"In the past five years, undergraduate enrollment has declined from about 1,400 to just under 1,000, said Paul Kelly, the university's vice president for administration and finance. " The italics were added by me, but this sentence is taken directly from today's Washington Post article, "Gallaudet's New Aesthetics," an update on what is happening with the effort to redevelop the Sixth street area bordering Gallaudet. The redevelopment effort is not really news; there have been articles about it before. What is surprising is how low Gallaudet's enrollment has fallen.
This low enrollment is one reason for Gallaudet's interest in redeveloping the area. Gallaudet recognizes that in order to attract more deaf students in a competitive college world, Gallaudet has to become physically more similar to "hearing" colleges. It would be nice to be able to hop on the Metro, and go on a restaurant date in "Gallaudet Town Center," followed by attending whatever event is at Gallaudet that night.
Saturday, October 04, 2008
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22 comments:
There is no doubt that Gallaudet's enrollment has declined in the last five years. But in previous years, especially under the previous administration, there was a destructive practice in place of accepting ANY deaf student, regardless of whether or not he or she was ready for college-level work. This practice artificially inflated the numbers for a long time. Under the new administration, Gallaudet is turning away record numbers of students who are not qualified. If the new administration wanted to artificially inflate the numbers to keep up appearances, they could do so, though doing so probably would not be as easy to hide in this new landscape of blogging and vlogging and instantaneous internet. Especially under this kind of a public spotlight.
The fact that Gallaudet is doing the right thing NOW, after years and even decades of doing the wrong thing, will take it through a great deal of pain as it reshapes itself, and may even lead to its collapse (though at this point in time accepting unqualified students would just as quickly lead to its collapse). But if Gallaudet had done this ten years ago or twenty years ago, would it still be in the position it is in today? I leave it to your readers to decide that for themselves.
Moral of the story: "Better late than never" is a good rule, but "better long ago than now" is an even better one.
So now Gallaudet is blaming the environment/neighborhood on its enrollment! tsk tsk!
Gallaudet has a reputation for not providing the best academic environment or the best one for adult students. It still is seen as a school for kids and students are treated like them. Also, graduates do not have the skills to begin work and often have to spend a long time searching for an employer who has not heard of Gallaudet's low standards.
This perception will take a long time to change.
The present economic factors within the U.S. and the international community also make much difference on the impact of student enrollement numbers.
We ought to think about the "quality", not "quantity" for the Gallaudet student enrollement and educational system!
The Vocational Rehabilation policies have been greatly changed under George W. Bush Adminstration for past seven years which curtailed the fundings for paying someone deaf's college tutition.
The surrounding environment around Gallaudet's main campus in Washington, DC kinda influence many parents of deaf college applicants not consider Gallaudet.
Who would blame the parents of deaf college would-be students or students themselves?
Robert L. Mason (RLM)
Accepting 'any deaf student' is never destructive. It's called inclusion.
We're seeing one of the fringe benefits of the evolution of the deaf society. The university is no longer a mecca. And we've evolved way beyond the point of no return therefore whats going on can not be undone.
Anonysmuth
The new curriculum, implemented by the Davila/Weiner administration, has driven students away in droves. Last January, one-half of the freshmen who entered in August had withdrawn. Clearly a focus on student retention is needed. Even if as they claim they are now admitting only the best and brightest students, those students are not finding Gallaudet attractive and are leaving in record numbers after just one semester!
I suspect the sole reason it is still there is because no-one wants to admit America's first (And World), 'Deaf University' to improve the academic attainment of American deaf, descended into chaos, and is failing, because of its in-built secularity, and in-fighting with hearing, and themselves.
2nd Anonymous...
You obviously haven't read the article, no where in the article is Gallaudet blaming the environment for its declining enrollment. It's more stringent academic standards that is responsible for this.
Yes, I expect it would happen to Gallaudet. Look at the schools for the deaf.. They are declining. The more deaf schools decline, the more chance for Gallaudet to decline. I do really care about the deaf schools and Gallaudet!
Let more Canadian students come to Gallaudet. There are now about 5 Canadian students. We used to have approx. 140 Canadian students in 1990's. Gallaudet's fees are too expensive for the foreigners. Try to do something about this problems.
Anonysmuth,
Accepting a deaf student simply because he's deaf, regardless of how unprepared he or she is, is incredibly destructive. Where do you think low standards come from? Unqualified hearing students are denied entrance into college all the time, regardless of their gender or color. Is that too a practice of non-inclusion? Or doesnt that count because they're hearing?
This is what people mean when they talk about Deaf Education all over the nation being stuck in the iron grip of paternalism. Aw, poor deaf kiddies, give 'em a chance. Hell yes, I agree, but give 'em that chance between grades K-12 instead of choking them to death with the same old bankrupt approaches that haven't worked in years. Hire teachers who can sign, fire teachers who treat the job like a paid vacation, get in administrators who know what they're doing. Do all that and get deaf kids reading at grade level across the board... THEN you can come back to me and talk about "inclusion." I guarantee you we won't be having that conversation, because Gallaudet would then have more students than it knows what to do with.
jordan left gallaudet a cesspool, the davila administration has just started cleaning up. just think how long it will take obama to clean up bush's mess in washington after eight years. well, jordan reigned for almost nineteen!
give the new people a chance to right the wrongs.
It is better to let it do this way this time as we want more qualified and brillant students to enroll. Under previous administration, not well educated students including my deaf nephew were accepted and they were graduated while they CAN NOT READ or WRITE at all. They were not able to locate good jobs and they settled for much lower-paid positions as if they were high school dropouts. It was a very big mistake in past administration.
We thank Bob Davila to correct this situation and hope he and a new president after Bob will make sure that standards will never be lowered once again.
It is obvious that what Jordan and Fernandes were saying has come true. Why would any student deaf, hoH, CI or hearing student want to attend an institution with deaf cuturalists who treat them as outcasts when they can go to other fine universities and be welcomed.
Most of you wanted it and now it is going to happen. Gallaudet needs full enrollment in order to revieve fed funds. If McCain gets in I think you will see those funds dry up.
Davila whom you all praise is doing more harm to Gallaudet than what all the past presidents have done combined.
I think what you guys need is another big distruptive protest to fix things for the deaf people in the world. Maybe burn some more effigies and threaten those in charge now!!!
Good Work!!!
Many thanks to all the hateful bloggers who created and contributed to this mess!!!
I am not in the least bit shocked. I am happy they made admittance to Gallaudet harder. It has sent a message to the deaf schools, letting the students there know how difficult it is to graduate from college.
Also, I know how under bush DVR has had zero money to send kids to an out of state school. All the money these kids need to get an education gets over seas..to well you know where.
Also I am not suprized about students dropping out. Its common knowledge that after the first semester for freshman, more than half drop out. Partying to hard, not studying, just barely passing their classes to appease DVR.. ect.. ect..
If the enrollment decline is due to more stringent academic admissions standards, then why do the smart deaf students withdraw after one semester? Even after a new challenging curriculum was started? Half of the new students left after one semester!!!! This is a very bad job done by Davila/Weiner, in my opinion.
We are seeing the old Gallaudet of the earlier decades when they admitted only high performing students. The enrollment of the early years were always low. That was normal.
Only when Dr Lee got ambitious and wanted to increase enrollment that he lowered the academic standards in order to enroll more that the numbers grew and quality of education begun to decline. Dr Lee's ambitions also bought Gallaudet's status as an university.
We never did need any of that. Gallaudet was supposed to be the COLLEGE, not extended program or institution for the deaf who were not quite on par academically and needed further high school education. Gallaudet was supposed to be a college, providing college level education and giving out degrees that are worthy of college level grads.
It IS good to know Davila kept his word and took back Gallaudet to where it should be. Numbers DOES NOT matter. Gallauder should be only for students who CAN do college work, period.
Were most of the students to apply for just any other college, they would have been turned away, too. Gallaudet had long been the place to go for those who were not able to get into college anywhere else.
I've clue for them...there are community colleges who will take them...if their VR won't send them to Gallaudet. There are trade colleges. They were the places deaf people went to decades ago. As it should be.
Too many Gallaudet grads have degrees that are not worthy of them and they end up with no jobs and end up on SSI. Employers find them imcompetent and/or unqualified despite their supposedly having completed college level work.
That hurt Gallaudet more than anything. Dr Lee's ambitions ruined Gallaudet. Davila is reseccurting Gallaudet and is on the right track.
Instead of being concerned about declining enrollment, we should celebrate.
Interesting to see so many 'anonymous' commenters here. Afraid to use your name, eh? Well, not me!
For the anonymous who said Jordan/Fernandes predicted this. DUH. The decline started FIVE years ago while Jordan and Fernandes were still on campus. When the MSCHE checked into the academic quality, only one or two months after Jordan left, oops, bad stuff there. These low academic rigors were from Jordan era. Gallaudet was already sinking when the protest happened! The protesters saved Gallaudet, bless our young brave warriors.
Davila did a lot in pulling up the academic rigors within a short time, with intensive teamwork. Hand Waving to Davila and Gallaudet!
Again, as another response said, we need to be looking at deaf education across the nation at the K-12 level. This is where the problems begin that produce deaf students who are not ready for college and who cannot get good jobs.
In addition, I know numerous graduates of Gallaudet who have received their BA or BS degree there, have gone on to get their master's degrees and have good jobs.
Not all graduates of hearing colleges get great jobs either.
If you want to change the top (that is, improve the collegiate condition for deaf people), then you need to work on the problems at the bottom that perpetuate the problems (that is, deaf education and promoting communication driven educational programs for deaf children).
The irony is that NTID enrollments had gone up!
Folks, enrollment began to decline starting in 1990 from a high of 1825 undergrad students to presumably right now below 1000 for 2008. It has declined over the past 18 years and not 5 years like Mishka claimed. From 2006 to 2007 saw the biggest drop on enrollment number (-268 students) immediately after the protest and MSCHE on Gally's accreditation. The long decline was due to universities and colleges having better communication access services for their deaf and hard of hearing students (also the Rubella babies are now way past college age which explains the big boom on enrollment during the 80s).
Again, enrollment began declining in 1990...not five years ago. It went from a high of 1800+ to below 1000 students in 19 years. The biggest drop occurred in 2006-2007 with -260 less students after the protest occurred and that MSCHE had Gallaudet on notice on accreditation.
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