Mishka Zena

Even though Dr Fernandes was given soft ball questions in this heavily moderated interview held by Washington Post yesterday, a well known hearing blogger was able to see through her responses.  Here is his not so glowing commentary of her answers. elizabeth

Gallaudet’s Fernandes Gets Snippy in WaPo Chat

Post chats have never been good for university presidents. Just last
year American University’s Ben Ladner was accused of cherry-picking
questions
(http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/2006/10/20/DI2006102001223.html)
to avoid anything below the level of fawning adoration, and yesterday
embattled Gallaudet University president-select Jane K. Fernandes
(http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/2006/10/20/DI2006102001223.html)
did her cause no justice by confirming what many of her detractors have
claimed as her biggest flaws — that she’s divisive and insensitive.

While saying she wanted there to be dialogue between her opponents and
herself, she also expressed surprise that anyone would oppose her: “As
the first deaf woman president of Gallaudet, my appointment should be
cause for celebration. This protest is against me.” We’re not experts
in conflict management, but telling the people protesting against you
that they should be celebrating you is probably counter-productive.

Fernandes also claimed to have “a vast amount of support from what I
see as a ’silent majority,’” despite the fact that she has been the
subject of two no-confidence votes
(http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/20/AR2006102001271.html),
the first when she was selected as provost and the second coming in May
after she was selected to become president, as well as a recent vote
where 82 percent of the faculty voted for her to resign or be removed.
She described the presidential selection process, then said “After such
an exhaustive and comprehensive process, it boggles the mind how
students or faculty could believe the decision can be overturned.”

Photo of lil’ protester by Flickr user Dottielou

She also was taken to task about saying the protesting students were
engaged in “anarchism and terrorism”
(http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/18/AR2006101802035.html),
which again is not exactly the way to get on somebody’s good side. To
her credit, she said terrorism was the wrong word to use, but added
that, “Perhaps it would have been better to use words like ‘discord,’
‘tumult,’ ‘riot,’ and ‘insubordination.’” While the first three words
are accurate if a little exaggerated, “insubordination” sounds more
martial, like she’s a general whose orders can’t be questioned.
Probably not the aura to give off when students complain about your
leadership style.

Fernandes later seemed to walk right into another of the criticisms
students have had, that she doesn’t know what the protest is about: “I
know there are two demands - I resign and no reprisals. But a protest
has to be FOR something, so I want to LISTEN to those involved. I want
you to tell me what you are FOR.” It seems pretty obvious what the
students are for: Fernandes’ resignation. Throughout the protests and
the chat Fernandes has been trying to shift the focus from herself to
other issues, but the students weren’t biting.

Whatever other issues there are at the nation’s premier deaf
university, such as race and the changing definition of being deaf,
students seem united in their opposition to Fernandes. More
importantly, though, she doesn’t seem to want to address their claims.
Fernandes certainly didn’t help her cause with this chat.

Posted by Andrew Wiseman (http://www.dcist.com/staff.php#dcist_andrew)
in News (http://www.dcist.com/archives/news/)

http://www.dcist.com/archives/2006/10/24/gallaudets_fern.php