HomeComing Still On, GUAA Declared: More Updates inside

GUAA disputed the press release of Homecoming events cancelled and stated that the HomeComing is still on.  paged by Coco

Updated: And If They Lay Us Down To Rest…
**********************BREAKING NEWS********************

- ANDREW LANGE, GUAA PRESIDENT, RESPONDS [Gallaudet University Alumni
Association]
- “WE WILL TAKE BACK GALLAUDET”
- SAYS “EXCUSE ME, OUR HOMECOMING CONTINUES. MORE INFORMATION IS COMING
SHORTLY”
- TONE OF LANGE’S LETTER CAN BE DESCRIBED AS FURIOUS

MORE TO COME

- EARL MIKELL

4:34 PM -

**********************BREAKING NEWS**************************

- GALLAUDET UNIVERSITY ADMINISTRATION POSTPONES/CANCELS HOMECOMING
- REACTION SAID TO BE ONE OF ANGER AND FURY
- WORST POLITICAL MOVE SINCE FRIDAY NIGHT ARRESTS
- JORDAN BLAMES IT ON PROTESTERS
- “POSTPONEMENT” CONSIDERED A SUBTLE WAY OF CANCELING HOMECOMING
- FOOTBALL GAME IS REPORTEDLY CANCELED ALSO

MORE TO COME

RALLY AT 9 PM TONIGHT AT EITHER MARKETPLACE OR FRONT GATE

- EARL MIKELL

4:25 PM -

BoT Member Mum on Fairness of Whole Presidential Selection Except The Last Part

Presidential Selection process-

-After being questioned by Chris Woodfill on whether Jane Fernandes is actually the best person to be the president of Gallaudet University, Dick admitted that he is of the opinion that Jane is not the best candidate that applied or are available out there.  However, he insists that she is the best of the final three.  Jane is just not the best out there.

-Dick felt that the last part of the BoT presidential search process was very honest and fair.  There is no favoritism or anything like that in the process as they relate to the final three candidates.  .  He feels that the process was transparent and fair.  The process need not to be re-done or re-opened. 

- Dick said that he was limited to only three choices and that he had to choose the best out of three.  Among the three, Jane Fernandes was clearly the best according to the presidential search criteria.  The criteria are PhD degree, administrative experience at university level and Deaf.  Jane meets all three and is the most qualified of the three. Gally FSSA News » Wisconsin GUAA Meeting with L. Richard Kinney (Board of Trustee)

Commentary: Why cannot he state that the whole presidential selection process was fair? He only emphasized the last part where three candidates were interviewed was transparent and fair, but he didn’t mention about the other parts. Due to his failure to state that the whole process was fair,  the integrity of the presidential selection process remains questionable. elizabeth

Beacon Of Hope

Beacon of Hope

On top o’ the world
A beacon of hope shines its light
Dreams and inspiration runs through the earth
Those who cannot hear blessed
Those who can hear welcomed
By the light that is Gallaudet.

A stormy day in May
The light suddenly dimmed
Scholars around the beacon aghast
Amid thunderclap and gloom
Emerges indecision and distrust
The Queen of Gallaudet
Must be dethroned, they yell!

Raven strands of her hair flowing
Coldness stares back at us
Blood red nails sharpened
She stands before us in glee
Never shall I leave my throne,
The Evil Queen of Gallaudet beseeches.

Perchance our savior the King
Would be so kind
Save us from the evil Incarnate,
The scholars beg of him.
Frost bellows from his mouth,
Ne’er shall I abandon my Queen,
For she shall be my successor,
At any price ye all shall pay.

The beacon of hope
Must be saved!
A march of the best of the best
Swarm Kendall Green
An army of loyalists -
Scholars, jesters, courters and exiles
Unite together for a sole resolve
Rid our beloved Gallaudet
Of weeds, trolls and denizens
Dethrone the King and Queen
We shall revolt til they fall!

Ne’er shall we lose hope
One place, a thousand lives
One day in May
They all united out of loyalty
Grant us Justice and Prosperity,
Voice and Reason!
And our beacon shall shine far and wide
And the whole world shall find hope again.

Christine Roschaert, ‘06

*tactile love*
coco

Reprinted with permission by the author

HomeComing Cancelled

From: President <President@Gallaudet.edu>
To: president@gallaudet.edu
Subject: Homecoming Announcement
Date: Tue, 17 Oct 2006 15:27:57 -0400

October 17, 2006

To Members of the Gallaudet Community:

We regret that due to the fact that Gallaudet University is not
operating under normal circumstances, and the protesters continue to
refuse to open all of the gates, we must postpone homecoming and all
related activities.

King Jordan

President

DeafNation’s New Charity Focus-FSSA And DeafHope

http://www.deaf-hope.org/pressrelease.html

Press Release about DeafNation’s New Charity Focus–GUFSSA

DeafNation and DeafHope are in such a somber mood about Gallaudet University crisis and its impact on our Deaf community. With our minds and hearts at Gallaudet University, we feel torn while working on the upcoming DeafNation Expo and Charity Golf in Pleasanton/Sunol,California. The event is sponsored by HOVRS, IP-Relay and SmarioSoft Solutions.

DeafNation is hosting its second annual golf charity event on October 26, 2006, for DeafHope. Both DeafNation and DeafHope are preoccupied with our concerns for our friends at Gallaudet University. It is also difficult for us to focus on the charity for DeafHope cause, supporting Deaf survivors of domestic violence, while we are heavy hearted about the leadership crisis on Gallaudet campus, the place where we all proudly call our own, even those of us who are not alumni.

Joel Barish, CEO of DeafNation, Kate Kovacs, Chair of DeafHope Board of Directors, Julie Rems-Smario, Executive Director of DeafHope, Bobbie Beth Scoggins, President of National Association of the Deaf, Matthew Lockhart, student representative of FSSA, and Andy Lange, President of GUAA support DeafNation’s decision to change its fundraising focus to both DeafHope and FSSA.

GUFSSA accepted DeafNation Charity Golf with 50% of the proceeds in a DeafNation’s reserved fund for FSSA to be released only when FSSA absolutely need it. If the crisis is resolved prior to FSSA exhausting their current funds, the reserved fund will be released to DeafHope. Matthew Lockhart responded to working with DeafNation Charity Golf with this statement, “I have this hope that the crisis will end soon. If the situation drags on for weeks or months, the contribution will, without a doubt, prove to be very useful to FSSA.”

“By supporting this wonderful event to stamp out violence, you send a message of hope that one day, we all can be free.”
Andy Lange, President, Gallaudet University Alumni Associate

“Your expression of support shows how deep-rooted this unity is for all of us, deaf and hard of hearing people, the right to self determination and be people in truest sense.”
Bobbie Beth Scoggins, President, National Association of the Deaf

“Whether it’s happening in your own home or someplace far away, whether it is happening to you or a friend, whether it’s happening at home, work, or school, everyone deserves a healthy and safe environment to grow physically, spiritually, and intellectually,”
Matthew Lockhart, FSSA Student Representative

“We are thrilled to do this fundraiser for good causes. This is a wonderful way to work together and show unity in our goals for the greater good of our community.”
Kate Kovacs, Board Chair of DeafHope

“This unity effort to fundraise is a way we can feel we are doing something concurrently for two important issues impacting everyone: to provide services for deaf survivors of violence and to cease oppression against deaf people.”
Julie Rems-Smario, DeafHope Executive Director

“This charity golf is an unique opportunity for us to get together in the spirit of UNITY.”
Joel Barish, CEO of DeafNation

To meet the golfers’ popular demands, on October 26th, we relocated the to Sunol Valley Golf Club and the time to 11:00 AM for registration:

DeafHope Charity Golf
Date: Thursday, October 26, 2006
Time: 11:00 am Registration, 12:30 pm Shotgun Start
Cost: $100.00 per golfer including BBQ-Lunch.
Limited to 144 Golfers.
DeafHope Charity Golf
Format: Twosome Best Ball Scramble
Contests: Prizes, Awards, Closest to the pin, ladies’ & men’s longest drive, a $25,000 hole-in-one cash prize and more prizes!
Location:
Sunol Valley Golf Club
6900 Mission Rd
Sunol, CA 94568
www.sunolvalley.com

To sign up- www.deafnation.com

NOTE to NONGOLFERS: You can join this fun for charity by attending our dinner at the golfing event after at 5:30 PM for $25.00 per person

If you want to sponsor this charity event or donate funds, contact Joel Barish at Joel@DeafNation.com for the sponsorship package or donation arrangement.

if you have questions about this event, contact Julie Rems-Smario at Julie@deaf-hope.org

websites:www.DeafNation.com www.deaf-hope.org & www.gufssa.org

Dad Speaks Out About The Bus Incident Yesterday

This morning, school buses carrying children to the elementary school were forced to run a gauntlet of protesters as they entered the 6th Street gate.   Protestors were banging on cars as they entered this gate.  This is threatening and unacceptable behavior.

The administration is the one who force to have elementary school bus to go through two rows of peaceful and cheerful protesters.  It is too bad that the administrators have ill-fated perspective about peaceful protestors. Banging on the cars shows their inspiration for everyone. I was on the bus and went through it. I feel inspired. My young son feels the same. The teachers can explain their students what is happening with the protesters. It is a social studies lesson for them.

Our protesters would never threatened to anyone even a fly.

Jimmy Challis Gore

Reprinted with permission by the author

Update at 1 PM

Several protesters informed me that students are relaxing and now catching up with their studies. It is cool and raining outside.

Coco reports that she is in her 60 th hour on hunger strike. She is tired and sleeps a lot.

There will be a presentation on Deafhood given by Dave Eberwein

I. King Jordan in response to Faculty Vote

Tuesday, October 16, 2006, 9:00 a.m.

FOR IMMEDIATE
RELEASE

CONTACT: MERCY COOGAN

“For those of you who have voted “no confidence” and called for Dr. Fernandes’ resignation, I say this is a very sad day for me personally and for the Gallaudet University community. I have had to make difficult decisions during my 18 years here, but none so difficult as during these last few days when I was forced to ask the police to help reopen the gates of our campus. During my entire presidency, my decisions have always been based upon what I believed  in my head and in my heart to be in the best interests of the  University, even when those decisions were difficult—and in this instance—very painful. The education of our students and the safety of everyone on this campus have always been and continue to be my top priorities.

“How did we come to this impasse? I am quite amazed and deeply saddened at the anger and vitriolic demands and demonstrations on campus. The continued accusations by the protesters that their demands are not being heard do not ring true. What they mean is that we have not agreed to their demands. They say that the rift they have caused by their intransigent demands could be healed by simply acceding to the demand that Dr. Fernandes resign. That will not happen.

“In a civil society do we give in to the demands by a loud and vociferous group intent on having its way at all costs? In a civil society do we lose sight of the rights of the many who have come to campus to be educated, to be respected and free to choose their own beliefs? In a civil society do we allow a mob to close our school buildings and our gates risking the safety of those on campus? In a civil society do we permit some members of the campus to hold the university hostage to their demands? I think not.

“Shutting down the campus affected students from pre-school through university and graduate school. Shutting down the campus affected families with infants and young children, as well as senior citizens from receiving services from our audiology clinic. My plea to the protesters was that they conduct their dissent with administrative and board decisions without disrupting the rights of the majority to their education. I considered that to be a reasonable request. But somehow that has been turned around to put the onus of this discord on me and Dr. Fernandes.

“Let me again try to set the record straight. First, the Presidential Search Committee represented the spectrum that constitutes Gallaudet’s community and was under the leadership of a Board member who was also an alumna. The 17 committee members included five people of color as well as 13 deaf and hard of hearing and four hearing individuals. Of the six candidates to be interviewed, all were deaf and three were either women or people of color. These are facts that have been completely misrepresented by the protesters.

“Second, let me be clear, Dr. Fernandes will not resign. She is eminently qualified to be the next President of Gallaudet University. She has been a change agent on campus, which has alienated those who like the status quo. She has introduced unpopular, but necessary, high academic standards for faculty and students and those actions have made enemies. She has been vilified and made the target of ugly accusations. The resolution unfairly prejudges Dr. Fernandes. She has been president-designate since May, and will not take up her full duties as Gallaudet University’s president until January 2007. She deserves the opportunity to carry out the responsibilities of the presidency before others judge that she is unable to do so.

“Third, on the issue of reprisals, there is a difference between “reprisals,” which the dictionary defines as “retaliation, ” and being accountable for the consequences of one’s behavior. The University does not engage in reprisals, but it does hold people accountable for illegal acts, destruction of property, and other actions described as unacceptable in the Student Code of Conduct or in the Administration and Operations Manual.

“Finally, I have repeatedly been told that since I came into my presidency as a result of a student–led protest, I should be in sympathy with what the protesters now demand. This comparison is false. In 1988, the movement was about deaf leadership for the world’s only deaf university. It was a civil rights issue. It was a protest for an ideal. In 2006, this protest is not for anything, but is against a person. This protest is happening because some people do not want Dr. Jane Fernandes to be the next Gallaudet President. She is deaf, she is qualified, and she is supported by the Board. There is no real parallel between the two protests, except that there are protesters. Jane Fernandes deserves to be the next President of Gallaudet University, faculty resolutions not withstanding. I continue to support her right to be Gallaudet University’s 9th President.”

Wash Post: Gallaudet Faculty Opposes Incoming College President

Gallaudet Faculty Opposes Incoming College President
No-Confidence Votes Against Jordan, Trustees

By Susan Kinzie and Michael E. Ruane
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, October 17, 2006; B01

The faculty at Gallaudet University gave overwhelming endorsement last
night to a proposal calling for Jane K. Fernandes to resign or be
removed from her position as incoming president of one of the world’s
premier colleges for the deaf.

Meeting in Gallaudet’s Andrew J. Foster Auditorium surrounded by signs
of the protest that has drawn worldwide attention, the teachers adopted
the nonbinding resolution by a vote of 138 to 24. Six abstained.

Fernandes, whose title is president designate, was selected by the
board of trustees in May and has been the focus of bitter opposition at
the 142-year-old school ever since. She is scheduled to take office
Jan. 1.

The vote gave new support to the protest over Fernandes and came three
days after 133 demonstrators were arrested in one of the key moments of
the student-led shutdown that paralyzed the Northeast Washington campus
last week.

“Can we make it any more clear?” Jan Hafer, a professor on sabbatical
from the school’s Department of Education, said after the meeting. “Dr.
Fernandes must resign. She does not have the support of the university.
It’s clear. It’s overwhelming.”

Fernandes, who had been the school’s provost, was appointed to take
over from outgoing President I. King Jordan. But the appointment has
fueled months of bitter feuding between the school administration and
students who have staged raucous demonstrations.

Even as classes resumed yesterday after last week’s shutdown,
dissension continued to roil the renowned school.

The faculty meeting was said to be one of the largest ever at the
school. Of the 221 voting members of the faculty, 168 attended the
often emotional meeting.

Several other resolutions were also passed. One, to study the inclusion
of students, faculty and alumni on the board of trustees, passed
unanimously, according to those in attendance. Another, requesting that
there be no reprisals against protesters, passed 133 to 15. A call for
the presidential search process to be reopened passed 131 to 23, with
two abstentions. And another, asking the board to convene an emergency
meeting including students, faculty and others to determine how to
manage the school during the interim as the presidential search process
is reopened, was also approved 131 to 23, with two abstentions.

The faculty also narrowly passed a vote of no confidence in Jordan and
resoundingly asserted a lack of confidence in the board of trustees.

Calling it a sad day for him and the school, Jordan in a statement last
night said that Fernandes “will not resign.”

He called her an agent of change who is eminently qualified but has
alienated some on campus by introducing high academic standards that he
called “unpopular but necessary.”

By deferring action on four resolutions, Professor Donna Ryan said in a
statement: “The faculty squandered an opportunity” to address
Gallaudet’s real problems.

Before the meeting, between 150 and 200 students lined the path to the
auditorium entrance, bearing signs: “Faculty: please help us. YOU CAN
and WILL make a difference!”

Many students wore T-shirts showing their police booking numbers. One
read: “#566103. I was dropped by the cops.”

The students, who had blocked the school’s Sixth Street entrance, were
arrested on Jordan’s order.

“ARRESTED,” another T-shirt said, “for peacefully protecting
Gallaudet.” And: “Arrested for Gallaudet’s future,” read a third.

Students waved fingers in the air, calling out to arriving professors.
One woman grinned, held up her arms and ran through, slapping hands
like a ballplayer arriving on a court.

Many smiled. A few looked uncomfortable and walked through quietly.

Student leader Chris Corrigan led through the crowd a protester
described as being on hunger strike, spurring cries of support.

Someone passed out a flier from the student newspaper, listing results
of polling started in April, when 66 percent of faculty and graduate
students and 81 percent of undergraduates who responded found Fernandes
unacceptable.

Many alumni have arrived on campus for this weekend’s homecoming
festivities, and some have joined the protest.

Fernandes is “a polarizing figure,” said alumnus Raphael St. Johns of
Frederick. He said he had supported her but changed his mind after
talking with many on campus.

However people feel about her, “whether the issues are valid or
invalid, that doesn’t matter now,” he said. “This school will not move
on unless she resigns.”

The head of the alumni association has said there’s “overwhelming
support” for Fernandes to step down. Protesters said dozens of
supporters have rallied across the nation and overseas.

A week ago, 200 rallied at the Texas Capitol in Austin. Alumni in
Tennessee plan brief tent cities.

Demonstrations began in the spring, when the board announced Fernandes’
choice. When the board met here this fall, protests resumed, amid
complaints that academics had suffered in Fernandes’s six years as
provost, that diversity and sufficient sensitivity to the deaf were
lacking and that she had deepened divisions in the school in recent
months.

But she retained Jordan’s support and that of others in the
administration.

“Dr. Jane Fernandes has the leadership qualities to lead this school,”
Jordan wrote to the campus community Sunday. He said she was selected
from a diverse field and could help expand Deaf culture to include all
the deaf. He said she was well prepared to help students succeed.

Fernandes has said the protests are really about the evolution of deaf
culture at a time of change and has said consistently that she would
not quit.

Staff writers Sylvia Moreno in Austin and Martin Weil in Washington and
special correspondent Theo Emery in Nashville contributed to this
report.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/16/AR2006101601198_pf.html

# of Petition Signatures Shooting Up.

5,722 signatures now.

Come on! Keep up with the momentum!  Spread the word in both Deaf and Hearing Communities. We need more signatures!

Come on!

Show your support! 

Unity For Gallaudet!

elizabeth

We, the Undersigned, endorse the following petition:

Gallaudet University President Search Process

Target: Celia May Baldwin, Interim Chair, Board of Trustees, Gallaudet University
Sponsor: Matthew Lockhart, Concerned Stakeholder of Gallaudet University

• Signatures: 5,722
• Goal: 10,000
• Deadline: Ongoing…

• See Full Petition
• Email this Petition

We, the alumni of Gallaudet University and members of the Deaf community, endorse the following petition:

We recognize that the students of Gallaudet University have staged a protest to the process that resulted in the selection of the University’s 9th president. The Student Body Government has issued an official statement with two demands:

1. Have the presidential search process re-opened.

2. No reprisals for students, staff, faculty and alumni.

This petition requests the Gallaudet University’s Board of Trustees to agree to these two demands set forth by the students.http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/654622934