Almost a decade ago, Landmark College, which exclusively serves neurodiverse students, launched an online Dual Enrollment program, enabling neurodiverse high school and gap year students to obtain college credits without moving to the rural Vermont campus.
Leaders at Landmark knew it was a vital link for students with neurodiversity such as a language-based learning disability, ADHD, or autism. Then COVID-19 hit, and everyone learned the necessity of effective online learning.
Through a five-year, $1 million grant with the Johnson Scholarship Foundation, Landmark College is expanding its program to reach more neurodiverse learners, particularly those with financial need who otherwise wouldn’t have access to Landmark College. The college’s goal is to quadruple the number of annual participants.
Originally, there was some doubt that neurodiverse students would succeed without face-to-face instruction. However, Peter Eden, Ph.D., and President of Landmark and long a champion of the dual enrollment initiative, saw it from a different perspective.
“Some would say, ‘I cannot travel 3,000 miles to a rural campus in Vermont.’ And some students were studying online at other colleges without the support that Landmark could provide,” he added.
“Like every college, we needed to provide courses that are web-based,” Eden said. “Because we are a college that focuses on students with neurodiversity, we needed to craft and engineer them in a certain way.” That means fewer students in each class, an instructor who understands neurodiversity, and extra support for the students.
When the program started in 2013, there were about 25 students enrolled. By the 2018-19 school year, that number had grown to 179. Last semester with the aid of scholarship dollars, there were 195 students participating from 23 different states, and the cohort included 4 international students as well. By the end of the school year, Landmark anticipates that number will be 323 students. In the next four years, Landmark College aims to increase the number to 1,000.
Today, Landmark’s dual enrollment program is one part of a full complement of online programs that enable neurodiverse students to begin their education with Landmark College while still in high school, and then support them online regardless of their physical location. COVID-19 did not cause their creation, but perhaps hastened it, Eden said.
“COVID aside, Dual Enrollment allowed us to grow some of our programs both upward and outward,” Eden said. “And of course, the Johnson Scholarship Foundation has been wonderful supporting our dual enrollment program.”
The other online programs, now grouped under the LC Online brand include:
College START, an online program that creates a foundation and a pathway for students to develop learning strategies and build the skills needed to grow strengths in and out of the classroom setting. After completing this one-year online experience, students can go on to earn an associate or a bachelor’s degree at Landmark College or another institution.
Post-Baccalaureate Certificate Program – a key strategy to increase access to higher education for neurodiverse students who learn differently is having educators at all levels who are trained to recognize the needs of neurodiverse students. The post-baccalaureate certificate graduates can personalize education supports for neurodivergent students and connect them to programs like Landmark College’s Dual Enrollment program.
Webinars and online workshops for educators and parents with up-to-date information and research-based practices for supporting students with learning differences (LD) such as dyslexia, ADHD, or autism.
A 5-day Online Boot Camp during summer for recent high school graduates or current college students to gain a better understanding of their learning styles and shift the way they think about their learning strengths and challenges.
Angie Francalancia is a communications specialist with Johnson Scholarship Foundation
https://jsf.bz/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Landmark-College-_LC-Online_Computer-student_resized-scaled.jpg17072560Angie Francalancia/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/jsf-logo-300-125.pngAngie Francalancia2022-02-25 17:24:002022-02-25 17:24:00Customized Online Programs Bring College to Neurodiverse Students Everywhere
Johnson Scholarship Foundation founder Ted Johnson Sr. believed strongly in supporting Indigenous people. Since 1992 Johnson Scholarship Foundation has been supporting scholarships and programs at tribal colleges and other Native-serving institutions. The goal is to catalyze economic development for Indigenous peoples by investing in entrepreneurship and business education and investing in capacity building for business and entrepreneurship in Indigenous communities.
Native American Heritage Month is a fitting occasion to share some information about tribal nations in America. The National Congress of American Indians published an update in February, 2020, to its publication, “Tribal Nations & the United States: An Introduction. It provides an overview of historical and current information on Native Americans, including a section on economic development.
Here is some data from the report:
The need for sustained economic growth is critically acute in most Native communities across the country. On reservations, 39 percent of Native people live in poverty – the highest poverty rate in America. On-reservation employment is highest in education, health care, and social services, followed closely by public administration.
Agriculture is a major economic, employment and nutrition sector in Indian Country, including 60,083 farming operations accounting for $3.33 billion in total sales.
Native-owned small businesses have grown over the last 30 years and are significant contributors to the growing tribal economy. Much of the growth is due to the Small Business Administration’s Business Development Program.
There were 272,919 American Indian and Alaska Native-owned businesses in 2012, a 15 percent increase from 2007.
Read the entire report at the National Congress of American Indians’ website here.
Angie Francalancia is a communications specialist with Johnson Scholarship Foundation
https://jsf.bz/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/2021.11.12-blog_Tribal-Nations-blog_cover.png527653Angie Francalancia/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/jsf-logo-300-125.pngAngie Francalancia2021-11-15 16:08:432021-11-15 16:08:43Tribal Nations & The United States: An Introduction
Neasha Prince, a recent graduate of Florida Atlantic University, was a first-generation scholar who founded FAU’s First and Proud Organization in partnership with FAU’s Office of First Generation Student Success, a grantee partner of the Johnson Scholarship Foundation. We talked with Neasha, now a first-year law student at St. Thomas University College of Law, about the First and Proud Organization and the Office of First Generation Student Success and how both were instrumental in shaping her college experience.
AF: Tell me how First and Proud came about.
NP: I went to FAU in the Fall of 2017. I was able to go to FAU because of the Kelly/Strul Emerging Scholars program. I was one of the first four to receive it. I said to myself, there’s definitely more than four first-generation students that need assistance. I had a friend I knew who was first-generation but she wasn’t a Kelly/Strul scholar. By the spring of my first year, we were having conversations about First and Proud. It began in early 2019.
Neasha Prince with a First and Proud Club panel.
I spoke to Ron Oliver, (then-Director of the FAU First Generation Student Success Office) about this idea, and he said, ‘Just go for it.’ Next thing, I’m meeting with other first-gen students to be a part of the board. And within the first semester, we had about 1,000 members.
AF: What were some of the activities you put in place?
NP: The best thing we put in place was really just talking to our members. Every person has a different first-gen story. You might be first-gen but not first in your family or you might be first-gen from another country. With first-gen students, there’s no guidance at home. We never had a family member to help us go through what we’re going through. At school, you figure at least I’ll get some guidance.
We had a lot of events, a lot of panels talking to our students. Also, we worked a lot to go back to our members to find out what they needed the most – how can we help you on a professional scale. Once we were able to establish some lists of needs, we worked to see if the university could match that for us. A lot of our first-gen students don’t have the ability to network, so we created a workshop where we had a lot of well-connected people who spoke to our members. And these were people that were also first-gen. Some were from FAU, but we also made connections that our director had at the time, so it exposed our members to these opportunities for networking. First and Proud is not like any other clubs at school. You’re actually partnering up with the University for an array of career opportunities for students. We’re giving them the opportunity to change the trajectory of their careers.
AF: Did First and Proud Change the trajectory of your career?
NP: Very much so because of all the connections I made through it. During undergrad, I had two internships, one in social media marketing at BBC International in Boca Raton. Also through connections I made at the university I was able to gain an internship with Kellogg’s Information Technology Department in their Division of Project Management. My scholarship was able to cover my housing and lodging costs for going out of state for the internship as well. It was a wonderful experience. I got to meet a lot of interns from across the world. We had an opportunity to build an app for our client, the United Way of Metropolitan Chicago. That really broadened my perspective and made me think of larger ways to accomplish my goal of helping my community.
AF: What advice do you give other first-gen students?
NP: The advice I would give, first and foremost is to not be afraid to put yourself out there. We can get very scared to put yourself out there and miss out on opportunities. The best advice I can give is, don’t be afraid to put yourself out there and just be a sponge, soaking up as much as possible. I always said ‘Yes’ to opportunities. The only time I ever said ‘No’ was if something was going to conflict with a commitment I already had made. You never know when an opportunity can lead to another opportunity.
AF: The resume you’ve developed in just a short time seems like a testament to that.
NP: That’s true. After I graduated, I paired up with AmeriCorps and had an assignment in Connecticut at the Great Oaks Charter School as a STEM tutor for eighth graders. After that I moved back home and I had landed a job as a social worker for an after-care program at the Firewall Centers in Fort Lauderdale. My job was making sure every home of the kids in the program had the resources the kids needed.
AF: How did you decide to go to law school?
NP: During my final year at FAU, I was approached with the opportunity to go to Israel. It was the Maccabee Task Force Black Student Leaders Trip. During the trip, I met a lot of Black students who had gone to HBCU schools. When I went, I was at a crossroads as far as what I wanted to do. I was surrounded by a lot of individuals who were profound in who they were and where they were going. All I knew was that I wanted to help my community and be a voice for my community. I just didn’t know what that looked like. The trip taught me what it really means to make effective change in impoverished communities. Being a lawyer was the only career avenue that I felt could accomplish that for me for the rest of my life.
When I came back home that December, I spoke with my mentor and said, ‘Change of plans. Let’s figure out how to do this.’ So while I was in Connecticut I was working on my LSAT and my admission applications. That’s when I got admitted and accepted.
AF: You mentioned your mentor. Tell me more about the role of mentors for first-gen students.
NP: Well mentors are key. For myself, I wanted to be sure I was being guided by the right person. My mentors were absolutely inspirational from the fact that they understood who I was as a person, who I was growing to become. They understood that sometimes I get stuck in my head, wrestling with who I wanted to become. My senior year I had an amazing mentor. She was very relaxed but also nurturing. At First and Proud, we encourage mentors. We were in the process of developing a mentoring plan so our members understood how important a mentor is. We wanted to create a mentoring initiative. Mentors truly do make a difference in how we view our lives. You connect with that mentor on a different level – on a professional level.
AF: Anything else you want to add about First and Proud?
NP: Toward the end of my senior year – the pandemic year, I was approached with the idea of creating a foundation in association with the First and Proud organization. So we launched the First and Proud Foundation in May of 2020. It’s a sister organization with a mission to raise funds for first-gen students. Oftentimes the first response you hear when trying to help first-gen students is the need for money. So that’s the goal. It’s my personal baby that I’m working on. We have launched, and we have been raising funds. Now it’s just a matter of figuring out how to allocate those dollars. Our focus with the foundation is trying to create a pipeline where we find as many first-gen students as we can and recruit them to FAU, but even if they don’t choose FAU, we want to provide them with a whole lot of resources prior to their entrance to college.
Angie Francalancia is a communications specialist with Johnson Scholarship Foundation
https://jsf.bz/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/Neasha-Prince-Tony-the-Tiger_more-horizontal2.jpg6841318Angie Francalancia/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/jsf-logo-300-125.pngAngie Francalancia2021-08-20 21:06:222021-08-20 21:06:22An Interview with Neasha Prince, Founder of FAU’s First and Proud Organization
You never know where you might find a hero – perhaps a person who provides the right help in hard times.
For thousands of people who called for help last year to 211 in Western New York, the heroes on other end of the line were individuals who had trained at the National Statler Center. The National Statler Center is the educational and employment arm of VIA, formerly Olmsted Center for Sight, a Johnson Scholarship Foundation grantee partner.
The stories they heard covered every difficulty imaginable, but amplified by the pandemic – a man needing rent assistance as a landlord threatened eviction, a 22-year-old pregnant woman out of work and out of money, a senior whose water heater quit working, a deaf woman trying to leave an abusive spouse.
211WNY has been a program of VIA for about a decade. About half to three quarters of the information specialists answering the phones are blind or visually impaired. Last year during the pandemic, call volume to 211WNY almost doubled to nearly 82,000, said Renee DiFlavio, Sr. Vice President, Development of VIA. Providing the information that callers need to link them to services is a special skill executed with assistive technology and trained listening skills.
“Certainly if you’re visually impaired, there are many jobs you can do, but call center work is a great job because of the tele-technology,” DiFlavio said. “What’s also interesting is that it might be a model eventually for people to hire people who are blind or visually impaired to work those jobs.”
Sharell B., a Statler Center graduate, working at the 211WNY Call Center.
Many of the people on the end of the phone lines assisting callers learned their skills at the National Statler Center. The center offers programs for training in several fields, including customer service, hospitality, food prep, software applications, and communications.
“All of the work stations have adaptive technology with a dual-input headset,” said Ray Zylinski, Assistive Technology Instructor at VIA. “You’d hear the caller in one ear, and the computer audio in your other ear. It’s not something everybody can do. You’re essentially absorbing information from two different audio sources at once.”
People who work for 211WNY become adept at entering key words related to a caller’s issue to find human service agencies that could provide the caller with assistance.
More than 100 people have gone through the technology program at VIA’s Statler Center. While some work for 211WNY, others are in jobs with companies throughout the area, the result of the placement specialists at VIA, Zylinski said.
“Statistics show that a very high percent of individuals with low vision who can find employment don’t leave that job, so the attrition rate is significantly low,” Zylinski said. “That hits employers in their wallet, and then they tend to listen.”
That ability to listen is what made heroes of VIA’s assistive technology and referral specialists when so many people were in need of help.
Angie Francalancia is a communications specialist with Johnson Scholarship Foundation
https://jsf.bz/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/2021_211WNY_VIA_Sharell-B_Ray-Z.-scaled.jpg16962560Angie Francalancia/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/jsf-logo-300-125.pngAngie Francalancia2021-05-12 15:38:402021-05-12 15:38:40VIA’s Statler Center Trains People for Heroic Work
The Elevation Scholars program mines Central Florida’s Title I high schools for students exhibiting the non-profit’s core values of kindness, service, leadership, and discipline. It sets them on a course to become change-makers.
When the organization was in its foundational stages of turning concepts into an education-focused program, it couldn’t have found a better model for the kind of student it wanted to help than its first scholar – Revel Lubin.
Elevation Scholars’ founder learned about him from a news story on the Thanksgiving food drive he and other student government leaders had put together for homeless families of students at his school.
The backstory was the attention-grabber, though. Lubin and three of his siblings were being raised by their sister following their mother’s passing from an aneurysm seven years earlier. He had quit sports to get a job to help his sister pay the bills after their electricity had been cut off. He also happened to be student government president.
Kindness. Service. Leadership. Discipline.
“He had everything we were looking for,” said Scott Lee, Elevation Foundation President. “The only question we didn’t know was did he have the academics.”
He had the grades too, but he lacked the test scores and required classes that colleges typically look for. Helping students develop a “college-going” culture would become a core tenant of Elevation Scholars’ program. The best investment would be money up front – a program that would begin when students are in 9th grade– with high-quality counseling and “intrusive advising and support.”
“We would spend a little money up front, like a down payment, and the colleges would come along and pay them many thousands in scholarships,” Lee says. “If we pick the right kid, this stuff will happen every single time. Those were our early realizations.”
Since its founding in 2013, Elevation Scholars has expanded to working with four Title I high schools where 92 percent of the students are considered low-income. Outreach to students begins with Elevation Club when students are in 9th grade. The monthly club meetings introduce them to everything they’ll need to compete for spots at some of the nation’s most selective universities. Their goal is not just a college education but an education at one of the nation’s top 100 universities – an arena sorely lacking in college applicants who are the first in their families to attend, so-called first-generation college students.
The Elevation Scholar Award is given to select students in their junior year – a five-year investment in the students not only to help them get to college but to guide them while they attend.
“The research is pretty clear,” Lee says. “It’s not the academics that cause first-gen kids not to succeed. It’s the idea of imposter syndrome – they feel like they don’t belong, along with limits on family financial support due to the implications of generational poverty. Little problems are impossible to overcome without outside support.”
The Elevation Scholars Award includes some earmarks not typically found in scholarship awards, like winter clothing – for a Florida kid who might get a full ride to Wake Forrest in North Carolina like the program’s second award winner – or professional clothing for joining professional organizations, travel money to ensure they have the ability to get back home for the holidays, and even gear they’ll need for dorm life. In summers, students will participate in paid internships at businesses and organizations in partnership with Elevation Scholars.
Over the next four years, Elevation Scholars, a new grantee partner of Johnson Scholarship Foundation, expects to expand into four additional schools and award 92 additional Elevation Scholar Awards by 2025.
Revel Lubin
To win an Elevation Scholar Award, it’s more than a matter of high achieving and high need, Lee says. The students selected also must exhibit Elevation Scholars’ core values – kindness, service, leadership, and discipline. “These kids have a unique set of strengths, and already are demonstrating positive community impact, and that’s really what we’re investing in,” Lee says. “The idea is ultimately to see our investment increase their capacity to impact their community.”
Since the program’s founding, seven cohorts of scholars have attended prestigious universities across the country. And that first scholar, Revel Lubin, continues the journey he plotted under the guidance of Elevation Scholars. He’s a finalist for Central Floridian of the Year, and he attends Yale Divinity School.
“It’s amazing how many high-achieving leaders there are at our Title I schools,” Lee says.
Angie Francalancia is a communications specialist with Johnson Scholarship Foundation
https://jsf.bz/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Elevation-Scholars-group-shot-scaled.jpg17072560Angie Francalancia/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/jsf-logo-300-125.pngAngie Francalancia2021-04-06 21:44:282021-04-06 21:44:28High Need, High Achievement and Core Values are Keys to Developing Change-Makers
Stress and online struggles are recurring themes among young people navigating a future that seems uncertain today and unimaginable just a year ago.
In fact, the same topics came up so frequently that an organization whose mission is to ensure post-graduate success for students in Palm Beach County has created a series of workshops as an immediate resource to those students.
Achieve Palm Beach County’s Achieve Your Success series begins on Tuesday, Feb. 9, 2021, with a program titled, Techniques to Maintain Your Mental Health.
The series of five workshops is open to any college-age student in Palm Beach County, whether they’re enrolled, looking to enroll, or taking a break from education all together right now.
Achieve PBC is a collective impact initiative with more than 80 nonprofit, education, and corporate partners, including Johnson Scholarship Foundation, who work toward the common mission of helping students access and complete an education beyond high school. Achieve PBC’s vision is to see all students in Palm Beach County earn a credential or degree that leads to a job with a sustainable wage within six years of high school graduation.
“Students face challenges all the time. With the pandemic and social unrest, mental health is one of the large issues we’re hearing about – whether it’s financial strains, feelings of loneliness, or stress of online learning,” said Jennifer Bebergal, Associate Dean for Retention and Academic Support at FAU and co-chair of Achieve PBC’s Post-High School Advising & Guidance strategy team. “We put together this calendar of workshops, and our hope is for students to understand that what they’re going through is what a whole lot of students are experiencing. We’ll also talk about some strategies and resources available to them.”
The workshops will take place at 4 p.m. on Tuesdays every other week through April 13. Each one-hour workshop will be offered via Zoom, and there is no cost to attend. The full schedule and topics are:
Feb. 9 – Techniques to Maintain Your Mental Health
Feb. 23 – How to be Successful in Science, Math and Other Online Courses
March 9 – Self Care for Our Mental Health
March 23 – Ask an Advisor and Resource Fair
April 13 – Tips for Getting A Job and Jump-Starting Your Career
The first workshop will be conducted by Dr. Kathryn Kominars, Director of Counseling from Florida Atlantic University and Sandra Obas of Educate Tomorrow, a nonprofit that facilitates individualized coaching to improve students’ academics and economic stability. It will include strategies and resources available for dealing with mental health issues.
The second workshop will begin with a brief presentation, and then offer break-out rooms so students can work on specific areas, including tutorials in math and science.
For more information about Achieve PBC’s impact, or to learn how to get involved, visit AchievePBC.org or send an email to info@achievepbc.org.
Angie Francalancia is a communications specialist for Johnson Scholarship Foundation
https://jsf.bz/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Achieve-Your-Success-series-e1612459825767.png4281191Angie Francalancia/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/jsf-logo-300-125.pngAngie Francalancia2021-02-04 18:03:222021-02-04 19:42:34Achieve Palm Beach County Offers Online Workshops to Help College Students Destress and Find Success
We talked recently with I. King Jordan Jr., whose story of advocating for the rights of individuals with disabilities spans more than 30 years and traverses the halls of Gallaudet University, the nation’s leading university for the education of students who are deaf and hard of hearing. Jordan, a consultant on disability programs for Johnson Scholarship Foundation, shares some of his history, including his memories of the historic year when he became Gallaudet’s first deaf president. We also talked about advancements and continuing challenges for the deaf and others 30 years after the adoption of the Americans with Disabilities Act.
AF: Tell me about the technology that makes our call possible.
KJ: It’s called video relay service interpreting (VRS). The simple explanation is when I dial your number, instead of the phone calling you, it calls the interpreter, and interpreter then calls you. I talk directly to you and you hear me. When you talk, the interpreter signs what you say, and I see her. And it’s just the most wonderful technology going. It’s just terrific. I never used a phone from 1965 until about 15 years ago (2005). I would sometimes have to go ask my neighbor to make a phone call for me. Now I can make phone calls from pretty much anywhere.
AF: I figured technology plays a big part in advancements for people who are deaf.
KJ: It’s a huge part. Its simple things…well simple now, but things like captions on TV. For the longest time, there were no captions on TV. In my family, we have a joke that we watched Love Boat and Fantasy Island every Sunday. They were terrible shows, but we watched because they were captioned.
Not all captioning is good. In fact, some is borderline atrocious. You can test it yourself. Turn on your television; turn on a news show, like Chris Matthews. Turn on captions but with no sound and tell me how much you can understand. Speech recognition captioning is getting better and better, and in time, I’m hoping it will improve.
AF: What percent of deaf people can speak as you do?
KJ: It’s not a large percentage. People like me are called deafened. There are two distinct categories – people who are born deaf and people who become deaf later. The later you become deaf, the more you are acculturated into hearing culture. My primary language is English. I can sign American Sign Language and understand ASL. But when I make a VRS call, I ask the interpreter to interpret in English so I understand exactly what you’re saying. In some deaf circles, it’s frowned on to speak.
When I first became president of Gallaudet, I was discouraged to speak in public. But I have very strongly taken the position that there are many ways to be deaf and many ways to communicate. All of them should be respected, and a person’s choice should be respected.
AF: Before preparing for this interview, I had never heard the term, Deaf Culture. I found it interesting that there are people who would like to see it considered a difference, not a disability.
KJ: Deafness is a difference, and while people who are deaf can’t hear, we can pretty much do anything else. One thing that bothers deaf people and bothers me is the paternalism or condescending that happens. Don’t be sorry for me. Just look at me when you speak and try to think of what I can do, not what I can’t do.
AF: You’re best known at Gallaudet’s first deaf president. Tell me about what happened at Gallaudet that year.
I. King Jordan in 1988
KJ: Oh yeah. It was a remarkable time. When the position was announced, people started to contact me to encourage me to think about applying. Everybody in my family was 100 percent supportive. So I was a very serious candidate.(I prepared like) it was graduate school for me. I read tons of materials, then brought together a group of friends to help me prepare for my interviews. I don’t know how many applicants there were originally, maybe 100; then they narrowed down to 12. It was announced that 6 were deaf and 6 were hearing.
The students started to rally for the next president being a deaf person. (It came to be called the Deaf President Now (DPN) movement.) Then there were 6 semi-finalists; 3 hearing and 3 deaf. All six were brought in for interviews. Then it was narrowed to 3. Of the 3, two were deaf and one was hearing. The hearing candidate was vice chancellor at UNC Greensboro. She was a very experienced higher education administrator; much more experience than I; but she didn’t have any experience with deaf people. I believe her undergraduate degree was in nursing; at one point people thought she would come with the medical view of deafness not the cultural view.
The three of us met with the board. I thought I did really well. I told my wife I thought I had a good chance. The next day, I got a call from the deaf man who was chair of the search committee. He gave me a short, maybe two sentence message: The board has decided to select someone else. Thank you for your candidacy.
AF: So that’s what launched the protests?
KJ: I was home, but on campus, the students and faculty were ready to celebrate. The press release the University handed out said, “GU selects first female president.” They had selected the only hearing candidate, Dr. Elisabeth Zinser, vice chancellor for academic affairs at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. You can imagine that press release didn’t set well with those hundreds of people gathered on campus.
One great visual from that day of protests is a police officer who was trained to work with demonstrations. First thing he does is pull out a bull horn. Of course everybody’s deaf. And people who are not deaf, they won’t interpret for him.
At that point, the group decided to march through the city streets to the Mayflower Hotel where the Board of Trustees was staying. Once they (police) saw they couldn’t control the march, they basically provided a police escort. They had a car in front to protect the marchers and a car behind. At the hotel, the chairman of the board (of trustees) agreed to see a few of the people who had marched. One came out of the meeting and reported (that the Board of Trustees chair said) “Deaf people are not ready to function in the hearing world.”
That was Sunday, March 6, 1988. That really started the protests. Students, staff, alumni went back to the campus. They chained all the gates closed. They even hotwired a school bus and drove it across the entrance and flattened its tires.
The protest went on for basically a week.
I’ll give you a couple highlights:
On Wednesday I got a phone call from the provost telling me that the president-elect (Dr. Zinser) was in town and that she wanted to meet with the leaders of the protest. The provost wanted me to put her together with the leaders. She wanted to tell them what she would do as president. I went onto campus.
The group agreed, but said, “We will allow her to meet with the four student leaders, but she can’t come on campus. We’ll rent a hotel room. Then you and Dr. Zinser can come.” Then a Gallaudet University driver came and took me and Dr. Zinser to the hotel. Actually, it was a small motel room. So there was a bed and one chair, four student leaders, me, Dr. Zinser and an interpreter. The students were polite. They said, “We don’t have anything against you; we don’t dislike you, but we will never allow you to become the president of Gallaudet. If you think the four of us could make that happen you’re mistaken.” We met for maybe less than an hour. They basically said, “Dr. Zinser, we’re talking in circles now. We’re done, period.” In American Sign Language, that period – that’s a very emphatic sign. It was more like an exclamation point than a period.
AF: What was the turning point?
KJ: The turning point may have been ABC’s Nightline. The host, Ted Koppel, welcomed and interviewed the president of the student governing association, Greg Hlibok who was one of the student leaders, and the president-elect, Dr. Elisabeth Zinser, and Marlee Matlin, a deaf actor. Don’t ask me why they had Marlee Matlin! Perhaps because she was a famous deaf person. There was one great line during the show when the host said something like, ‘This is very confusing. We have a deaf man, and his interpreter who is voicing for him is a woman. We have a deaf woman, and the interpreter who is voicing for her is a man.” It was actually kind of funny! Greg just won the night. He was articulate, thoughtful. That was Thursday night.
On Friday morning, Dr. Zinser announced her resignation. It was clear she would never be welcome on campus. So the board came back to Washington DC. The short of it is they offered it to me. I actually had to think about it because I knew there would be enemies on the board. How can a president succeed if he doesn’t have the full support on the board? The only way I would accept was if it was made clear that the board vote to appoint me was unanimous and that I would have their full support. That was Sunday, March 13.
We then had an impromptu press conference. I made a statement. When that was over, we all went back to campus.
There was a club on campus called the Rathskeller. Everybody was there. The juke box was on and jacked up to max volume so everyone could feel the vibration. Everybody was partying. You could see representatives from the press celebrating. They were 100 percent on the side of the students.
Bridgetta Bourne-Firl, who had participated in the 1988 Deaf President Now movement, greets I. King Jordan during a visit to Gallaudet University in 2017.
I’d like to say something about the Board of Trustees. Some members of the board were medical doctors. They understood deafness from a medical point. The board conducted its business by voice and sound. They were nearly all hearing people.
I often say it wasn’t really a protest. It was a revolution. One of the things that happened very much like in a revolution was the board was radically changed and soon had a majority of deaf members. For my entire presidency there were interpreters, but they were there for the hearing people.
I am able to sit in a conversation with deaf people in which only ASL is used. When I’m in that group, my voice stops. Then I’m signing more like a deaf person but because I learned sign in my 20s, I’ll never be fully fluent (as deaf people who learned ASL as young children)
AF: I think you were uniquely suited because of your ability to communicate in both ASL and spoken English.
KJ: It’s more than just two languages. It’s an effort I made for all 19 years to try really hard to build bridges. Here’s one example: There’s an organization called the Alexander Graham Bell Association for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing. They are very strong supporters of spoken language and listening skills. When I communicate in public, I use what is called ‘simultaneous communication.’ That means that I speak and map signs onto my spoken English. When I first became president there were a couple vacancies on the board that needed to be filled by deaf people. I persuaded the board to elect the sitting president of the Alexander Graham Bell Association for the Deaf. So, they agreed and selected him. I got a lot of flak for that. There’s a group of people called Strong Deaf who were very acculturated in the Deaf Culture who wanted to keep it small and protect it. I wanted to widen it.
I think everyone realized that there was now a deaf president, and while I may not have been everybody’s first choice, and many would have preferred someone who was born deaf and grew up deaf, I was strong about my deafness and accepting of my deafness. Pretty much everyone wanted to support me.
Perhaps the most important result was the Americans with Disabilities Act. The ADA had been sitting in committees in Congress. And DPN sort of kick-started the ADA. Both sponsors of the ADA – Tom Harkin (D., Iowa), and Anthony Coelho (D., Calif) – the sponsors both said without DPN the ADA probably never would have happened.
AF: Let’s talk about the ADA. Where have we gone and what needs to happen next?
KJ: That’s a painful thing for me because the employment of people who are disabled is just as bad today as when the ADA was passed. The recognition that people with disabilities have strong abilities is not in people’s minds. The problem is everyone is emphasizing the dis in disability. Why can’t you focus on the ability, not the dis! When they think about deaf people, they think about the fact that you can’t hear, not what you can do.
I guess the whole issue of attitude still hasn’t changed enough. We’re always going be second-class citizens. In many respects I’m not “equal to.” I’m “better than.” I’ll settle for “equal to.”
AF: Will advances in technology help?
KJ: It will help. There are ways that technology can be used in communication – obviously improved ways for communication. Statistically, there’s all kinds of evidence that disabled employees make good employees. Often times their attendance and work records are better, and still people are hesitant to hire them – still so many people who can’t get over that mental barrier. They don’t think that a person will bring the skills that they need.
AF: What about the cost of technology? Would it be a problem for a deaf person born into a lower income family?
One of the things the ADA stipulates is that employers and the public sector must make reasonable accommodations. If you hire someone who is deaf, you might need to hire an interpreter or purchase video relay equipment. National associations have shown that the cost of accommodations is small. You make this reasonable accommodation, and it often ends up benefiting more than the people who are disabled.
One example is something we mentioned earlier, captions. When the captions are good, a person learning English as a second language can listen and read at the same time. Another example where captions really help is in sports bars. You can’t possibly have the sound on at all because they’d be overlapping each other. With captions, of course everyone benefits.
Another example is curb cuts. They’re required by law now so people who use wheelchairs can navigate sidewalks. But much more frequently they’re used by people pushing baby carriages or on bicycles or skate boards.
AF: What was Gallaudet like right after DPN in your first years?
KJ: For the first couple years we were really at an enrollment maximum of 2,400 or 2,500. We really couldn’t fit any more. I understand the numbers are going down now. For quite some time, it was really high. For me, first day of class and day of commencement are highlights. I know so many who have gone on to different careers. That makes me feel really good.
AF: Tell me about changes you made once you were president
KJ: When I earned my Ph. D. in 1973, the number of people who were deaf who had Ph. Ds. was just a handful. I mean it was really, really small. I realized it’s difficult for deaf people to go to graduate school and work as graduate assistants or research assistants because of issues with interpreters. I set up a program where students who were attending Ph. D. programs at other universities could apply and receive from Gallaudet a stipend that was much the same as a stipend would be for a teaching assistant at that university. I established the program and called it Presidential Scholars. Several people who participated in the program have completed their Ph. Ds. That was one I was really, really proud of.
AF: Tell me about your graduate school experience at the University of Tennessee. Wasn’t that your first experience away from the deaf community?
KJ: It was a big challenge. Back then (fall of 1969) there were not really a lot of professional interpreters. I was thrust into a situation where I just made do – I did the best I could without interpreters. Part of the down side of speaking well is that when people hear me speak, they assume, “He must be able to hear something.” I’m not really good at lip reading, and I couldn’t count on teachers facing the class.
So I came up with my own solution. I would ask students in the class if they would be willing to give me a copy of their notes. I gave them notebooks with carbon paper. At first it was rather awkward, but people soon realized they took better notes. And I always asked 3 people to do it. So at the end of each class I had three copies of notes. As it turned out after the year, we would have study groups, and the study groups used my notes. It worked out OK!
It’s a little ironic because the University of Tennessee has a department of deaf education where they prepare students to become teachers of the deaf. But I was in the School of Arts and Sciences, and there was no help from the Department of Education. I finished in 4 years ‒ from B.A. to M.A. and Ph. D.
King Jordan visits with staff at the Philadelphia campus of Clarke Schools for Hearing and Speech, a Johnson Scholarship Foundation grantee partner, in 2018.
AF: Let’s go back to the ADA. Where do we need to go from here?
KJ: How we do it, I wish I had a good answer. But as far as where ‒ we need to reach a place where people who are disabled and seeking work have an opportunity to be employed. We’re not there. Interesting, one of the Johnson Scholarship Foundation grantees is Bridges from School to Work. Their success is absolutely amazing. They’re able to pair an individual student with an individual employer representative and the employer. The employer representative who works for Bridges, he or she continues to follow the employee and works with the employee. That success rate is unbelievable. About 80 percent get jobs. There’s nothing like that anywhere else. But it’s expensive. So it’s not a model that is easy to replicate or take to scale. But there are organizations that are doing wonderful things.
I believe that if more of the people in the C-suite offices understand the value, then more and more people (with disabilities) will be hired. One of the sayings I’m very proud of is that “Deaf people can do anything except hear.”
Remember the press conference I mentioned? I was named president on Sunday March 13, and on Monday, there was a press conference. The university auditorium was packed with reporters. It was standing-room only. At first I was nervous, but they asked me easy questions. In retrospect, I’m sure they were deliberately soft questions. I called them puffballs, easy questions. I was standing behind a podium with probably more than 15 microphones attached to it. Then at the very end, a local TV reporter said something like, “Dr. Jordan, all of this is really good and all the students clearly value that. But really, after they graduate what kind of jobs can they do?”
Without even thinking about it, I said, “What kind of a question is that! Deaf people can do anything except hear.”
Angie Francalancia is a communications specialist for Johnson Scholarship Foundation.
https://jsf.bz/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/1200px-Irving_King_Jordan_horizontal2.jpg10511200Angie Francalancia/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/jsf-logo-300-125.pngAngie Francalancia2020-12-23 15:08:522020-12-23 18:41:36An Interview with I. King Jordan – Deaf President Now, the ADA, and the future for Disability Rights