A Year Later, Gallaudet Faces Challenging Future

After Protest, New Leaders Have Enrollment, Accreditation Problems

Gallaudet University President Robert Davila flashed a photo of a glass of water onto a screen this week to show how the school is doing and asked the students in the packed auditorium what they saw. "It's half-full!" students responded, and he laughed with them, nodding.

Last October, angry protesters shut down the internationally known school for the deaf, throwing it into chaos, forcing out an incoming president and intensifying scrutiny from accreditors. Things have calmed and the mood on campus is upbeat, but Gallaudet is at a crossroads. Accreditors have put the school on probation, and undergraduate enrollment has dropped by 120 students, or 10 percent, since admissions were tightened to boost academic quality.

The past year has been spent stabilizing leadership, calming tensions, rebuilding a fractured community and working at a breakneck pace to attack the shortcomings flagged by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education.

Whether all the changes forced the school to the brink of collapse -- or saved it just in time from deep-rooted problems and complacency, creating a stronger, more unified place -- is up for debate.

"There are an astonishing array of changes being discussed, on the drawing boards or already underway," said Frank H. Wu, vice chair of the board. "Gallaudet is having to do in months what usually takes years and attempting to do in weeks what usually takes months."

Fundamental questions remain about Gallaudet's role now that the vast majority of deaf and hard-of-hearing students go to mainstream schools. Deaf students have more options today because of technological advances such as cochlear implants and electronic communications devices.

Campus groups have worked steadily in the past year to redefine the school's mission, emphasizing bilingualism -- or the ability to communicate in American Sign Language and in written and spoken English.

"There are people in the media who try to portray Gallaudet University as a place where there is a cultural war constantly ongoing" between deaf culture centered in sign language and that centered in written or spoken English, Provost Stephen Weiner told students and professors at a forum recently. "I'd like to think we've moved beyond that."

"Bilingualism is not code for ASL only," Richard Lytle, an administrator, said later.

A year ago, it was anarchy at Gallaudet, the center of deaf education in this country for more than 100 years. Students angry over the choice of the next president had taken over the school, shutting down classes for days, shouting from tents covering the front lawn. Homecoming was canceled, and late one night, more than 130 students were carried away by police for blocking entrances to campus.

The protests came at a time when deaf education was changing. New medical technology and federal law making interpreters more available give deaf students a vastly greater array of options.

Gallaudet's enrollment has been falling for years. In the mid-1990s, there were as many as 1,600 undergraduates; by last year, the number was 1,200; and this year, 1,080. Total enrollment, including graduate students, now numbers 1,633 students, a drop of 200 from last year that many blamed on the protests and probation.