The Board of Trustees at Gallaudet University, the college for the hearing impaired in Northeast Washington, D.C., voted to terminate the appointment of university provost Jane K. Fernandes as university president Sunday, after weeks of student protests that included 133 student arrests and a march on the Washington all.
The Board of Trustees said in a statement released on the Gallaudet Web site Oct. 30 that the decision was “in the best interests of the University,” and that they hoped the community would begin healing and become stronger after a long period of adversity.
The statement also mentioned that individuals who violated the law and Gallaudet’s Code of Conduct during the past protests would be held accountable.
Gallaudet administrators were unavailable for comment Thursday.
The decision marked the end of a long period of student protests on campus that began in May when the Board selected Fernandes to succeed I. King Jordan as university president.
Student protestors worked with alumni, community leaders and led a campaign that included a lockdown on campus operations for three days, a hunger strike, police arrests, an online petition collecting over 6,000 signatures and protest marches around the country and here in D.C.
At Gallaudet, where protests are now over, students attended their classes this week without the distractions of campus politics. Angry protestors and tent cities no longer greeted students as they walked through the front gates.
The issue is far from resolved, however. Questions still remain about when the search process will be reopened and how the Board of Trustees will incorporate the student body into their decisions. The Board has not yet mentioned any plans to select the next university president.
Ryan Commerson, a Gallaudet graduate student and one of the protest’s leading student organizers, said he hopes that the search process will be constructive and take, at the minimum, two years.
We need time to `clean house’ before we will be ready for a new president,” Commerson said. “We need to put a closure to the healing and begin a revolution.”
Commerson hopes that new search process will invite members of the community elected by the community themselves.
Commerson said he believes that the faculty is gaining leverage and respect from the Board, and students have a renewed sense of self-worth as the student body government as a result of the protests.
Some students said that tensions resulting from the protests have created sharp divisions in the deaf community.
Protesters rejected Fernandes because she had been raised to talk and read lips instead of learning ASL. She did not learn ASL until later in life.
Students on both sides, however, are happy to continue a normal campus life.
Students new to the college, such as freshman Bonnie Mueller, were surprised at the intensity of the campaign.
“I knew about the protests since last May, before I came to Gallaudet,” said Mueller. “But I was not expecting all the drama. I did not expect it to be that bad.”
