on top of that, to all those people that got arrested, yer a loser, you will always be a loser, this will be on your record for the REST of you life. Please do something with your life and quit interfering with people who are making use of the gifts our Government has given us out of empathy. (SSDI, VRE, and so forth) I’ve never been for either one of those financial options, but I would rather see someone make better use of the opporunities they have been given rather then see them arrested or drowning in their vomit to celebrate their failure and ability to party their asses off on gov’t dime and drop out after homecoming. GO YOU!!!

There are so many viewpoints, accusations, yadda yadda and so on that has resulted from this so-called protest. The administration claim that they are working with the student protest leaders in a faithful and honest manner and that the student protest leaders are reneging endlessly on their promises; on the other hand, the student leaders claim that the administration is continually lying to them and that their requests are not being met, yadda yadda. Both camps are agreeing to disagree, which is what I’m seeing here.

Granted that Irving Jordan is going down as a pariah because he’s ordered the arrest of the students that have for years have viewed him as if he was a demi-god, which I could never understand. First off from what I have learned from several sources, he was NOT born deaf at all and learned sign language late in life (in his twenties, I surmise) — does this mean he’s “deaf enough” for these students, I wonder. On the flip side of the coin, J. Fernades was born deaf, was raised in the oral method and eschewed sign language went to public schools, yadda yadda…even though she has learned sign language, she’s considered “not deaf enough” by many, according to what the media has reported. (I know, I know..that one shouldn’t always trust what the media reports, which I don’t.)

Why do I think this whole protest is stupid, you may ask. First of all, I learned that many of the student protesters learned that the police were going to be showing up at the 6th street gate instead of the main gate so they went on over there so that they can get themselves arrested. What for? What were arrests going to prove to everyone, including me? I even saw the pictures and was shaking my head in bewilderment. Why? Many of the pictures were showing some of the students laughing and smiling as they were being carried away by the university police. What’s so funny about being arrested? I thought protests were supposedly to be a serious matter? What was the point of smiling and laughing for the cameras? Sounds like they enjoyed being placed under arrest. To make this point even more clearer, I even saw a picture of a disabled student protester who was in a motorized scooter demanding that he be arrested as well while all of his other friends were being arrested one by one. This was kind of stupid because it seemed to me to be like the case of “Meeeee too, Meeee too”…Give me a break. Furthermore, many of the protesters have reportedly vandalized one of the campus buildings, threatened and intimidated other students who aren’t participating in the protests, and tried to bar/block people and cars (and even a fire engine) from entering campus. This is so asinine and they probably don’t really understand the graveness or severity of it all. In fact, this is indeed illegal and they should be barred or expelled from Gallaudet for destruction of property, intimidation, preventing people free access to Gallaudet among other things.

Secondly, I noticed one thing: there were an estimated 300-350 students protesting. This out of a student body of roughly 2,000??? That isn’t an impressive number at all. It just shows that a minority portion of the student body supports the dissention whereas the majority either doesn’t care about the protest or they don’t agree with the tactics that the student protesters are using.

This protest is stupid because it doesn’t prove anything at all. It only causes a lot of inconvenience to the elementary and high school students who go to KDES and MSSD as well as to the staff that work on Gallaudet Campus. How much money is Gallaudet paying the staff and faculty while Gallaudet is closed?

Honestly, I think this protest is NOT about Fernandes’ deafness or management skills. I think this is more about the students being afraid of Fernandes’ reputation for being tough on students that don’t perform well at Gallaudet. Students should be afraid of her because she’s there to ensure that students get an education, not to party their heads off. I am well aware that the AVERAGE Gallaudet student enters Gallaudet with a reading level of a fourth/fifth grader and is incapable of understanding and reading a typical college textbook. (Thank God I didn’t go to Gallaudet (or even to NTID).) I often wonder how Gallaudet can award students “degrees” when they are seriously woefully undereducated. I can understand why many corporations and government agencies are gravely concerned about the education standards of Gallaudet.
I honestly think the students and staff/faculty are afraid of Fernandes being tough on them. They should be because Fernandes, to my understanding, wants to improve the level of education at Gallaudet so many more students would graduate with a better level of education than what they have been getting up to now.

Just my .02 and sorry its so long, but I wanted to get it off my chest. I wish to remain anonymous because I am very well known in the deaf community.

As I said, this doesn’t come without costs if one truly wants to buy all of the buildings, the land and the cost of running it. Would be high. It may cost 300,000,000 just to buy all the buildings and such. Then would the 300,000 Deaf adults mind just for the first year donate $160 - 240 per month or $40 to 60 a week? And then the next year’s donation would only then require $40 to $65 a month to help run the university. Things like that.

There are lot of ways and maneuvers one can do to ensure it become a private institution. It’s really up to Deaf people if that have that kind of committment.

The cost seen in the FY07 annual budget is $155,000,000 to run and operate the university.
http://af.gallaudet.edu/pdf/26.....xt_Low.pdf

There are over 14,000 Gallaudet alumni.
http://www.betterhearing.org/r.....cation.cfm

So, you will need from each alumnus over $11,000 each, every year. Or at least raise $155,000,000 EVERY YEAR to ensure that Gallaudet continues to run and function as it were. Not even considering that this price continues to go up every year.

But it’s not just the alumni but families who are DoD or whatever. In my own 13 page research paper I’ve estimated that there are some 900,000 Deaf people in the United States. About 1/3 of them are adults, meaning they’re wage earners. So that leaves anywhere from 200,000 to 300,000 Deaf adults who are wage earners.

Assuming that all 200,000 to 300,000 of them *WILL* contribute to the newly established all-ASL, Deaf-only private University for deaf and hard of hearing, the annual funding requirement from each Deaf adult person would amount to anywhere from $500 to 775 dollars a year from each adult wage earners at the most. Or to make it palatable, that’s anywhere from $42 to 65 dollars a month. Cheaper than your monthly Sidekick phone bill. Though not a guarantee that this will happen but it’s an idea worth exploring considering what has happened lately.

In essence, it’d be the largest continual endowment fund for the express purpose to run the first ever largest and private Deaf University for deaf and hard of hearing students. In fact, if one cannot get a Deaf town up and running in South Dakota, this’ll be the next, best and easiest thing to have. Take complete control over the university by buying it from the Government with the intention showing the world that Deaf people can do anything.

Not only would you get Gallaudet University as your prize, the endowment of some $165,000,000 will be your booty to have in helping with the transition and establish new Deaf programs.

There are enough Deaf people out there and alumni to make this work. Although the politics of it in making such a move could become contentitious.