I want to thank Adam for his past writing on all three candidates. In fairness to the readers, I only attended the last two presentations and was unable to go to the first one. I think Adam has written an honest, objective and neutral article on the last two candidates’ presentation.

I would like to add a few personal observations from yesterday’s presentation. I have never met or talked with Jane, but like many others in the deaf community, I have heard of her. I attended Jane’s presentation with an open mind – to give her a fair opportunity to tell her vision of Gallaudet.

Although I think she presented well, it was not as charming or rock star performance like Ron Stern giving a concert. I was somewhat disappointed that she didn’t address the eight (8) strategic plans that were set for Gallaudet within the next 5 to 7 years. However, she kept referring to the Strategic Plan many times – as if she assumed we had read it – as an outsider, I’ve not read it and felt somewhat lost. From my observation, she knows Gallaudet’s Strategic Plans in and out and knows the reason or history for each of the plans. I just wish she had taken a little time to explain how she would implement the strategic plan.

I agreed with Adam, I wish she had done a better job with her PowerPoint presentation. I tried to figure out what the pictures represented. It would have been great if she had bullet points and/or outlined her vision.

When the question and answer session began, like Adam said, it was the most unusual and tense conversation between her and the questioners. I personally think this was uncalled for. As Provost, we don’t know the real reason why she made some of the unpopular decisions. Remember, she worked and served for President I. King Jordan and she had to carry out his final decision, whether she liked it or not. Maybe the Board of Trustee may have instructed her also. We don’t know the facts and we shouldn’t blame everything on her. Therefore, we shouldn’t be short-sighted with her without knowing the real story behind the scene.

If she were the President last year, would some of the decisions be different? In my plain and humble opinions, yes.

I think only two questions were raised relating to “what would you do as a President”. All other questions were concerning her current and past performance as a Provost. The job of President and Provost are two different positions/responsibilities and it was totally unfair that the questioners didn’t want to see it that way.

I feel the question and answer session was a waste of our time and nothing came out of it. We still don’t know her ideas, visions and dreams for Gallaudet in the next 5 to 7 years.

I don’t think people gave her a fair chance - that’s too bad.

David

I have never met Jane but can’t imagine that she’s as evil as the smear campaign has been painting her to be.

Chris Leon
http://chrisleonroar.blogspot.com/

Almost all the residence buildings have the severe mold problems, especially Clerc and Peet Hall. The long-delayed for the mold remedation of the Clerc Hall have been putted off for years. When will the mold remediation of the Clerc Hall taking the place?

Many students and other residents usually get chronic pulmonary (bronchitis, pneumonia) and thyroid infections and neurological impacts (depression, forgetfulness, confusion) from living in the mold-infected surroundings which greatly affected their academic studies. Inhaling the airborne substance like mold and will affect the involved individuals for the lifetime.

The Gallaudet Physical Plant Department (PPD) did not regularly maintain the quality of indoor air within most residence buildings. Those people really did not maintain the bi-annual inspection and cleaning of the HVAC units at the Peet Hall.

Student Activity Center (SAC) and all residence buildings with the flat-top roofs already are contiminated with airborne infection (mold via Staphaccalous virus).

That raises the real questions about the IKJ and JKF’s adminstration leadership. The parents of current and past Gally students and affected individuals could sue the Gallaudet University for the multi-dollars for their own neglience over years.

Not only the Gallaudet studentsm faculty and staff members are affected. KDES and MSSD student body, faculty and staff members are also affected.

Why not the IKJ/JKF leadership immediately close the Clerc Hall and get the mold remediation at once, not letting students to compromise their health permanently?

Robert Mason (RLM)

Taken from Patricia Raswant’s report (http://aslcommunityjournal.com/pages/27/index.htm)
Stern received many congratulations but a particular message that was most striking to him was from one of his friends who attended only RIT and CSUN told him that Gallaudet University is OUR University.
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I was at Stern’s forum and nodded in agreement when Stern quoted his friend that Gallaudet is OUR university. I attended RIT and other university but still follow the happenings at Gally. Why? It is OUR school, like it or not.

Many people were relaxing and curious to see Steve Weiner’s presentation. I can see that he can make a good storyteller, real heartfelt stories about Deaf Culturally and so forth but as a management and political levels? He has Ph.D. and I believe he could learn.

Many people were exciting and curious who was Ron Stern since we don’t know him. I can see he has some management and political level already but he doesn’t have Ph.D. He mentioned that he will get Ph.D. by this end of the year but he’s not officially Ph.D. until he gets his paper of officially Ph.D.

Many people were uptight, heated and curious to see what Jane F. had to say. First of all, I was really shocked how bad behavior the staffs were. I got to the line near the door, waiting to get in; it was about 10 people in front of me before 3pm. Many staffs had cut in line and greeting other staffs in front of me then they stayed there…boy, it grew! By 3:45pm it was amazed to see around more than 75 people in front of me waiting to get in the door, again most of them were staffs, even one gave me dirty look for being in her way when I wasn’t. I was in the same spot for over an hour and never moved. I never see the worse and rudest staffs people in my life! It made me realized that staffs aren’t a good role model for us and Provost JF blamed students for bad behaviors…maybe it’s time to find out why staffs are being bad behaviors and show bad role models? It’s seem like Provost is not a good role model for students and STAFFS.

With JF’s presentation, she didn’t really talked much about her real goals; it’s more like marketable what Gallaudet will look like in few years that we already know about. She didn’t have the straight answers for anyone who asked her questions. Her favorite words, “I have education with this and that” that validly herself that she is deaf culturally, plus she kept saying she wasn’t aware of this and that problem, “let get together after the presentations”, will she do that? Did anyone meet her afterward to deal with many problems that she isn’t aware of? She made no sense to me and I felt her presentation was worthless. She looked like a robot and she tried her best to answer them in her abilities that she can’t do well. Where was she when we need her first, second, third, fourth, fifth and sixth years and even today? She doesn’t seem to have any connections to any people at Gallaudet University. Remember we can not change people therefore we can not change JK the way she always acts as a cold flat face. Will she ever change? Nah! You can not teach the old dog a new trick! She doesn’t have any personally to be friendly and charisma like others so how can she do the job if she doesn’t those?

By the way, my concern, why did board put three candidates that two could not be qualify for President and put JK there too? Is it their intention to put JK as president? Why there is a RUSH to get President to vote? Why not delay it and find out more about why other qualify candidates aren’t there along with others like for example, Glenn Anderson? He never had a chance to interview with Boards, Why?

One last concern, why I King Jordan had attended to all presentations? I noticed that there were few sentences were used by other two candidates that JF used in her presentation which I found it distasteful. Something is FISHY here!

At the end note, JF said in private that she took deep breaths in a stressful way and said “I survived”, she didn’t look happy at all. It makes me wondered if she want to continue to do this job as President. It must be very hard to able to try to be a good presentation knowing she wasn’t well-liked person and fight for a long battle. Does it seems to be easier to say “I can’t live like this hellhole” and step down to save her stress mentally and make people happy for a change?