I am going to quote I. King Jordan (IKJ) during the DPN; “The students, joined by the staff and faculty, have focused the world’s attention on the larger issue. I must now publicly affirm my support for the point of view held by the Gallaudet community. The four demands are entirely justified.” I want to thank the FSSA for the protest and their continuing effort in educating the world about the Gallaudet community’s concerns regarding their most cherished institution. While the initial exposure emanating from the protest, would give Gallaudet a black eye (& then some!), the long term effect would be giving Gallaudet a makeover worthy of a prom king or queen. It is along those lines, among the Gallaudet community, where the FSSA protest is entirely justified.

Much more troubling is the no-confidence vote held by the faculty yesterday. To my understanding, 140 faculty (out of 240?) voted on resolution #4 and an overwhelming 66% voted no-confidence in JKF’s abilities to lead Gallaudet. Even dividing 93 no-confidence votes by a total of 240 faculty comes to a high 38.75% figure. The faculty vote is an important one; They are the ones who work in Gallaudet day in and out. They work with the students on an interpersonal basis daily. They work with administration, and have to bear the many burdens of their decision-making. Moreover, in the past six years, the faculty has worked with JKF’s Provost leadership and have unique and intimate insights into her leadership acumen.

As such, the Gallaudet community should place a high degree of credibility upon the faculty as a whole. What the students have started with their protest, the faculty has essentially helped seal the case against JKF’s candidacy to assume the Presidency at Gallaudet. Earlier, I had expressed confidence that JKF will do the job as Gallaudet President and bring it into the 21st century. In light of recent turn of events and my great deference to the people who work at Gallaudet, I feel compelled to withdraw my confidence in JKF’s ability to lead Gallaudet, and in the short term, to even unite the fractured Gallaudet community. JKF has lost tremendous political capital she will need to lead Gallaudet beyond the protest, and I really cannot envision a way for her to regain her footing.

More devastating, the faculty resolutions could be viewed as a referendum of sorts into IKJ’s leadership. By extension, JKF is Jordan’s hand-picked protégé and the one he hopes will succeed him as President of Gallaudet University. JKF essentially has had a ‘glorified audition’ of sorts by virtue of her Provost leadership, in getting her ready for the Gallaudet Presidency. It is safe to assume that Jordan and JKF has worked closely together for the past six years in charting a course for Gallaudet in today’s challenging environment. The faculty’s rejection of JKF’s leadership could be viewed as rejecting Jordan’s leadership in promoting mediocrity and diminishing returns within Gallaudet for the past six years.

I’d sincerely hate to see that happen to IKJ, where his excellent leadership of Gallaudet University for his 18-year tenure is soiled by the past turn of events and repeated disclosures of many various ills affecting Gallaudet in the past six years, bringing into sharp focus of his leadership deficiencies for all in the Gallaudet community to dissect. His recent gaffes in dealing with the current Presidential Search process did not help his cause, either. I do think of the world of I. King Jordan, and I sincerely hope he can pull himself out of this quagmire, entirely of his own creation, soon and with minimal damage to his legacy. I would love nothing more for IKJ to don his Teflon suit and reassert his strong leadership in trying times at Gallaudet right now, when the FSSA needs it the most, and reverse the tide.

One last thing of note; information is at a premium when it comes to the deaf community. For as long as recorded time can remember, DHH people have been isolated and shut off from the information flow that courses throughout mainstream societies. The Gallaudet community demands transparency from BoT, and rightfully so. The protest is now eliciting information, both good and bad, from all sides of the situation, to the point where it becomes dangerously close to ‘white noise’. It is gratifying to see the FSSA sharpen its focus and hone on a message we all can relate to and act upon with decisiveness. I can only sincerely hope that the BoT will follow suit and work together in healing rifts at Gallaudet and putting our best foot forward towards a better Gallaudet for our generations of DHH students yet to come.

If Jane Fernandes is not able to get this situation under control by the time she is ready to be sworn in, there is a very good case to be made that she has shown herself unworthy in her response. I admit to you it’s not fair. It wasn’t fair that she had to deal with the crisis control during the Gally murders, either.

I’m just saying the BoT cannot ask her to resign simply because of the protest. They can however ask her to resign if they come to believe that she cannot run Gallaudet effectively.

Which means this next few months will be the most stressful of her life. But I have a definite feeling that the BoT will NOT change their minds until IKJ retires for sure. That’s the real politics of this.

If Fernandes is compelled to resign by the BoT after fighting this crisis, I bet you things will be so F’d up that the next president can’t find out the paper trail to anything and anywhere and a lot of people will get away with whatever they did.

If Fernandes manages to stabilize this situation and is sworn in, we should all support her, because she sure fought hard for it. While no other candidate is doing anything but letting their supporters whine and moan.

I do believe the Deaf community has a serious problem. We learn to take so much that we forget we can stand up. I take SO much **** from hearing people every day in the course of my work as a social worker. I have to fight to educate doctors, social workers, nurses, what have you about a variety of issues to advocate for Deaf people. I get the luxury of a reminder EVERY DAY.

But at Gallaudet it’s so easy to sink into complacency. The administration ignores student concerns. The PART review exposes the lack of committee oversight and quality improvement at Gallaudet. To summarize, there’s no motive force for change, and no way to make sure that change happens one way or another.

Gally students arrive at the University and spend four years learning what it means to be Deaf. I had to go through that process at MSSD and later at the University of Bristol. People pooh-pooh the Gally 10-Year Plan; I’ve come to learn that while it’s important to graduate on time, this process of learning to be Deaf etc. is also important - and yes, does require socialization, confirmation of experiences, learning of tools to deal with the world… If Gallaudet had any vision, it would have set up strategies to help students in this process so that they could get out in four years’ time.

The oppression happened because of what I said today on my blog - we picked a person with a hearing impairment to lead the University. This is important, yes, but there’s something else - deafhood. Deafhood is something apart from being Deaf. It is a way of understanding the world from a Deaf perspective. I know a couple of Hearing people who understand Deafhood and would actually make a good University president. But it’s become clear to me that not all Deaf people do.

In my earlier attempts to understand the protest, the message was very mixed. Yet as the days went by, the message started to become clear, or to crystallize. It appears that, as I think Julie Tibbitt said, “..this is a blessing in disguise..”. When she said that, that hit me like a ton of bricks–ah yes. We needed this to happen and expose our deep, deep simmering feelings and resentments that have slowly cumulated over the years. It’s possible that these feelings are the result from oppression and discrimination from the environment external to Gallaudet. But, most so from within the internal administration. How is it that in the wake of DPN and during I. King Jordan’s tenure that we are still being oppressed by the administration itself? How could we not have seen it? Why was it so subtle? Why didn’t anyone speak up? Why was Dr. Roz Rosen suddenly fired? Why did Dr. Jordan not want to share his sentiments about that with the SBG at that time (’99?). How could it BE that many of us were so blind?? As this protest goes on, many blogs have posted stories of negative experiences from the FSSA. Finally the opportunity is here for everyone to dump out in the open their experiences with Dr. Fernandes. Everyone’s regurgitating it. But you know what? It’s healthy. This is therapy on a mass scale for everyone who has any relationship with Gallaudet.

It also appears that if we never spoke up, we are oppressing even ourselves–our own spirits. By protesting, we are teaching ourselves and everyone around us that it’s alright to be angry and more importantly so, to stand up for ourselves. A big event like this appears to be necessary to shake everyone out of their apathetic state of minds. But we cannot always wait around every 15-20 years for a new Presidential selection for an opportunity experience our pain and renewal. We all must learn to stand up for ourselves and our beliefs each and everyday and not ever let anyone oppress us. We all must take responsibility for our deafness. With our disability comes responsibility. Our responsibility is to teach others how to work with us, how to communicate with us, how to treat us fairly. We cannot continue being angry at the world for what they’ve done to us in the past. What we can do is control the future by educating. And in doing so, we must authenticate ourselves and make it crystal clear to ourselves what our values and beliefs are. We must be honest with ourselves every minute of the day. We must be honest with the fleeting subconscious thoughts each second. We must be honest with every part of our emotions every nanosecond. Only then we will know true strength and conviction. We all must do away with our personas and facades–they make us liars out of ourselves.

I’m now on the bandwagon. I support the cause in the perspective that this is healthy and therapeutic for all involved. In order to grow, we must first experience pain. Experience pain in it’s full essence and we shalt be cleansed and then once again we can exalt in our beauty.

Renewal. Unity. Educate.

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And yeah, I agree with you. Diversity doesn’t only entail race. It also inclues gender, sexual orientation, religion, and so forth. It would be a mistake for us to forget that.

The sad fact is, there’s more D/deaf mainstreamed individuals now than Deaf-Centrics, and there are some out there who percieve that as a threat when it really shouldn’t be.

What I’m seeing is that the Deaf-Centrics think, rightly so, that they’re slowly fading away, and they’re very angry about it. And it doesn’t really have to be that way! I don’t think people realized that while being angry at our oppression and discrimination is *very* legitimate, we also started to turn on each other, and that was, and still is a big factor why you see a downward spiral on the numbers of Deaf-Centrics. But that’s only based on my observations and discussions with both Deaf and hearing allies.

You can still be Deaf, even if you were mainstreamed. We just have to tweak our definition of what being Deaf is about, but that’s healthy. That’s how a culture and community stays for the long-term, or else we WILL die out as a culture. And I think we can’t forget that. We also have to remind ourselves not to be constantly angry. We also need to throw some warmth and love to the mixture, cheesy as that may be… :P

I keep hearing rumors about Fernandes’s radical approach in revamping the curriculums at Kendall and MSSD which caused an uproar among the teachers and parents. Can anyone comment on that?