I wish you safety and peace in your protest. Not familiar with the situation, I have no idea what side to take in all of this. So, I wisely choose to remain neutral. I will continue to watch the news from Gallaudet. I’ve placed RSS feeds from several sites in my reader and look at them whenever I can.

Thanks for visiting and take care of yourself. I worry for the students and their safety.

The real reasons why we are protesting: Flawed presidential search process, and failed leadership.

NOT “not deaf enough” or “cultural battle” as Gallaudet University’s Public Relations and Fernandes/Jordan has put it. They are doing that intentionally in order to distract the media from the real issues that would actually make the administration look rather unflattering. Subverting real issues into volatile cultural debate that really has nothing to do about the protest – sign of excellent leadership? I don’t think so. We have huge loss of trust in our administration after repeated lies fed to the media by our university’s public relations.

Not only that, but the students and the faculty are also trying to bring charges against the university president I King Jordan for embezzlement and wrongful use of university money because it’s an open secret that a public relations company and spin doctor was hired to “doctor” the administration’s side to the media and twist around the protestors’ story. Ever wonder why the WP editorials were on the administration’s side?

So what I’m saying is that – I’m glad you’re following the protests! However, I caution you about visiting the official university’s website and soaking up the wrong information from the website. Try to get the other side of the story from the official coalition formed from the protest: FSSA (stands for Faculty, Students, Staff, Alumni of Gallaudet University) at http://www.gufssa.com and excellent blogging at http://www.elisawrites.com

I promise you, you’ll get an entirely new side to the story once you start checking out those two websites. I recommend “MUST READ” on GUFSSA website.

Thank you for your interest!

That’s terrific. Seems that they paid attention to your presentation and implemented it with this controversy. Great job. Wish I could have been there.

Their update page that chronicles news coverage is excellent.

I see that the Washington Post has sided with the trustees on this controversy. Yet, the university is also linking to articles that represent all sides in the dispute.

Having interpreters sign your presentation is a unique feeling, isn’t it?

My “foreign” language in college was ASL. I find it funny that ASL – American Sign Language – was accepted as, or considered to be, a “foreign” language. I do believe that more schools should accept ASL as a second language equivalency.

Sadly, I have ultimately lost my ability to sign well. As I shared with my students, I wish I had gone to live at the Helen Keller School (Talladega, AL) when I was just out of college. Immersion in the language is the only way to fully embrace it, for me – at least.

Thanks, Karine.

It is an interesting story. Forbes reports today that students and faculty members marched on Capital Hill in D.C. “Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., Rep. Ray LaHood, R-Ill., and Rep. Lynn Woolsey, D-Calif., are all voting members of Gallaudet’s board, but they have not spoken publicly about the 11-day protest.”

The Washington Post reports that the protests continue and give further details.

This may go on for quite awhile. Let’s keep watching.

I actually met two persons from Gallaudet at the CASE conference for Senior and Marketing Professionals last month.

They attended the presentation Joe Hice (UF) and I gave about crisis communication (timely subject for them). It was a first for me to have interpreters “signing” what I was saying.

Erin: Sorry, I just couldn’t resist poking a lil’ fun at ya’. I now you’re busy. Have you ever visited Gallaudet? It is a remarkable school. Perhaps the most uninque of all the deaf universities, and one of the few.

Karine: Thanks for that link. They are doing a great job. Have you ever had any interaction along the way with Gallaudet? Their web presence is pretty nice. I like the “Faces of Gallaudet” section, especially.

Thanks to both of you. As you can tell, I really get into these kinds of stories.

I’ve been following this crisis since the beginning.

Gallaudet PR team has done a good job keeping people informed about the latest developments of this crisis via a dedicated web page linked from the homepage:

Update on Current Campus Situation

Honestly, I’ve been swamped with client work lately and hadn’t heard much about this incident. But the DCist wrote about it here. I’ll keep tabs on this and let you know if anything big happens.