18
Big Ideas
The board of trustees challenged me to come up with “big ideas” that would enable the university to move forward with its mission. Based on my dialogue with the cabinet and academic leaders, we determined that there was a great need to train and prepare deaf and hard of hearing individuals for careers in medicine and health care, law, business, and architecture. Hence, I proposed to the board that the university develop preprofessional programs in these four career areas. I explained that these preprofessional programs would encourage prospective students to consider Gallaudet as a first-choice four-year liberal arts university and realize that Gallaudet had a strong career focus. I further stated that it would also enable them to pursue their graduate studies in medicine and health care, law, business, and architecture in graduate schools. I was pleased that the board enthusiastically supported the proposal.
Gallaudet has long been recognized as a respected liberal arts university that prepares students for careers in psychology, social work, sociology, linguistics, ASL and Deaf studies, and other social science and humanities fields. That would continue; the preprofessional programs simply expanded the horizon of program offerings for young aspiring students who wanted the Gallaudet experience while coenrolling in one of the highly reputable universities in Washington, DC, to crossregister in coursework in their field of choice. Gallaudet had already been and continues to be one of the charter members of the Consortium of Universities of the Washington Metropolitan Area, so it was an opportunity to take advantage of its provision to allow students to crossregister in other colleges and universities in the consortium.
Some faculty members from other disciplines were concerned that this would divert resources from their academic programs. I understood and assured them that this would not. Implementing these preprofessional programs would require minimal changes in the existing curricula. We would develop new marketing strategies to recruit students to Gallaudet. The first three preprofessional programs we implemented and incorporated into the curricula were medicine and health care, law, and business; the fourth one in architecture was still under development at the time of my retirement.
During my presidency, we established several new graduate programs, including a new doctoral program in interpretation and translation, to prepare both deaf and hearing students for careers as instructors and researchers in interpretation and translation. Likewise, we introduced a new doctoral program in educational neuroscience for students wanting to become research scientists in the field. Both programs were pioneers in their respective fields and, at that time, were one of a kind in the nation. We also created an innovative hybrid master’s degree in sign language education, with two summer on-campus course sessions and a full academic year of online instruction for existing sign language teachers who aspired to advance in their field. We also developed a master’s program in public administration in collaboration with the Federal Office of Personnel Management and American University to support deaf and hard of hearing individuals wanting to become leaders in governmental, private, and public agencies.
I felt fortunate to meet James Maguire, the founder and chair of the Philadelphia Insurance Companies, when he and I were graduation speakers at the Pennsylvania School for the Deaf in Philadelphia in 2013. He told the graduates a story about how he became a successful insurance agent when he became friends with a deaf family who lived in the same apartment building as he and his wife. He asked the deaf couple to introduce him to their deaf friends so that he could talk with them about getting the right kind of insurance for their families. This small step led the Deaf community in Philadelphia to become a large part of his client base. Over time, he started his own insurance business, and it grew bigger and bigger. He told the graduates that he never forgot his roots; that is, the Deaf community played a big part in getting him started and becoming a successful leader in the insurance and risk management profession. Years later, he joined the board of directors at the Pennsylvania School for the Deaf and contributed over $2 million to build a new student life center.
After our graduation speeches, I asked him if he knew anything about Gallaudet University. He said, “No, please tell me about it.” I was proud to talk about our great university and personally invited him and his wife, Frannie, to come for a visit. He was enthusiastic, so I immediately made plans for him, Frannie, and his management team to visit Gallaudet. I set up a meeting with the provost, deans, and faculty members in the Department of Business. We had a delightful discussion, and he told us about setting up the Maguire Insurance and Risk Management Institute at St. Joseph University in Philadelphia. He said he wanted to set up a similar program at Gallaudet because he believed that there would be tremendous prospects for young deaf people to pursue careers in insurance and risk management.
A delegation from Gallaudet traveled to Philadelphia to meet with the key leaders of the Maguire Risk Management and Insurance Institute at St. Joseph University. We received excellent information on how the program was set up at St. Joseph and took a tour of the campus facilities. Soon after, through Jim’s leadership and generosity, Gallaudet University received a $500,000 grant from the Maguire Foundation to create a new Maguire Academy of Risk Management and Insurance. He also helped establish an advisory board of insurance and risk management leaders from the Washington, DC, metropolitan area to advise and guide Gallaudet in developing its program.
I came to know James well and to admire him. He was a strong-willed man with a clear vision. He’s also a fitness-minded athlete who brought his entire family and many of his work colleagues into his fitness strategy. I appreciated that he was both goal- and action-oriented and a good listener who was incredibly generous.
The program he helped fund at Gallaudet enables interested students to receive training to fill many of the 400,000 jobs in the field of risk management and insurance that will open up as people retire in the next several years. As of this writing, several of the graduates from the Maguire Insurance and Risk Management Institute have been hired both as interns and permanent employees at the Philadelphia Insurance Companies. The university awarded him an honorary doctorate of business degree in May 2017.
SHORTLY AFTER ARRIVING at Gallaudet, I learned that the National Science Foundation (NSF) was questioning the status of Gallaudet’s Visual Learning and Visual Language (VL2) as one of the NSF Science of Learning Centers. The NSF had awarded the university a major grant in 2005 to establish the VL2 program and had continued to support it financially in the years to follow. They were now worried that its goals were not being sufficiently met, even though faculty and students were conducting educational neuroscience research connected to deaf and hard of hearing students.
Since the VL2 program was at risk of losing its NSF funding, I worked closely with academic leaders to save the center. During several meetings with NSF officers, we asked for extra time to resurrect the program and seek a new leader for it.
This was not an easy process because the NSF officials were insistent on sticking to the original agreement with Gallaudet, which explicitly spelled out goals and established metrics to evaluate outcomes, but we managed to convince them. Based on Dr. Laura-Ann Petitto’s many years of successful research leadership in the field of educational neuroscience and at the Brain and Language Lab (BL2) at the University of Toronto, we identified her as a prospective leader. She had also been the director of a similar center at Dartmouth College before her transfer to the University of Toronto. We shared this with the NSF, which said if we could bring Dr. Petitto to campus, they would reconsider and continue to fund VL2.
Dr. Carol Erting, then the dean of graduate and professional studies, and I worked very hard to negotiate with Dr. Petitto. When Dr. Petitto came on board, I emphasized the importance of her leadership in carrying out NSF’s mandate to improve management of the Science of Learning Center and the VL2 project. I also impressed on her that a priority was to encourage multiple deaf and hard of hearing students at Gallaudet to become research scientists in educational neuroscience following in Dr. Petitto’s footsteps.
To my delight, she met these objectives within five years. Today, several deaf students are doing well in the doctoral program in educational neuroscience. As of this writing, two of them completed their doctoral requirements in 2017 and 2018, respectively. NSF reported that it was extremely pleased with Dr. Petitto’s leadership and performance and has continued to fund the project and even provided additional funding for other projects.
IN 2012, it was time for Gallaudet to conduct once again its ten-year comprehensive review of its mission and academic programs for MSCHE reaccreditation. Academic leaders in consultation with the cabinet and myself formed a steering committee for a comprehensive self-study. The committee, per our agreement with MSCHE, chose a self-study group for its 2012–2013 review, which required that thirteen standards of the revised MSCHE Characteristics of Excellence be examined and reported. Gallaudet’s five GSP goals served as the unifying and organizing framework for this self-study.
MSCHE commended the university for its candid approach to self-evaluation, and the openness with which the challenges of continuous improvement were shared. The community was also recognized for creating and sustaining a culture of assessment evident at all levels of the organization and governance structures.
I was proud of the work by the academic leaders, faculty and staff, and administration. I believe that the work done earlier by the two task forces helped to pave the way for a successful ten-year reaccreditation with the MSCHE commission.
DON BEIL’S STAY at Gallaudet extended to one year, then the second, and onward to the third. One day toward the end of his fourth year as my chief of staff, he said, “Every time I go to California, it gets harder and harder for me to come back to Washington.”
I understood, I said. “I’m so grateful you stayed with me longer than expected. Go be with your family.”
He had played a significant role in our many achievements. Instead of hiring a replacement, I divided and assigned Don’s responsibilities to five different individuals for the remaining two years of my term.
“THE DORMS ARE SHABBY,” and “Would it be possible for our dorms to be nicer?” and “It’s my least favorite thing about Gallaudet,” were some of the comments I heard about campus life during my interviews with the Gallaudet community in September 2009. It seemed to be a consensus: Student housing was due for an upgrade and expansion. Dean for Student Life Dwight Benedict and his team were among those letting me know that Gallaudet needed new dorms. In a meeting with senior academic officers, one challenged me directly: “What are you going to do about the dorm situation?”
“Well,” I said, “I do have some experience with private fundraising, and we had some success with that.” Such fundraising had paid for the construction of the CSD Student Development Center at NTID. I’d had the good fortune to see firsthand how RIT’s senior vice president for finance and administration managed to secure funds through governmental bond issues, which allowed us to move forward with a comprehensive campus improvement plan and the construction of over 220 new buildings and structures.
“That will never happen here, though,” the Gallaudet dean said. “That idea has been discussed here for years, and still nothing has come of it.”
During the interview process for the Gallaudet presidency, I had asked if Gallaudet had ever pursued a bond issue for campus improvement. When I learned that this had never been done, I shared RIT’s success in this area and added that if I were to become president, I would put the vice president in touch with the RIT vice president and help facilitate communication.
Upon my election as president, I brought the bond issue concept up immediately with Paul Kelly, vice president for administration and finance, who was receptive. I then asked Don Beil to work with Paul to continue the discussion, and we pulled in some key members of the board’s finance committee to explore this concept. Fortunately, several had considerable experience with bond issues and were enthusiastic. Other members of the finance committee helpfully provided their insights and critique.
We knew the days of getting construction funds from the federal government was a thing of the past, so obtaining a bond issue became an excellent alternative source of funding. The finance committee members decided to come up with a $40 million request. This would allow the university to build a new dormitory for $18 million. Then some of the remaining funds would be used to upgrade the other five dorms and renovate three Faculty Row houses. The remainder of the proposed funding would implement energy conservation strategies, including a new geothermal field. Improving the Field House facilities for athletes and installing new turf fields were also included in the plan. The proposal was then presented to and approved by the board of trustees. The bond development was a long, tedious, yet exciting process that required a full review and authorization by various banking and investment sources for bond issues. Gallaudet received strong ratings in the multi-As by two significant bond rating agencies.
Once approved, Gallaudet posted a notice through the financial agencies for a bond issue in anticipation that it would take several weeks or months to achieve our goal of $40 million. To our amazement, it took only twenty minutes to reach $20 million; by the end of the day, we had achieved the final goal of $40 million. It was indeed a new era for the university. In hindsight, we could have aimed for more money, but it was a good starting point.
As required by the DC zoning commission, Gallaudet developed a ten-year 2022 campus master plan. The plan included the construction projects outlined in the bond issue. The university implemented a creative budgeting process through annual depreciations that allowed us to improve the dormitory facilities. The new dormitory, Living and Learning Residence Hall #6, was completed within eighteen months, and students moved in by the fall of 2012. Renovation of the five existing dormitories, Faculty Row houses, academic labs and offices, and athletic facilities took place over the next few years.
An in-house architect, Mr. Hansel Bauman, executed a master campus plan and oversaw the design and building of all the construction projects according to a framework that allowed students, faculty, and staff to become engaged in the campus planning process with their insights and input. Each of these construction projects and renovations incorporated DeafSpace design elements. DeafSpace is an architectural design concept of utilizing open space in a way that touches on significant points within the deaf experience. It is all about resolving the five main challenge areas for deaf people: space, proximity, light, color, and acoustics.
As a part of the master plan, the university installed a new gate with a crosswalk leading to the new Union Market across the street from the campus. The plan’s motto, “Transformation from Isolation to Innovation,” looked to create opportunities for students, staff, and faculty through employment, internships, training, and collaborations in the surrounding community. During my tenure, I saw our students open up to the neighboring community and vice versa. We installed a Capital Bikeshare station, which allowed the Gallaudet community and those in the nearby community to pick up and drop off rental bikes that could be ridden to and from hundreds of other Bikeshare stations around the DC metropolitan area.
Overall, the campus transformation was dramatic. Over just a few years, Gallaudet went from a place where students regularly complained about their dorms to one where the dorms were beautiful, energy-efficient, safer, more accessible, and built to last for a very long time—set on a campus that had become more convenient and more welcoming.