Dr. Robert Davila, the Interim President of Gallaudet University, effective today, recently released a video about his plans for the next 18 to 24 months at the helm of Gallaudet University.
In the video, we learn that his first priority is to focus on the Middle States Association accreditation. See my prior Blog on this topic “Is Gallaudet in Danger of Losing Its Accreditation?” to understand the significance of this problem.
Dr. Davila also intends to visit government offices to meet with people from Congress to assure them that Gallaudet is doing “fine”. This is most likely related to the “ineffective” PART report from the White House.
The third priority on Davila’s agenda is to establish focus groups. One will focus on academic rigor in response to media criticism, no doubt in reference to the damaging Washington Post article from November. Another focus group will discuss healing from the protest by implementing an effective communication plan and the appropriate channels for communicating and voicing concerns and input and ideas to top administrators including Dr. Davila’s office.
In the end, Dr. Davila encourages his viewers to “put aside the past and focus on the future.” He appears confident we can get through this difficult time and encourages all of us to participate in the process.
What do you think of Davila’s first video as interim President of Gallaudet?
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Isn’t this also the first video announcement by any Gallaudet president?
Wondering aloud, although I am sure the answer is a big YES: What about NTID, has their president whatshisname ever made a video announcement?
That’s an excellent point, I just checked the NTID/RIT website and I don’t see any videos from Alan Hurwitz:
http://www.ntid.rit.edu/
I would like to hear Alan Hurwitz’s response to Robert Davila’s announcement and hopefully, NTID/RIT and Gallaudet will continue to work together in education exchange for student’s benefit to learn both academic and technology approaches.
I was much pleased with Dr. Davila’s thoughtful and inclusive message to the Gallaudet community with the very first Gallaudet video message in sign language.
I reserve my personal opinion of Dr. Davila’s signing ability to myself. Most important of all, Dr. Davila is a person of intergity and honesty!
I hope that Dr. Davila do not have to follow the entire script from word to word via English text for the general message in the near future . Dr. Davila really could sign freely without constricting himself to the concept of English language for the visual-spatial language usage. Smile!
My ASL is also not really great - kinda sloppy and unclear. That’s why I never will be excellent at the public speaking. I am better off with my writings than signing ASL to the general public. I am much destined for “one to one” or “group” communication. That is me!
Please use the Gestuo (gestural language) deaf interpreter for the international audience for the next time along with your video message. There are countless international deaf Gallaudet graduates and prospective foreign students outside the United States of America. Please keep mind for the 3 R’s - recruitment, retention and resources among international deaf populace. :)
I applaud Dr. Davila for bringing much need for the real healing to the Kendall Green campus. Please watch out for the wolves at bay for feeding you such misinformation. Please listen to all the sides and reserve judgement(s) until you meet with someone else to see for yourself. Okay? Gracias.
Wish you, Dr. Davila all the productive and honorful New Year within your tremendous responsibility as the 9th Gallaudet University President!
Warm regards,
Robert L. Mason (RLM)
it’s “Gestuno”
Shane, thank you for this write-up! It helps those of us without broadband Internet!
Hi,
All due respect to Dr. Davila… I don’t know the man personally, though I am perfectly willing to meet him more than halfway. But this one point: “put aside the past and focus on the future…” I’m sorry, but I can’t agree to that. Not when the past includes almost unchecked audism, and a colonial governance system that to this day remains to be dismantled. Not when even a single DPS officer cannot sign at satisfactory levels. Those and a host of other issues aren’t only a part of the past, they’re still a part of the present. Perhaps I can go so far as to say, ‘Okay, I’ll stop haning onto the anger these things generated if you show me a willingness to resolve them as current issues.’
But that’s the best I can do. I cannot and will not go back to “business as usual.” And my unwillingness to do this does not only hold true within Gallaudet and the immediate Gallaudet Community. I’m also no longer willing to allow the wider field of Deaf Education go back to “business as usual.” Forgive me if that sounds arrogant, but I only speak for myself and nobody else, therefore I think it would sound more arrogant if I were to say “we” won’t go back to business as usual.
For what it’s worth, though, I hope that you won’t either.
Chris, you are not arrogant! I am totally agree with you about not urging the intertim president to sweep such unpleasantaries under the carpet as something never happen at all.
Dr. Davila seems trying to keep his message simple and sweet (KISS) without angonizing someone or cause any rifts within the Kendall Green campus.
I personally hope that Dr. Davila will have an open house during the first week of the Spring semester or go to the Gally cafeteria and SAC to say hellos and short greetings to get acquaint with Gally students, faculty members and staffers.
Good quote “Not go back to business as usual!” Many people have been upset with President Ford back in September 1974 for pardoning Nixon’s criminal acts against the United States of America.
I was told that several Gallaudet DPS officers were dismissed like the infamous Bubba officer. I don’t know if there were any truth to it.
Robert L. Mason (RLM)
I am inclined to agree with you about our fear and sketpics, especially with this part, “almost unchecked audism, and a colonial governance system that to this day remains to be dismantled.”
Since he was among one of countless who wrote a letter to Board of Trustees, asking for JKF’s resignation, I am willing to give Dr. Davila the benefit of doubt and see where he’s leading Gallaudet University into. Also, we have to be mindful that he’ll only be around for 18-24 months, so there’s a lot that an interim President can’t accomplish in a short time. There’s a lot of mess to undo from prior administration, but he’ll need to prioritize, given his constraint time.
What we have now that we didn’t have during I. King Jordan’s power:
FSSA coalition, Deafread and several others.
We can only hope that with these, people will think twice and do what is right. When time comes, we have to be VERY proactive about the next President after Dr. Davila leaves.
I thought the video was interesting, and his lack of fluency in ASL surprised me. But other than that, what he said didn’t surprise me at all.
He’s the interim president, and will be remaining in office for two years at most. So with the accrediation issue hanging over Gallaudet, it’s very sensible to me that Dr. Davila is going to focus on that. That is the most immediate and crucial issue that needs to be addressed.
It’s like my psychology professor said repeatedly: First, you stabilize them. Then you treat them.
So it’s very logical to me that Dr. Davila is focused on stabilizing Gallaudet. Once Gallaudet’s stabilized, then I think the issue of what caused the unstabilization will be addressed. But I don’t know if Dr. Davila will still be around when that’s going to happen, since Gallaudet right now is extremely unstable.
When Dr. Davila said we should put aside the past and focus on the future, I don’t think he quite intended that we should get back to business as usual. I don’t even think it’s possible for that to happen. Far too many things have occurred.
We can’t dwell on the past, because it doesn’t change anything. Change only comes about if we learn from the past, then put the lessons to good use in the present and future, to ensure those mistakes never happen again. I think that’s what Dr. Davila meant when he said that statement.
~ Deaf Pundit
I always wince at Dr. Davila’s signing ability, but personally find him to be very decent and trustworthy person. Much better from IKJ’s opporunistic and cunning and manipulative persona!
Robert L. Mason (RLM)
his signing appears to be old school (he’s in his, what, 70s?) and reading off a teleprompter. that’s my impression.
Hi Deaf Pundit:
I don’t think he meant we’re going to go back to business as usual either, if that means anything. I think he sincerely and honestly wants to move ahead. I’m just saying that if “business as usual” ever BECOMES his or any future administrator’s message (or if it remains the message of any administrator currently overseeing any Deaf Ed program anywhere in the U.S., then I cannot support that administrator. Colonialism has had its last gasp, so far as I’m concerned, and I have no patience or sympathy for anyone who advocates for or maintains a colonial status quo.
I see how you can have reservations about this, Chris. I find this appropriate to share a friend’s wisdom: “I can forgive, but I don’t forget”.
I agree with the others, that hopefully the mistakes made can be embraced. Moving on..
Yes, and like my cousin said it well in one of the Washington Post article during the protest that the closeness of the Deaf community means that it has a long memory. So, definitely not forgotten while forgiveness is possible.
Two things: I am sure Davila is aware of psychological issues that remain to work out and he fully respects it. I believe he simply means he does not want to become too diverted to this part when we need to address academics issues and relation with government.
About his signing, I just watched him. Let me make few comments. I worked as a full time ASL evaluator, have been researching in linguistics and have been teaching ASL for 20 years. First, yes I recognize signs he uses are from 70’s. They can be easily fixed at his own will. He already demonstrates fluency with nice flow (even pace with rhythem) if he only signs, he will do a lot better. Honestly, speaking at the same time do distrupt flow. What I see that he does have it but it is hindered by speaking at the same time.
I already see his use of grammatical facial expressions with various head movements for sentence structures, he already has them and again, he will do better if he just signs. (raised eyebrows, chin rises for topicalization, head shake for wh question markings or negation, head moving from side to side to separate topics or persons, sorts of emotive facial expression for mood and adjectives) More wealth of language will come out if he just only signs.
It is nice that he does fingerspell in full for name of organization then use abbreviation after on.
I recommend him and also EVERYONE to just get an ASL coach. I would get one for myself..oh yes!! He should pick someone who he thinks this signer and he share a similar style or who he admires as an elder leader, being a male, and etc. A fluent ASL older hispanic man with academic ASL skills and English will be an ideal coach for him but I cannot think of a name yet except younger ones.
For grammatical facial expressions and some general important features, he can have a deaf ASL linguist from Dept of ASL and Deaf Studies or Dept of Linguistics to give a few private lessons.
But one thing, it is possible that he feels it is not necessary to do anything about it and just stick to his own preferance.
I will be interested to hear names of coach you would recommend for him?
;^) Anne Marie
To the below commenters, I understand where Anne Marie is coming from. It is important for a public speaker to be mindful of his/her public speaking skills when they attempt to project themselves as a leader of a community. This helps the presenter convey a clear message that is readily understood by his/her audience. Look at how often George Bush is ridiculed for his “Bushisms”. This type of criticism is not limited to deaf leaders. Employing an ASL coach is a sensible suggestion.
On the other hand, there were comments made by some protesters about the quality of Dr. Jane Fernandes’ and later Dr. William Marshall’s sign language skills to justify their opposition to these candidates. Comments such as Anne Marie’s could have been suggested for these two individuals as well, rather than considering the person unqualified for the position, in part, because they do not express themselves fluently in sign language.
Annie Marie, who cares about his facial expressions or his sign skills?!?!? He has mastered the SKILLS of LEADERSHIP. There is no such thing as ‘perfect’ sign language.
I find it totally ridiculous that everyone is critiquing Davila’s ASL signing skills.
What is more important is that he is demonstrating leadership and moving us forward and away from the presidency fiasco of late 2006 on Kendall Green.
I agree. Davila’s signing skill should not be up for debate or even discussion that borders on critiquing. This brings back the old “not Deaf enough” issue to the forefront. He signs well enough. He communicated his thoughts via a video. He is serious on wanting to see what’s best for Gallaudet University and help get back on its feet. Critiquing his signing skill is a waste of time, imho, and does nothing on helping Gallaudet move forward, even if it means offering some “suggestion” on how to “improve” one’s signing but doing so raises, perhaps subconsciously, the “not Deaf enough” Pandora’s Box. Davila was chosen for his leadership ability and skill to help pull Gallaudet through.
Dr. Davila’s job is to get Gallaudet out of trouble. The next president will take care of details.
well said!
some of you keep mentioning Mr. Davila’s signing ability, the real questions you should be asking yourself are:
CAN I UNDERSTAND HIM?! can I understand the points he’s trying to make and the accomplishments he hopes to attain?!
Give him a break. It is his very first day. Guve him a chance.
I’m not sure if you understand what my intentions are, but people on this blog especially RLM are criticizing his ASL usage, which is beyond petty. Just as long as you can understand his points and intentions, then there shouldn’t be a problem. This “neo-deafie’s” movement crap is ridiculous, Gallaudet campus and the deaf culture is not a cesspool for elitism, it’s a place for communicative disorders NOT to be a disorder. that’s all… simply a buffer between the deaf and the hearing.
Hello Punkybrewster:
I don’t think it’s petty or inappropriate in any way to criticize a public figure, esepcially one who has the potential to greatly impact the living conditions of deaf people all over the world, for his signing skills. It would certainly be a legitimate issue, for example, if the next President of the United States did not speak English. Or, to put a twist on this, as our Hispanic population grows, if the future President did not have fluent Spanish.
Now this is not to be rude to Dr. Davila. As I said above, I don’t know the man personally and I’m sure he’s a nice guy. Furthermore, I have no wish to be a hypocrite. My own ASL abilities are probably average to above-average and no higher, and it’s a daily fight for me to not SIMCOM. None of that negates the fact, however, that I’m not a public official or a public figure, and thus lack the ability to influence living conditions for deaf people to the same kind of extent. I’m not saying that questioning and criticizing our leaders should be a rude and hostile free-for-all, but the mere act of questioning or criticizing doesn’t make one the bad guy.
My issue, however is that we use these blogs to discuss things, and become as passionate about our beliefs as we do, as if what we think and how we feel makes any kind of difference at all. So some of you are not satisfied with Dr. Davila’s signing skills. And that’s fine, but what difference does it really make? It’s not like you’re being polled, with the results of that poll shaping what Gallaudet administrators do or say in order to retain your vote. You have no vote. Right now what you think or feel has absolutely no bearing on how long a given Galladuet administrator remains in office (unless, of course, what you think and feel is shared by so many people, to such a passionate extent, that they join you in a rebellion). Thus in a way, don’t you think we’re setting ourselves up here just a bit? Imagine that we ever reached some kind of widespread consensus that this or that Administrator is not competent for this or that reason. So what? So much of our energy has been put into reaching that consensus, how much is left over for solving the problem?
I think that these blogs are step ahead of their usefulness. FIRST you have to have a system in which public opinion has the power to really sway things, and THEN you develop a system for exposing public opinion (such as these blogs).
As things stand we’re going to debate and rant and argue… for what? At the end of the day, only the BOT can choose/fire the President, and this will remain true largely because we did nothing about it.
Dr. Lon Kunzte (1990) in Deaf American Monogram knew and put it correctly, “We should step back and try to view our language in a wider perspective. We should consider ASL as a language with only one grammar that can operate with a complete range of possible variations within the parameters of the language. Just like English, we have at our disposal the possiblity of creating various sentence constructions with the same meaning. All those possible sentence constructions, ranging from the so-called “non English” structure to the English-influenced structure are governed by the same grammar. In other words, what has been labeled as ASL or PSE is really a part of the same language subjected to the one and only grammar.”
What I was saying is there are features Davila show come within the parameter and where some do not quite so, that is where having a coach would help with it.
Remaining within a parameter, that is a standard use of grammar, sign choices, and pragmatics (register - discourse structures) are indisputably relevant to having a high cognition function. Symbols and encoding messages need to be consistent, like shapes that matches shapes of slots and slide in through without having to keep on shifting and pressing them trying to fit them. Smoother transmission on the cognition level holds an important role in information processing and memory retainment, so important for deaf - hoh children and rest of deaf - hoh population who are more dependent on signed communication.
By the way Dr. Lon Kuntze is deaf and a bilingual, fluent in both languages and a doctoral graduate from University of Stanford in linguistics. He is currently employed at the university of Boston working with other people in the field of Deaf Education, language development, and research.
Anne Marie
I don’t think anyone’s advocating that Dr. Davila’s a bad leader and shouldn’t be president of Gallaudet because we weren’t razzled and dazzled with how he conveyed himself on the video.
Dr. Davila seems very sensible, confident and a reassuring person, which is exactly what Gallaudet needs right now. I personally was merely surprised at how he expressed himself.
As for criticizing people on their language proficiency, there’s a discussion over on “Abusing Audism” thread about that.
I find the comment about blogs’ so called usefulness very interesting. For the most part, I don’t think we’re ranting or arguing here. Debating, yes. But you know, I think there’s a good quote that applies here. “I have never in my life learned anything from any man who agreed with me.” -Dudley Field Malone
To me, the blogs are useful because it’s a place where we can exchange and discuss ideas on a large scale. The larger scale it is, the greater impact it eventually will have. When the ideas are hammered out with *civil* discourse, those ideas gain strength and eventually will have the strength to have a (hopefully) positive impact on society. The key here is civility.
It’s only when the discourses denigrate into personal attacks and hostility that the blogs lose its usefulness.
It’s simple psychology: The more hostility heaped upon you, you will either break down and submit, or you become more entrenched in your position.
If someone came up to you and screamed at you, ‘You’re dead wrong! I cannot believe you even thought that! How dare you?!’ your natural response typically is to either break down crying and submit, or to tell the person to shove it.
And I think that’s where the protest failed in that aspect. There was far too much hostility on all sides for anyone to recognize that just maybe, the other side had ideas worth of merit.
~ Deaf Pundit
Shane-
Thanks for bringing this to our attention–but I do have several questions in my mind that I’d like someone (or anyone for that matter) to answer, if they can!
1) Why is Dr. Davila having to defend Gallaudet’s record or try to head off trouble at its feet when these incidents never happened on his own watch? Shouldn’t Jordan/Fernandez been called to the carpet on this matter since it happened on THEIR watch? I find it ridiculous that Davila has to go around to the “government offices” to ‘fight fires’ so to speak. Just doesn’t make any sense to me for the man to have to spend so much energy to do this when he wasn’t the one who caused this much trouble.
It just clearly bothers me that IJK and Fernandez both got off scot-free from all of this; in short, they don’t have to answer to anyone for their mess that they created at their own hands, wouldn’t you agree?
It wouldn’t be a very good sign to have a bunch of bureaucrats slamming Davila for Gallaudet’s academic performance shortcomings, really. I would be cringing on that part.
2) Why are people criticizing his signing skills? Why can’t people just ACCEPT the person he is? No one is perfect, really. I am coming to terms with the fact that no one is going to ever be happy with ANYONE’s signing skills, whether they be d/Deaf/hard of hearing/oral/cueist, blah blah. There always will be a camp of individuals who will criticize him–they are forgetting the BIG picture here — one of him FIXING Gallaudet’s reputation and healing the campus.
Unbelievable that someone would just automatically on the first take of the person criticize his speaking skills.
If so many people are bothered by it, then why don’t they go ahead and start another protest lambasting his signing skills and demand that another interim president be selected so as long as his signing skills are up to snuff to the critics? *sarcastic tone here* I am sure there is someone out there that has FANTASTIC and AWESOME signing skills BUT has LOUSY management skills. Can’t have both these days, you think?
Hi Aquafina:
For me, anyway, I don’t think that Dr. Davila should have to answer for Gallaudet’s problems. You’re entirely correct–he didn’t screw things up. Nor do I personally have a problem with his signing skills.
But I support the right of people to question these things. And I certainly don’t think you can have the one… administrators who are held accountable for their actions, without the other, a community that relentlessly questions every move they make. I don’t see this as undue criticism or unfair in any way. Remember that the Deaf Community doesn’t really have media in the sense of newspapers and magazines. If it did you’d see trained editorialists and journalists taking on that role–the role of questioning our officials. But in this community, the task falls to bloggers and those who post their own opinions on those blogs. I honestly believe that one result of this phenemonen is that it all comes across as community “bitching.”
Think of the alternative. How “nice,” how accomodating, has this community been for the last 18 years? And what was the end result of that complacency? Administrators who don’t listen to the community. Or to put it more precisely, administrators who “hear but don’t agree with” the community.
That has to stop. And the way to stop it is to start considering the questioning of and legitimate criticizing of our leadership in community media to be a civic duty, rather than something to be ashamed of. At the very least that’s the first step. The next step is to develop mechanisms and tactics for quickly harnessing public opinion into retaliatory power if it goes unheeded one too many times.
Right now we don’t have either. We’re still working hard on #1. I say let it develop. Let this community learn how to send the message that it’s watching, it’s concerned, and if pushed far enough, it will act.
Chris,
Your posts, both here and on GallyNet, are always well-reasoned and well-argued. They provide a perspective that DeafDC can benefit from. Have you considered becoming a regular DeafDC blogger? If you haven’t, please do consider it. You’d be fabulous.
Agreed. I do value Chris’s many well thought posts and he appears to be well versed on issues close to the heart of the Deaf community. The more people like him, the merrier it’ll be!
Out of curiosity, is GallyNet only reserved for employees and students of Gallaudet like NTID’s Deaf_Perspectives vaxnotes? Was GallyNet the former Whazzup Gally vaxnotes (I forgot what it was called).
Chris–
Good response. Your response made me think for a minute here and I want to add another comment here that may make people think about why some people don’t bother considering running for office or president.
This applies to both the academic and political arena. Many people do have the background and excellent management skills to do the job in a very prominent and visible position but a lot decide NOT to be considered for the office/position.
Why?
Many feel that the limelight isn’t for them. Many feel that much of their privacy would be stripped, or many feel that they wouldn’t do well under a high level of public scrutiny or criticism. Or maybe their families don’t want their family member running for such an office.
I had one friend who ran for public office (Congress) one time out in Hawaii and he told me that after losing the election race, he wouldn’t do it again. He said that his critics from day one nitpicked on him relentlessly. They tried to dig up all sorts of dirt about him. In fact, I have been contacted by the media after they found out that he was in my fraternity (most congressmen are fraternity men, by the way). They wanted some background stuff on him but I said “no comment” because I strongly feel that the past should stay in the past. I had very strong beliefs that he would be an excellent congressman if he did get into office.
I think there are a lot of very capable people out there who can do the job but decide not to do so because of the critism fears and so on.
I believe that people should reserve their judgement/critism of folks until after some time. That’s just my feeling here…Im expecting SOME people NOT to agree with me on this.
Chris-
I hear you loud and clear here (no pun intended here)…but my point here on #2 is: didn’t Gallaudet and the board hire him for his management skills? If so, then why is the community “bitching” about his signing skills already ON his VERY first day? Can’t the critics give him time BEFORE they can go ahead and begin to rip into him? I mean this is a bit heavy, don’t you think so?
Just my thoughts…
Aquafina, show me ONE post here that says Dr. Davila’s a bad leader because he doesn’t sign ASL that well. Because I can find several posts saying that about JKF, and I think all who are rational will agree that JKF signs better than Dr. Davila. Her mannerisms left much to be desired - she came off as totally dismissive and arrogant at times, but her ASL was just fine, really.
I resent being labeled a bitching critic because I expressed surprise at a man of his caliber apparently not having a lot of fluency in ASL. Maybe he DOES sign ASL well, and just doesn’t sim-com well. It was obvious in the video that he was sim-comming. I don’t see how that is castigating the man. He’s a highly-respected leader in the deaf community, and one of the many criteria of being a deaf leader is that you sign ASL well. So excuse my surprise, Aquafina.
Now, with that said, Dr. Davila was hired for many reasons, I’m sure, not solely for his management skills. By all accounts, he’s an excellent leader. Gallaudet hired him to bail the university out of trouble. He applied and accepted the job fully knowing that. As for Jordan and JKF getting scot-free… I’m not so sure they got off the hook completely. JKF’s out of a job. So far, I haven’t been informed anything about whether she got a new job or not. Jordan’s reputation now is in complete tatters in the deaf community. JKF and Jordan’s livelihood was in the deaf community, and now they’re basically booted out. I would say that’s pretty a serious repercussion.
~ Deaf Pundit
Deaf Pundit–
I happen to know Dr. Davila VERY well and I have never insinuated that he was a bad leader because of his signing skills. I wish you would go back to my original post and re-read it more carefully.
I wrote my entry because some folks here were criticizing his signing skills even before the man ever had a chance to “manage” and “lead” Gallaudet University. People were jumping all over him for his signing skills even before he completed his first day on the job. I mean, jeeez, can’t people give him a chance to show what he can or can’t do yet? Or do people enjoy nitpicking on someone before they had a chance to show what he can do for Gallaudet? My point is that no one is going to be completely satisfied with anyone that Gallaudet is going to pick as president.
Secondly, you have forgotten one thing about Jordan–although his reputation is in tatters, the guy retired rather very wealthy. He never had to pay for his housing expenses from what Im told because Gallaudet provided housing for him. Not only that, they gave him a VERY lucrative salary year over year — and to boot, they give presidents a very lucrative compensation package that includes enhanced life insurance coverage, and most likely, additional pension enhancement that is not the norm with regular staff at Gallaudet. Although he may be a pariah in the deaf community, he probably will be shrugging his shoulders off into retirement enjoying the nice retirement package that many of us envy. He isn’t going to be punished financially or job-wise one bit. In fact, some of my professional colleagues believe that he probably will be carving out a nice consulting job for himself somewhere after he’s had some time to settle down. I doubt that he will yonder off to Margaritaville burning up his retirement package any time soon.
Fernandes probably doesn’t need to go back to work immediately because from what I hear, she got a very nice financial settlement from the Board of Gallaudet. In fact, she probably will take some time off to think about what she wants to do next. Who knows, she may be a consultant, work for the government, or even write a book about her experiences (I am sure that people will buy her book to read what thoughts she had in her mind about the whole experience in the protest and so on). I don’t think both of them will sit still for very long but they probably will enjoy the fruits of their compensation packages for awhile.
Since I know Bob very well personally, I *KNOW* that he will do a great job for Gallaudet University. He did a great job at RIT and has a solid resume and educational administration background. I believe that had Jordan been removed LONG time ago that Bob could have been recruited to be a permanent president of Gallaudet then. This isn’t to say that they may not ask him to stay on if they are happy with his performance after two years. Who knows?
I still believe that some of the top administrators who worked under Jane Fernandes and Jordan should still be held accountable for the mess at Gallaudet, not Davila.
I did not say that YOU insinuated that Dr. Davila was a bad leader due to his signing skills.
I was asking if you saw any posts saying that he was a bad leader due to his skills. Because I see NO posts saying that. However, I did see several posts by other individuals, not made by you or me, insinuating that JKF’s a bad leader because of her signing skills.
As for Dr. Davila and what people are saying about him, what I see is a consensus that he’s going to be an excellent leader for Gallaudet, but that he didn’t sign ASL very well in the video, period.
The reason why I commented on Dr. Davila and JKF is because it shows me that many people’s evaluation of a person’s signing skills is political, not objective.
I have to agree with Anne Marie here. Sorry. ASL AND English is the language of the deaf culture, and ASL should be held to the same standard English is.
~ Deaf Pundit
As I was saying……..
Saying what, punkybrewster? I’m sorry. I don’t understand what you’re saying.
Never did say that people think he’s a bad leader because of his signing skills nor did I say that I saw some posts alluding to that.
Same standard as English, sure. But once you leave the cozy confines of Gallaudet University, whether for a job or continuing advanced degree, high English standard still applies.
The quotation from Dr. Lon Kunzte is interesting but is useless for two reasons. Not all ASL experts and teachers agree with his position. Some of them refuse to recognize any English-like structure such as “THIS BOOK WRITE(repeatedly) B-Y C-H-A-R-L-E-S D-I-C-K-E-N-S” in ASL. Secondly, there is no single authoritative book or DVD (or any media) that provides the comprehensive grammar of the ASL. Without it, there will be always some disagreements among people on the correctness of grammar.
I agree with several other commenters that it is infinitely absurd to look for shortcomings in Dr. Davila’s signing skills. His first vlog was supplemented with the captions for an obvious reason. I am sure that he expected that some signers may not be able to understand him and rather than cutting them off, he wanted to make sure that his communication was effective with them by providing two different ways at the same time. He can always try to improve his signing skills but this should not be done at the expense of effectiveness.
Joseph Pietro Riolo
josephpietrojeungriolo@gmail.com
Public domain notice: I put all of my expressions in this post in the public domain.
I am not sure if you are familiar with the field of ASL research up to date. There are some disagreement about English influences in ASL. A large number of ASL experts do not have this disagreement and view it as the nature of ASL in the bilingual setting opposed to more monolingual ASL environment seen in more remote places in this country. As for ASL teachers, the fact: many of them have not taken any ASL structure courses or only took one semester in ASL structures 101. We cannot entirely rely on them.
Are you familiar with the infamous green book “American Sign Language” by Baker and Cokely, several series of ASL teaching curriculum( Vista Signing Naturally, Humphries and Padden’s version etc) , 4 video series of Faces of ASL by Bienvenu and McColomnos? There is uniformity in explanation of ASL rules with little discrepancies among these materials despite its scanty.
Second, it seems a double standard..it is not okay to turn in paper blemished with grammar errors, misspellings, etc for formal publishing but it is okay to do formal community speech like this? I find it amazing because every time when I give formal presentation, I actually do videotape myself at least twice to check on sign choices (I still sometime use wrong sign choices), check for clarity, etc or have someone watch me for feedback. I do few run through on vlogs before releasing it in public.
Are you telling me and others to just rely on captioning?
Anne Marie
“I do few run through on vlogs before releasing it in public.” Stop that! You have the time for it. Not him.
I bet Dr. Davila is too BUSY. He got to the point in communicating with the shareholders and then move on to the next item on his long (effective and to be productive) action list. MSA accreditation is a serious matter that needs immediate attention NOW. Being the President is a very burdening job. Please stop worrying and lighten up.
I’m inclined to agree with this post, one of my biggest peeves with many of the people who submit their idea’s and various degree’s of opinions, a majority of it is full of unrealistic flights of fantasy.
“OH MY GOD! A meteor is coming down on the campus! someone throw an orange at it to change it’s course!”
“An orange?!”
“yeah an orange!! if you throw it fast enough it’s impact will deflect it!”
“we better find someone with an arm capable of throwing it damn near light speed!”
You made me laugh, Punkybrewster! That was a good one! We need more of these….
By the way, I do agree with Joseph Pietro Riolo’s comments above as well. It explains my sentiments regarding people’s disagreement about a person’s signing skills no matter whether he/she is hard of hearing, deaf, Deaf, oral, blah blah. People ALWAYS will be critical of others. I do know of some people who ALWAYS criticize other people ’s signing skills behind the others’ backs. Its sad, but its true. Its life, I guess.
Oh my! Not orange! No way! I suggest throwing an apple instead of orange due to better material property.
“Apple cell wall material was exposed to different processing steps, commonly used in the fruit and vegetable industry, such as heat and enzymatic treatment (maceration, liquefaction) as well as extraction with diluted acid. The influence of these procedures was investigated with respect to chemical composition and structural features and their effect on the material and functional properties. Besides water binding determinations commonly used, kinetic methods were introduced. In this way it was shown that the treatments influence not only the water retention capacity but also the velocities of swelling and water release under pressure, respectively. Heat treated materials with softened cell walls released water slower than cold water extracted materials. Furthermore, it was found that a high pectin content or a remaining natural grown cell structure are no prerequisites for a good water binding ability. The relationships are rather very complex and multivariate and all factors influence mutually.” Abstract by S. Vetter, H. Kunzek
*slaps knee*
After few hours of being out of house and back now..wow, the putting down and double standard is to me and many others an act of “linguicism” and a clear diglossa.
If there was a deaf president with all qualification send out letters and memos without editing, everyone WILL complain.
I can take that Davila (I LOVE HIM!!) is very busy at this time, I am just suggesting that from now and on, get an ASL coach. It does take USA presidents hours and days to prepare for presidental speech with a speech writer’s help.
What I see cannot keep going on when the leader does have his responsiblity to show what is academically honorable thing to do in both languages and WHAT professionals in the deaf field ought to do the same thing. Com on, think of tenured faculty professors and teachers of deaf ed programs, this is not something to slap on knees about it.
Head bow and shake
Anne Marie
PLEASE show some respect for Anne Marie! She take up her precious time to share her expertise on the ASL issues with us, Deaf DC readers. Anne Marie offer very valuable and constructive advice on the related ASL matter how to assist Dr. Davila’s public speaking to be more eye-pleasing and understandable (real necessity for any head of the organization, corporation and educational facility). We are living in the world of effective communication nowaday in ASL or voice!
Anne Marie asked us a definitive question - “Do we intentionally rely upon the ready-made captions to make out of Davila’s video speech or what?” If not for the presence of captions. We perhaps not follow Davila what he said.
The Office of Gallaudet University Public Relations seems fail Dr. Davila in many ways from the slouch posture and awkward signing from looking at the text prompter from sitting in front of the desk. The remaining question is “Who is in the charge of the Office of Public Relations”? That would work very well for hearing person sitting next to the desk like the President of the United States in the Oval Office. Not working very well for the deaf individual in front of video camera.
If I am an employee at the Office of GU Public Relations. I would advise Dr. Davila to stand up and walk a little and begin “addressing” the Gallaudet stakeholders in theatric sense.
The leader usually apply the commanding presence and concise speaking style to appeal to eyes and ears (for the sake of hearing people).
Dr. Davila will be truly appreciated of any professional advice from Anne Marie. She is one of very talented ASL specialist (expert). We are very forunate to have Anne Marie in this ASL research field.
Most important of all is to embrace and absorb all different kind of ideas and concepts than being a cacklin’ being.
I am a natural ASL user myself all my life. I still learn something from Ann Marie and other ASL experts. Thanks!
Robert L. Mason (RLM)
Anne Marie, I respect your expertise in ASL, linguistics, etc. But — who died and made you Goddess?
I think we’re forgetting that d/Deaf people come in all stripes and colors, communication-wise. Don’t you think that Dr. Davila, a “D”eaf man, at age 74, being of his ethnic group and generation, and approaching the tail end of a long illustrious career in education, is entitled to sign any way he chooses? Do you think that if he wanted to, he would be fluent in pure ASL (not sim-com or signed English) by now? Who the hell you think you are for not only critiquing his signing, but also for stating that he should be signing in grammatically correct ASL rather than his preferred mode? Let’s keep in mind that JKF did have an ASL and Deaf culture coach, the incomparable MJ Bienvenu herself. Enough said.
I agree with what someone else said earlier, the question really should be, “Did you understand him?” People do disdain President Bush for his speaking manner, but guess what? He is still the President, and they’re not. Also, I think it’s great that Davila included captions beneath the video, so that people not fluent in sign language can follow long. Anne Marie, I don’t see the same attempts to be inclusive in your own vlogs. Perhaps you could emulate Dr. Davila’s example?
Curious eye, Kunzte made it clear about ASL variations that still come within parameters of rules than what is considered “pure” ASL. That is what I meant and truthfully Davila was kind of hovering it to where I got a feeling that he DOES already have it. No need to keep chewing on it.
I am using Mac computer that unfortunately does not have good captioning software unless I spend $1,300 for a software that does it. Free downloads have not worked yet.
We had discussion (Alternative Solution Center’s blog two months ago) whether to include captioning in vlogs and there are opinions. I personally am for captioning for vlogs for more public viewing, for more informal blogging, not necessary. Some people still do not agree thinking that we should not bend our back to less fluent and non signers. Other reasons: some vloggers do not want to be bothered with English issues, it is very very time consuming - far more than creating and streaming video because softwares (already used few on other computers) are not user friendly. More expensive ones are better because of more precise frame timing where to caption.
I resolved by typing an English text and did use it for few posting intended for public wide viewing and also used it for ASL level 1 with students on the web to explain ASL rules, Deaf culture etc.
Then what about folks here try to use vlog too? The basic requirement is a web cam or even any video camera with a firewire cable and a video editing software then transfer video to goggle or youtotube then post a link. Will anyone here do it?
I am optmistic that technology will eventually become friendly user and time efficient to do everything. I did my best so far.
Anne Marie
Curious Eyes,
I’ve been thinking about what you said. And after consulting with individuals who are more familiar than I am regarding language and the ability to improve when you’re older - I’ve concluded that you’re right about Dr. Davila at age 74 not being able to benefit very much from a coach.
I also agree it’s great that Dr. Davila had captions beneath the video. It’s clear from the video that Dr. Davila wants to be accessible to many people as possible, and that’s an excellent thing.
With that said, (this is not only directed at you, but also at some others here.) There is a difference between mud-slinging and saying the Emperor’s not wearing any clothes.
I agree with Chris Heur on one point he made: It is a civic duty to question our leaders.
That does not mean we should defy them if we disagree with them. But it is entirely appropriate for us to question them if we have legitimate questions or concerns. That’s how we hold them honest and accountable to us.
For those not familiar with the Emperor’s New Clothes fable, you can find information about it here at Wikipedia: http://tinyurl.com/h6roh
~ Deaf Pundit
With all respect, I fail to see how its appropriate to criticize their signing skills on the very first day on the job? How does that have much impact after one day?
Shouldn’t we be FOCUSING on whether he’s doing the job he was hired for?
How is criticizing his signing skills a civic duty anyway?
More food for thought.
Part of his job is putting the best face out there as possible. Doing public relations is one component of his job, after all.
If I were one of his advisors, I would have approached him afterwards and said, “You know sir, what you said was excellent. It had the right tone to it, and I think the community will really respond positively to it.
However, if I may be honest with you, I do not think that sim-comming is one of your strong suits. And to some viewers, it may have been distracting from your very important and much needed message.
So perhaps would you consider next time foregoing the sim-comming and just go with the captioning and signing. That way, absolutely NOTHING distracts from what you’re saying.”
Clearly, I’m not one of his advisors and never will be. But just maybe someone out there who has influence with him will read this blog and say something to him.
That way, next time, he makes even a better impression on us than he already has. No harm, no foul.
~ Deaf Pundit
Davila’s job is not to “impress” people, but rather to get the job done. The job is to fix the accreditation problems, keep the money flowing, fix the administration problems, and so on. I don’t give a crap how he looks on video/vlogs or what-else-he-may-be-on.
I gather he wasn’t selected just to have the best “face” out there but rather what he CAN DO for the university.
By the way, no PR person would ever dare to say to their “boss” “sim-comming isn’t your strongest suit”. Slamming him like that is going to get that person fired. The PR person’s job is to write speeches, get the media alerted, facilitate the process, etc. But he/she NEVER tells the person HOW to act, how to deliver, etc.
How do I know? I am friends (over 25 years) with the president of a PR firm–He consults many corporate chiefs, political figures, academic figures, and so on. He related a story to me about how early on in his career he was fired by a client of his after he told him what he thought of his delivery method, etc. He learned to keep his mouth shut after that experience and just focus on the CONTENTS of the speech, where to do it, and the timing of it.
Just thought I’d part with my piece.
Giving Aquafina’s (#65199) a round of applause. To understand Aquafina better, a criteria-based matrix will prove his/her points to be correct.
Well. I have to say I agree somewhat with your first paragraph, Aquafina.
But the rest, I disagree with it, and like you, I am basing it on experience, both personal and from others who are experienced in the PR field. Can I prove it? No. I’m only known as Deaf Pundit, and I’m content to stay that way.
So I