Gallaudet University: College for the Deaf

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.

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.

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!

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.

Me loving Gallaudet!

All pictures used in this post were taken by Jacqueline Norman 
of CMU, one of the members of my group.