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| Gallaudet University |
Gallaudet
University (AKA Gally) was the first school for the advanced education of the Deaf
and is still the only college were all of the programs (excluding ASL
Interpreting) are specifically tailored for Deaf students in the world. Only a small number of hearing undergraduates
are accepted into the university, though the number of hearing graduate
students are much higher. Gallaudet is located in Washington D.C. and
about a mile from Union Station.
In
1856 the Columbia Institution for the Instruction of Deaf and Dumb and Blind
was founded. Gallaudet University was
founded in 1864 by an Act of Congress and its charter was signed by Abraham
Lincoln.
According to the school’s
website, the President of the United States, starting with Ulysses S. Grant,
signs every graduate’s diploma. Nowadays,
Gallaudet has over 1,100 students and its campus covers almost 100 acres. Over
95 percent of classes have 20 students or less and the freshman retention rate
is about 70 percent according to the Princeton Review.
I
got the opportunity to visit Gallaudet with 10 other students from Central
Michigan two years ago and I will not forget the experience. I’m not going to lie, for an ASL minor at
CMU, my signing skills are pretty good.
Definitely above average.
Sometimes (more often than not if you ask my roommates) I get a big head
about my signing abilities.
When I
visited Gallaudet it was like learning to swim in a small backyard pool then
being thrown in the ocean and told to swim to shore. I was awed, first by the number of people signing
and second by my ability (or lack of) to maintain natural-paced
conversations. Students at Gallaudet had
to slow down their signing for me, much like if I went to France and was
practicing my French. Deaf culture is different from so many other
cultures because there is not a geographic center of Deaf World, however, I
think Gallaudet is as close to this geographic Mecca as Deaf World will get. It was so amazing to be surrounded by people
signing everywhere you look.
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| This is the inside of that building |
My
group got a tour of the campus, which is beautiful, and I had to rely on the
interpreter to fill in some of what I had missed from the tour guide. The campus is gorgeous, though dated, but
there are some modern buildings as well.
One of the newer buildings was engineered to be a model-example of a
Deaf-friendly building. The building was
full of open spaces and natural light, you could see from the first floor to
the second. It was amazing to think
about an architect sitting down and designing all of these features to make
this building as functional as possible for the Deaf community.
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| Sneak preview of post to come! We will be discussing who Thomas Gallaudet is and how sign language as we know it came to America! |
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| Signing on campus |
Gallaudet
is an amazing place with a unique atmosphere.
It is a place every student of ASL and Deaf person should visit once in
their life. It would be nice for more
hearing people who are not tied to Deaf culture to experience Gallaudet
too. I feel like this university has the
power to thwart so many of the “Deaf and Dumb” stereotypes. When you are on Gallaudet’s campus, surrounded
by all of these students who are advancing their education, socializing with
friends, studying, and just being young adults like any other college, it is
hard to fathom how people can be so discriminate towards Deaf people.
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| Me loving Gallaudet! |
All pictures used in this post were taken by Jacqueline Norman
of CMU, one of the members of my group.
of CMU, one of the members of my group.
