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At the Senior Citizens’ Luncheon, Dr. Gertrude Galloway emceed, with Dr. Roz Rosen as the keynote speaker. Throughout her speech, Dr. Rosen cracked jokes about the lives of senior citizens, which the audience laughed at. Dr. Rosen told the story of when Bernard Bragg went to an arcade, and he found a shooting game. He began playing, laughing and cheering with his friend as he hit a target every time, and soon, a crowd gathered around him, watching. This went on for several minutes, until a little boy stepped forward, looked up at him then pressed the start button. It turns out that Bernard wasn’t actually playing!
Everyone, including Bernard, had a good laugh at that one. Finishing with the jokes, Dr. Rosen took a serious but touching turn in her speech. She asked the audience if they remembered Deaf President Now (DPN), and everyone said that they did. She said, DPN should mean “Deaf Partners Now” today. We need to partner with organizations and others, especially with hearing parents of deaf children. She encouraged the audience to mentor the hearing families, because many parents do not know deaf adults. Often, the first deaf person the parents meet are their own child. We have a wealth of knowledge and experience that we could share with the hearing parents.
Deaf Partners Now would be a great way to ‘live your dash’. Dr. Rosen went on to explain that the dash meant the one on the tombstones. The dash between the birth and death dates, which was really the most important. Leave behind a legacy, so your dash would last beyond your death date.
With that, the Luncheon turned to handing out awards to three individuals – Robert Davila for the Andrew J. Foster Teaching Excellence Award. Dr. Davila could not attend, so Dr. Yerker Andersson accepted on his behalf.
Ronald M. Hirano and Virgina Luke both received the Senior Citizen Award, and Jim Brune accepted the award on Ronald’s behalf.
Congratulations to all three award winners – they deserve this recognition!
A popular workshop this morning was Greg Hlibok’s workshop on the civil rights for the Deaf. He moderated a panel of deaf attorneys who expressed their opinions on whether our work on civil rights are completed. The panel unanimously agreed that we have a long way to go.
The American Disabilities Act [ADA] has tremendously improved access for the Deaf, but due to society and technological evolutions, there are still many gaps that the laws do not cover. Robert Mather, one of the panelists, remarked that the ADA was a catalyst for change, but we need more activism. Claudia Gordon, a fellow panelist, commented that employment for the Deaf was still a major issue, and we need more education and change of perceptions to really achieve the changes we want. ADA used to be powerful but unfortunately, the Supreme Court has watered down the law, and that tied into Robert Mather’s comment about needing more activism.
Michael Stein emphasized that technology was still a major issue today as well, which the ADA doesn’t cover adequately – especially the VRS industry. One of the panelists added that there were often no results on complaints, and while the Obama Administration was better than the previous administrations on enforcement, the legal system itself is not pushing enough to get things into action. It was clear to me that all agreed that basically in all aspects of the Deaf Community lives, there still needed to be improvement and changes made. They encouraged the audience to continue filing complaints, develop working relationships with the policy-makers, suggest solutions and recommendations so we can move forward to a better future for all.
Tayler Mayer interviews random people attending the 50th Biennial Conference in Philadelphia, PA. Attendees from all over the nation came for different reasons, but all share a common ground: National Association of the Deaf (NAD). Start planning now for the next NAD conference in Louisville, KY. It will be in the year 2012. Captions will come soon.
The College Bowl was held last night in the Grand Ballroom with a full house erupting in wild cheers every time their team got answers correctly. The teams were:
- Gallaudet - Meredith Peruzzi, Gabriel Paulone, David Uzzell, Allison Weiner, and Colin Whited
- NTID - Gianni Manganelli, Colin Pearson, Hannah Worek, Jordan Burgener and Cory Behm
- CSUN - Darren Hause, Brandon Marin, Joshua Soudakoff, and Emily Schwartz
The rules were in the first round, if you got an answer correctly, you got one point. If you accepted a challenge, you would get 2 points for a correct answer, but if you got it wrong, you would lose 2 points. In the second, you would win 3 points, and with the challenge, win or lose 6 points and in the third, the stakes were raised even higher with 5 points, and 10 points for the challenge.
In the very beginning of the first round, all three teams were getting the answers correctly, and then by question 12, NTID and Gallaudet started pulling ahead of CSUN, jumping ahead with scores of 12 and 13 points respectively, with CSUN having 8 points. NTID's strength was clearly in Mathematics, and Gallaudet's was in Deaf Culture and Heritage. Audience members discussed excitedly behind their chairs with each other to guess the right answer. At the end of the first round NTID had 18 points, Gallaudet 19 points, and CSUN 12 points.
During the intermission, supporters of each team rallied, wildly cheering on their teams. The sponsors of the College Bowl Finals, ZVRS showed a video commercial. Then the second round began. That's when things got even more energetic! People jumped up and roared every time their team got an answer correctly. Much to everyone's amazement, NTID lost a Mathematic challenge, thereby losing 6 points. At the end of the second round, Gallaudet was leading with 58 points, NTID with 36, and CSUN 24 points.
In the third round, NTID swung back at Gallaudet, almost immediately accepting two challenges and winning. NTID supporters nearly blew the roof off with their wild cheering as NTID jumped 8 points ahead of Gallaudet. CSUN valiantly fought to catch up, and they did a great job, but the main fight was between Gallaudet and NTID, often accepting challenges, both winning and losing them. At the end, Gallaudet won the College bowl with 93 points, and NTID right behind them with 91 points! CSUN came in third with 44 points.
As a thank you to their coach, Robert Weinstock, the Gallaudet team doused him with water and Nancy J. Bloch, the NAD CEO, proudly presented the trophy to the Gallaudet team for the fourth time in a row! Congratulations to the Gallaudet team, and both CSUN and NTID did an outstanding job. The teams made the event thrilling and energetic to watch!
Captions are coming soon. Read the blog post about the Opening Ceremony
Deaf Bilingual Coalition (DBC) feels that the term “intervention” is negative and implies that a “problem” is identified which needs to be fixed. Various minority organizations are led by the people themselves; for example, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) are led by black people only. Early Hearing Detection and Intervention (EHDI), which NAD supported the passage into law, does not have any Deaf stakeholders, or members representing Deaf people in the group. EHDI is funded under the Center for Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
While several Deaf-centered presenters were turned down at the recent EHDI conference in Chicago, John Egbert, a founder of DBC, was accepted to present on “How to Navigate the Hearing World as an Oralist”. However, when he stood on stage, he presented on something different altogether: Deaf babies as whole beings. Egbert had the impression that if he applied to present about Deaf babies, his presentation would have been refused.
Deaf Bilingual Coalition has a plan of action which includes transferring EHDI’s administration to the Department of Education, adding Deaf stakeholders represented in EHDI, and ultimately, putting Deaf people into EHDI leadership positions to steer early detection efforts for Deaf children.
“Everyone needs to work harder than ever. DBC and NAD needs to work together”, said David Reynolds. Egbert proposes that NAD members request for a symposium to discuss what we can do. “It takes a team to win. NAD membership will grow and has the potential to make profound changes”.
On July 7, the Welcome Ceremony officially began the NAD 50th biennial conference. Melissa Draganac-Hawk was the emcee, and MJ Bienvenu and Claudia Gordon were the keynote speakers. The Accessibility Awards, Media Advocacy Award and Spirit of the NAD Award were handed out during the ceremony. The attendees left the ceremony fired up for an exciting week at the conference! For an English version, please see Tayler Mayer's post here.
Marlee Matlin gives her acceptance speech for the National Association of the Deaf's Media Advocacy Award during the Welcome Ceremony. During her speech, she said she was a proud member of NAD, and our struggle to make the internet accessible was still not over. Marlee also thanked all of the NAD members and the deaf community for joining in the struggle for equal access.
Barbara Raimondo gave a commission on educational policy and deaf children today. The room was full of curious attendees who wanted to learn more about how government policy plays a role in deaf education. She opened the session by explaining that she got involved because of her two deaf children, and she is passionate about deaf education and law.
Some facts she shared were quite interesting – 94% of the newborns are screened now, and 64% of the newborns with deafness are enrolled in Early Intervention programs. However, reality does not necessarily meet people’s expectations. Only 45% of the 388 Early Intervention sites in 19 states have service providers with degrees in deaf education.
There is a Joint Committee on infant hearing, with multiple deaf organizations involved; however, the majority of them are slanted towards the medical model on deafness. There is clearly no solid system in place to truly engage and collaborate with the parents and deaf professionals on how deaf education and early intervention should be operated. The Joint Committee now recognizes this, and is releasing a position paper outlining what needs to change. Most of the recommended changes were changes that the deaf community would like to see. When these changes will happen isn’t known, but it seems that it will happen at some point, so this is much needed progress!
Barbara went on to explain how the deaf community can do, which are the following:
- Go to EHDI conventions
- Join the state EHDI advisory panels
- Mentor families with deaf children
- Join professional and advocacy organizations that are involved with this issue
After that section, she shared with us about how the government plans to reform the educational system, so all children, especially marginalized populations like us deaf, will get more funding and support to ensure our future generations succeed and thrive. 4 billion dollars in grants through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act is a huge part of this plan, and it’s exciting for me to see some real changes finally happening for our community!
You could feel the excitement in the air last night as the three NAD CEO Finalists stepped onstage to make their presentations. Each Finalist had 15 minutes to present, and 15 minutes of Q&A. Shane H. Feldman went first, Darlene Goncz-Zangara second, and Howard A. Rosenblum last.
Shane spoke about his vision to elevate NAD for 2020 and beyond. He emphasized his expertise in financial management, especially with NAD’s finances. Aside from finances, Shane spoke at length about the value of using social media to engage the diverse deaf community, so NAD can expand its support base and strengthen its relationship with the associations and affiliates. He went on to say that he believes that effective and efficient operations, transparency, accountability and forward looking strategies were a must. Another point Shane made was that currently the community’s demands from NAD do not match NAD’s resources to meet them, and it is his goal to equalize that imbalance.
The second Finalist to speak was Darlene Goncz Zangara, and she shared an analogy with the audience – a tree is only as strong as its roots, which is as equally true for NAD. The roots were the past, the trunk was the present, and the leaves were the future. She listed three criteria of her vision for NAD: financial freedom, progressive advocacy, and growing the NAD community. Darlene shared her work experience as being a teacher, counselor and a high-level manager with the audience and strongly felt that her diverse job experiences would bring a lot to the table. She also heavily emphasized the importance of having interpersonal skills in order to cultivate strong relationships for support, especially financial support.
Howard, the last Finalist to present, outlined his vision for NAD: Equality, Enforcement, Education, Employment, Enjoyment of life, Expansion of membership. Political contacts and social were important to Howard, and he wanted NAD to become a household name like other organizations were. He declared that he was tired of small changes, and wanted systematic changes. It is important, in Howard’s opinion, that we should always remember the past, particularly Milan 1880, but not be held hostage by it and we all should look forward to the future and anticipate how we should react. During the Q&A session, Howard also told the audience that with zero compromise, failure is guaranteed. NAD and the deaf community have to play the political game to get the results we want.
During the Q&A session, all three candidates took questions on finances and audism, which has been the two main hot issues throughout the conference. Howard was clearly the crowd’s favorite, as the audience repeatedly applauded during Howard’s presentation and Q&A.
After all three presentations, the NAD board announced that they will be gathering feedback from individuals who saw the CEO Finalists’ presentations, since community participation and opinions are important. However, the NAD members and delegates will not vote on who becomes the CEO – the board will be the one who does that.
I wish all of the three the best of luck, and I know the board will pick the best person for the job.
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