Gallaudet Research Paper

Many events took place in 1988 at Gallaudet University, in Washington, D.C. One event that continues to affect many people's lives was the election of Gallaudet’s first Deaf president, Irving King Jordan. However, it was not an easy journey for this milestone accomplishment to be achieved. In the days before King Jordan was elected, there were protests from students, faculty, alumni, and many other members of the Deaf community. They, the people of Gallaudet, had just found out that Elisabeth Zinser, a hearing woman, had just been elected as the seventh president of Gallaudet. Nobody could believe this. This led to several days of protests called, Deaf President Now. During these protests, and in Deaf culture in general, there were certain behaviors that were used. These behaviors were significantly different, or not used at all in hearing culture. They …show more content…
To do this, they used they used facial expressions, talked, used gestures, and read lips. This was all in addition to signing. While the people of Gallaudet were protesting, there were defiantly some feelings being stirred up. Some of the feelings may have been related to the choice of having Elisabeth Zinser as the seventh president of Gallaudet when it was clear everyone wanted a Deaf president. And everyone was in disbelief. That was when they began working as one Deaf world to try and stop this. At first, I was surprised at how much the election of Zinser bothered the Gallaudet and Deaf community. But I suppose I was under the impression that she was fluent in sign language, or at least knew how to effectively get her point across if she was going to be working with people in the Deaf community. Once I learned she did not sign, I was confused why she was chosen to be the next president, especially when it was so clear everyone wanted a Deaf