interesting situation at the Bank of America ATM the other day. I had already requested the amount of money for withdrawal, and my hand was at the ready, right under the cash dispensing slot, awaiting the friendly and welcoming feel of Mr. Andrew Jackson and his quintuplets. After receiving said bills and sighing in relief, I also noticed something else in my hand…My brows furred as my eyes fell upon a foreign object that should NOT have come out of the cash dispensing slot…a Chevy Chase ATM/checkcard, in the name of one Ernesto WhoseLastNameIHaveForgotten. I looked over my shoulder, around me, up and down…half expecting Ashton to jump out and say Spend, Spend, Spend (rather than Punk’d!)

It boiled down to this: What do I do with Ernesto’s checkcard? Read on.

The timeless question is often posited…what came first, the chicken or the egg? While the answer may invoke an age-old battle between Darwinism and Creationism, it has an indirect link to another question that has been debated since Aristotlean times (or further back): What is the essence of our actions, its driving force, and what are the implications of their repercussions? Does an infinitesimal amount of rights justify the action of a single, solitary…wrong?

It’s never been more evident than these current times in where rights and wrongs are portrayed within our media…perhaps more so on the latter, for that stirs up drama, debauchery, or the simple pleasure of saying: “AHA! GOTCHA! YOU’RE NO BETTER!” and glorifying in the toppling of a seemingly ne’er-do-wrong icon.

Case in point: Sports, and Bill Belichick, the coach of the New England Patriots. This season for the Patriots (pun intended) has begun flirting with history. No NFL team, since the ’70s has gotten through a season undefeated, and the Pats are making headway since their biggest challenger (the Indianapolis Colts and one P. Manning) fell at their feet. The Pats stand tall at 9-0, seven games away from matching the Dolphins’ 16-0…with the odds in their favor in the remaining weeks.

In the face of historic sports moments, another one is constantly surrounded by shadows: One Mr. Barry Bonds. This man has shattered a baseball milestone–the home run record held by Hank Aaron (755 career homers), hitting the 756th and continuing to extend the record until the Giants went home in September…questions loom about whether or not 755, or perhaps 762 (Mr. Bond’s grand total) of those baseballs were belted out of ballparks behind juiced up arms, begging for the insert of a monolithic *.

It seems that we are running out of professional sports in which our supposed role models are depending on the “X Factor” to either help them perform better or deal with the pressures of stardom. Bicycling’s Floyd Landis, tennis’ Martina Hingis, basketball’s The NBA Referee Scandal of 2006, the list goes on…

All of these incidents involve a deeper sense of right vs. wrong. Belichick’s moment when his hand was caught in the cookie jar as investigations unveiled stolen signs off “illegal” tapes probably was the crowning moment for this writer. How pervasive is the need to perform at your best? How far does one need to go to attain that sense of satisfaction, knowing that one has reached the apex of success and left their mark? Where is the challenge of it all if success is attained through illicit means? We all have our answers–this writer questions the motive behind those decisions of our media-plucked role models. Do they not realize that their actions reflect on their organization, families, and more importantly–themselves?

Perhaps they do, and they don’t care. Perhaps they feel safe in the confines of fame-as-buffer. Untouchable. Laws, rules, constraints, boundaries do not apply to them because they.are.f-a-m-o-u-s and self-proven.

Or, they feel they cannot perform without the aid of something. Take your pick.

Life sure looks good when you have an edge, doesn’t it?

After all, despite the brouhaha, Belichick is 9-0.

Think about it.

And, I passed the checkcard on to my wife for her happy use. No, really. Yes.

Ok, she’s a Chevy Chase bank member too and has returned the card to a Chevy Chase bank. So, Ernesto WhoseLastNameIHaveForgotten, if you’re reading this, I SWEAR that I have nothing to do with all those Las Vegas charges. Really.