A group of staff, faculty, and administrators is exploring how to build for the future of Gallaudet learners – with speed and agility.
They have spent the summer discussing plans to increase experiential learning, rethink traditional structures, and equip students for life beyond college. Their aim is to create a future-proof strategy to navigate a quickly evolving landscape full of challenges, opportunities, and the rapid growth of AI.
The future begins here
One of the committee’s first steps in growing the circle of people involved in this work was to host a session during Faculty Development Week with Mark Bryan, Chief Research and Strategy Officer of the International Interior Design Association (IIDA). Bryan’s job as a foresight leader is to continually analyze and bring together a wide range of data to understand what the future holds.
Addressing a full audience of Gallaudet faculty and staff, Bryan outlined broader forces reshaping colleges and universities, including financial and climate instability. He discussed how higher education was changing: increased non-linear learning means people come in and out of the educational system over the course of their lives. With demands on time, people learn in smaller chunks and in ways that are more embedded in their everyday lives. He also pointed to new technologies that enable more kinds of learning to happen anywhere. Alongside those changes comes the increased value of proving skills and validating skill levels.
Bryan also modeled scenarios that could enable the university to capitalize on Gallaudet’s strengths and draw on Deaf Gain. In the afternoon, he and the Future Design committee members turned things over to faculty and staff, who worked on new ideas to shape the university’s future.
Inspired in Austin
The Future Design committee originated with a group of nine Gallaudet attendees who attended a gathering at Austin Community College dedicated to reimagining the direction of higher education.
Reut Beckman, Dr. Jeremy L. Brunson, Richard Dougherty, Dr. Brian Greenwald,’96, Dr. Raja Kushalnagar, Norma Morán, Dr. Mary Perrodin-Singh, Dr. Tonya Stremlau, and Heather Harker, attended the inaugural Summit of Future Makers, held April 30 and May 1 in Austin, Texas. The Gallaudet delegation’s goal was to learn from the experiences of others and generate ideas to bring back to campus.
“The group from Gallaudet who went to the summit has identified preparing our students to be adaptable and ready for this rapidly changing job market as our key focus,” Stremlau says. She was particularly interested in the “Future Fit” session, which asked: How do we prepare learners for jobs that don’t exist yet? Panelists emphasized the need for students to gain skills — such as communication, creativity, collaboration, and critical thinking — and to document these for prospective employers.
The summit also addressed the rise of Artificial Intelligence and universities’ responsibility to prepare students to use it effectively. At the same time, presenters were clear that AI should complement, and not replace, human connection. “Throughout the day each of us engage with AI, directly or indirectly. So do our students,” Brunson says. “It is important that our curricula demonstrate our understanding of this fact and are designed to create critical users of this new tool.”
Making new moves
None of these issues are unique to Gallaudet, so it was helpful for committee members to see how other institutions are responding and recalibrating. “While Gallaudet faces real stress points, this summit made clear that transformation is absolutely essential in higher education,” Greenwald says.
This sense of urgency continues to energize the committee, which will bring more people into its work over the course of this semester. The Executive Team has asked them to begin testing and implementing changes, and they encourage the entire campus community to be willing to take thoughtful risks and remain flexible and adaptable.
