Gallaudet Trustees Split on Fernandes

Gallaudet Trustees Split on President
Fernandes Seeks To Retain Support In Face of Protest

By Susan Kinzie
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, October 19, 2006; A01

Gallaudet University trustees have split in their support for incoming
president Jane K. Fernandes, a shift from their united front endorsing
her as the best person to lead the school for the deaf.

Last night, Fernandes said some members of the board of trustees have
asked her to resign amid growing pressure from a coalition of students,
faculty, alumni and staff who oppose her.

Of the 20 trustees, three of whom are members of Congress, perhaps as
many as seven do not support Fernandes becoming president, according to
two sources close to the board who spoke on condition of anonymity
because board consultations are private. Fernandes is to take office in
January.

Fernandes said she has begun contacting trustees individually to shore
up, and gauge, support.

“I honestly don’t see how this is going to be resolved,” she said last
night. “I don’t see a clear way for this to be resolved. I’m going to
go home and think hard about that, talk with my husband and family.
Almost any option I think of is not wholly a good one.

” . . . I’m not really thinking of resigning, no. But I’m trying to
think of how . . . to work from now until January to be in a position
to be where I can be effective.”

Some trustees have called for an emergency meeting to discuss the
crisis that has gripped the school in Northeast Washington, and some
have threatened to resign.

Critics give varied reasons for opposing Fernandes, including
long-simmering frustrations with the board’s presidential search. To
some, the school’s longtime provost is viewed as the wrong leader for
Gallaudet, the academic and cultural heart of the world’s deaf
community, in part because she was born deaf but did not learn sign
language until she was an adult.

In a frank e-mail to trustees, a copy of which was provided to The
Washington Post yesterday by someone other than Fernandes, she
explained why she is determined to stay. She asked trustees not to
resign or call for her to step aside.

If she were to leave or be fired, she wrote, “the University and in
particular the Board of Trustees will undergo intense scrutiny from
Congress. I venture to guess Congress will ask why you did not perform
your fiduciary duties to the University. And you will have to explain.”

The majority of the private university’s funding comes from the federal
government.

Escalating protests on campus have essentially paralyzed the school in
the middle of the fall semester and riveted attention in the deaf
community nationally.

Last week, students shut down the school by blocking all entrances for
three days, a standoff that ended with the arrest of more than 130
protesters. Earlier this week, faculty members voted resoundingly for
Fernandes to resign or be removed. They expressed an overwhelming loss
of confidence in the board and, by a much smaller margin, conveyed a
loss of confidence in outgoing president I. King Jordan.

Jordan, a strong supporter of Fernandes’s, became a hero for the deaf
18 years ago when student protests brought him into office.

In public, the trustees have strongly backed their choice of Fernandes,
whose appointment in May set off the protests that heated up again
earlier this month. Fernandes is to take office when Jordan steps down.

“I believe that Dr. Fernandes needs to be given a chance,” board
Chairman Brenda Jo Brueggemann said yesterday. “She was appointed to a
position, and she was not even given a chance. She was our most
qualified candidate for this position.”

No board meeting had been scheduled as of yesterday afternoon,
Brueggemann said. “As I keep repeating, the board’s role is oversight,
and not to run the daily business of the campus. That’s what we appoint
the president to do. . . .”

Yesterday, Fernandes was trying to contact individual trustees by
e-mail, pager and videophone, and meeting in person if possible, to
save her promotion. Meanwhile, sources said, her opponents have lined
up a candidate they say they hope will take her place.

Fernandes’s e-mail to trustees was prompted in part by word that some
board members might resign, she said. “It’s important for the board to
stay together. . . . We need all of them together now more than ever.”

The three members of Congress on the board have a full vote: Sen. John
McCain (R-Ariz.), Rep. Ray LaHood (R-Ill.) and Rep. Lynn Woolsey
(D-Calif.). McCain has not spoken publicly on the issue. In a
statement, Woolsey did not take a position on Fernandes, saying only
that she hopes for a quick end to the turmoil. LaHood did not return
calls.

Protesters say they plan to march to Capitol Hill this week, just as
students did nearly two decades ago with “Deaf President Now”
demonstrations that swept Jordan into office.

Opposition to Fernandes had been building for a long time. Early in her
11-year career at Gallaudet, she angered teachers in one program by
eliminating tenure. When Jordan named her provost without a full search
six years ago, faculty passed a resolution condemning it. This year, as
the search for Jordan’s successor unfolded, black students in
particular questioned the selection process in part because a strong
African American candidate did not make it to the final round.

Fernandes promotes inclusiveness and is working on a diversity
initiative, but there are few black or Hispanic professors or
administrators at Gallaudet.

Some critics have said that her actions since May have widened the
divide at the school. For example, when Fernandes defined the
controversy as a question of whether she was “deaf enough,” the
protesters — who insisted that was not the reason for their opposition
– compared it to playing “the race card.”

For some, Fernandes symbolizes a threat to deaf culture, which has a
tradition based around sign language. She has said that she has deep
respect for sign language and wants to preserve it but that the
school’s future depends on welcoming students with all types of
deafness and means of communicating.

Technology, such as cochlear implants, has made it increasingly easy
for deaf students to communicate with hearing people, rather than
immersing themselves in the deaf community.

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