Alumni publications

– Alumnus Chris Soukup, ’02, wrote an article for the Harvard Business Review last month. The article, “How Companies Can Use AI to Better Serve Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing Customers,” delineates five ways in which companies can better follow the vision and spirit of the Americans with Disabilities Act to make their customer service programs more accessible. 

The main points in Soukup’s article are: (1) Design customer experiences to be inclusive from the beginning; (2) Repurpose a portion of your efficiencies gained from automation to support more complex customer service needs; (3) Use an abundant and expansive mindset in the engineering of customer experiences; (4) Demonstrate socially responsible practices; and (5) Involve individuals with lived experience as a person with a disability in the development of any AI-powered application.

Soukup is chief executive officer of Communication Service for the Deaf in Austin, Texas. 

Gallaudet University President Roberta J. Cordano has had two articles published in Harvard Business Review. The first, in August 2020 with collaborator Sabina Nawaz, is titled “What Deaf People Can Teach Others About Virtual Communication.” The second, in October 2022, is titled “Is Your Organization Inclusive of Deaf Employees?”

– Dr. Martha A. Sheridan, ’77; Dr. Judith L. Mounty, G-’03, and Dr. Barbara J. White, ’76, have published an entry, “Social Work Practice with Deaf and Hard of Hearing People,” in the online edition of the Oxford Encyclopedia of Social Work.

According to Oxford University Press, “The Encyclopedia of Social Work is the first continuously updated online collaboration between the National Association of Social Workers (NASW Press) and Oxford University Press (OUP). Building off the classic reference work, a valuable tool for social workers for over 85 years, the online resource of the same name offers the reliability of print with the accessibility of a digital platform. There are over 800 overview articles on key topics ranging from international issues to ethical standards. These articles offer students, scholars, and practitioners a trusted foundation for a lifetime of work and research, with new articles and revisions to existing articles added regularly.”

Dr. Sheridan, the lead author, said, “It was an honor to be invited by NASW and Oxford to contribute to this prestigious publication. We are happy to continue to educate the profession of social work and other disciplines about the diverse population of deaf and hard of hearing people.”

Dr. Sheridan and Dr. White are retired professors from Gallaudet’s Social Work program in the School of Civic Leadership, Business, and Social Change. They continue their scholarship and broad community advocacy efforts.

Dr. Mounty, a Gallaudet retiree and former field director for the Social Work program, currently supervises interns, maintains a private practice, and advocates to make social work licensing requirements more equitable.