Among Ourselves' March April 2011

Hector Reynoso, a theatre arts minor, is acting in his second consecutive production with Washington, D.C.’s Synetic Theatre Company, whose works are purely visual and nonverbal, performing as Gloucester in the production of King Lear at the Shakespeare Theatre March 24 to April 24. In addition, theatre major Jessica Willoughby is a stage manager intern and Greg Anderson, an alumnus of MSSD, is an actor with the same production. Anderson has been nominated for a Helen Hayes Award for Outstanding Ensemble in Synthetic’s production of Othello. [Photo: Jessica Willoughby]

Several Gallaudet master’s of social work students specializing in school social work attended the 14th National School Social Work Association of America Conference in Myrtle Beach, S.C., March 30 to April 2. They were accompanied by Dr. Martha Sheridan, a professor in the Department of Social Work; Beth Betman, coordinator of the School Social Work Program; and Georgia Weaver, a school social worker at the Clerc Center. The students and faculty attended workshops on topics such as bullying, evidence based practice, autism, behavior interventions in the classroom, working with diverse groups of students, assisting homeless families, children at risk, teen pregnancy, trauma, substance abuse, Tourette syndrome, developmental delays, legal topics in school social work, psychological maltreatment, and children of divorce. The trip was made possible by a U.S. Department of Education grant, “Training of School Social Workers to Meet the Educational and Emotional Needs of Diverse Deaf and Hard of Hearing Children,” which provides scholarships, stipends, and travel support for graduate students wishing to specialize in school social work practice, and assistance from the College of Liberal Arts, Sciences and Technology.

[Pictured during a break at the 14th National School Social Work Association of America Conference, held in Myrtle Beach, S.C., March 30 to April 2, are master’s of social work students and faculty (from left): bottom row–Stephanie Trollo, Georgia Weaver, Erin Ortiz, Dr. Martha Sheridan; top row–Margaret Pierce, Douglas Slaunwhite, Amber LaForce, Courtni Hurd, Marissa Graff, Eleanor Jailer-Coley, Beth Betman, Michael Henderson, Leona Henderson, and Anthony Davis. Photo: Karen Henderson]

Dr. Tom Humphries, secretary of Gallaudet’s Board of Trustees, has been selected as a recipient of one of this year’s prestigious Division G Awards from the American Educational Research Association (AERA). Humphries was presented the Henry T. Trueba Award for Research Leading to the Transformation of the Social Contexts of Education at the Division G Business Meeting and Awards Ceremony on April 9 in New Orleans, La. Humphries is a faculty member at the University of California, San Diego where he is an associate professor and associate director of the Teacher Education Program, as well as an associate professor in the Department of Communication. AERA is an international professional organization with the primary goal of advancing educational research and its practical application. Division G (Social Context of Education) is one of 12 divisions within AERA, each with a different focus ranging from administration and curriculum to teacher education and education policy and politics.

Gallaudet’s Science of Learning Center on Visual Language and Visual Learning (VL2)* hosted the fourth annual inter-Science of Learning Centers student conference at the University from March 25 to 27. The theme of the conference was “Researching Communication and Communicating Research.” Representatives from the six nationwide Science of Learning centers participated. Science of Learning centers are funded by the National Science Foundation Dr. Thomas Allen, co-principal investigator of VL2, and Dr. Shilpa Hanumantha, a VL2 post-doctoral fellow, were the primary organizers of the conference. In other VL2 news, researchers and partners Dr. Jill Morford, Dr. Erin Wilkinson, Dr. Pilar Pinar, Dr. Judith Kroll, Dr. Charlotte Enns, Dr. Marlon Kuntze, Lynn McQuarrie, and Sarah Fish presented at a preconference for the biennial meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development on March 30 in Montreal, Quebec. In addition, on March 22, the website ScienceDaily.com featured VL2 researchers Agnes Villwock, Morford, Wilkinson, Pinar, and Kroll’s recent article in Cognition, “When deaf signers read English: Do written words activate their sign translations?” Since then, other publications have picked up the story, including U.S. News and World Report.

Dr. Isaac Agboola, dean of the College of Liberal Arts, Sciences, and Technologies, was one of two lead speakers for the session on special education at the Osun State Government of Nigeria’s Education Summit, held February 8 and 9. The summit, which took place at Osun State University in Osogbo, the capital of Osun State, focused on the theme, “Resolving the Education Crisis in Osun State: Bridging Analysis and Implementation Gaps.” “I am pleased to report that the summit was fully interpreted for deaf participants,” Agboola reported. “For the vast majority of the participants, this was their first exposure to sign language.” The summit was also shown live on Osun State television as well as on the Internet, with live Facebook feed.

Art Department professor Johnston Grindstaff was featured in an article, “Visual media define career,” that appeared in the February 16 issue of the Frederick News Post.

“Bottles and Vases,” 60 works of art by Andre Pellerin, the Art Department’s art gallery, laboratory, and equipment specialist, was on exhibit March 25 to April 23 at Mattawoman Creek Art Center, located in Smallwood State Park, Marbury, Md. The exhibit also was displayed during the fall semester in the Washburn Arts Center’s Linda K. Jordan Gallery.

Dr. Tania Thomas-Presswood, Dr. Bryan Miller, and Dr. Beth Gibbons, faculty members from the School Psychology Program, traveled to San Francisco, Calif. to represent Gallaudet at two school psychology conferences. On February 21 and 22, they participated in the Trainers of School Psychologists mini-conference, an annual meeting that brings together faculty from universities across the United States who train future school psychologists. They also attended the National Association of School Psychologists annual convention, which represents the world’s largest and most important gathering of school psychologists. On February 24, Miller gave a presentation entitled “Utility of Curriculum-Based Approaches for Students with Hearing Loss,” and Gibbons presented “The Role of the School Psychologist in Educational Placement Decisions.”

Several faculty members in the Government and History Department made news recently. Dr. Barry Bergen, chair of the department, has been named financial officer of the Society for French Historical Studies. Dr. Donna Ryan, professor, is co-editor of the Proceedings of the Western Society for French History, which publishes peer-selected articles from the annual meetings of the society (2009-2012). Dr. Jeffrey Brune, assistant professor, has been awarded a post-doctoral fellowship by the Center on Human Policy, Law, and Disability Studies at the School of Education at Syracuse University (2011-2012). Brune also has been awarded a book contract by Cambridge University Press for his manuscript in progress, Disability Stigma and the Modern American State. Dr. Roberto Sanchez, assistant professor, has been selected as a participant in a Council on International Educational Exchange Faculty Development Seminar, “Salvador da Bahia: Identity, Race, and Culture in the Afro-Brazilian Heartland,” which will take place June 11 to 20 in Salvador de Bahia, Brazil.

Teresa Blankmeyer Burke, an instructor in the Department of Philosophy and Religion, successfully defended her dissertation, “Quest for a Deaf Child: Ethics and Genetics,” on February 25, and passed with distinction. She will be awarded the Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of New Mexico this May.

Michelle McAuliffe, an assistant professor in the Art Department, was the subject of a March 26 article on The Studio Visit. McAuliffe told writer and artist Kristina Bilonick about the concepts behind some of her photos and videos, how she finds satisfaction in teaching at Gallaudet, and what she is doing to “bridge the gap between her students and the D.C. art community.”

Dr. Catherine Andersen, chief enrollment and marketing officer, presented “Understanding and Developing a Clear Path from Admissions to Graduation” at the Student Success Symposium, held March 30 to 31 in Conway, Ark. She appeared alongside such notable figures as Dr. John Gardner, who is regarded as the father of the first-year experience, and Dr. George Kuh, author of the National Survey of Student Engagement. Andersen was also part of a “fireside chat” on the status of higher education.

Dr. Jane Nickerson, a professor in the English Department, attended the Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages, Inc. conference in New Orleans, La., March 16 to 19, where she moderated and presented for a panel discussion entitled “Teaching English to Deaf Students 101: Teaching English to Deaf Students in Diverse Settings.”

Ludmila Mounty-Weinstock and Joseph Lopez, III, both 2010 graduates of Gallaudet, were featured in the March 30 issue of Silver City Sun-News, Silver City, N.M., in the article “Bikeworks helps deaf volunteers with wheels,” which describes how the two Americorps volunteers teach ASL to deaf students and their families in rural parts of the state.

A number of works written or co-written by Dr. Donna Mertens, a professor in the Department of Educational Foundations and Research, have been published during the current academic year: “Philosophy in mixed methods teaching: The transformative paradigm as illustration,” in International Journal of Multiple Research Approaches; “Transformative mixed-methods research,” in Qualitative Inquiry; “Bringing a cultural lens to research with disability and deaf community,” in The Community Psychologist; “Social transformation and evaluation,” in Evaluation Journal of Australasia; and “Utilization of Mixed Methods for Transformative Purposes,” in Handbook of Mixed Methods Research, second edition. Mertens also gave several presentations during the same period, including: “The challenges surrounding creating a research project,” at the Association of College and Research Libraries in Philadelphia, Pa.; ” The evaluator’s professional growth path,” at the Washington Evaluator’s meeting in Washington, D.C.; “Transformative lens applied to gender focused evaluation,” at the annual meeting of the American Evaluation Association in San Antonio, Tex.; “Context matters in social justice research,” to the Faculty of Public Health at Curtin University in Perth, Australia; “Linking Aboriginal health research with social justice goals,” to the Aboriginal Health Education and Research Unit in Geraldton, Australia; and “Linking evaluation and social justice,” at the Australasian Evaluation Society’s Professional Development Programme in Melbourne, Brisbane, and Perth, Australia. In addition, she co-presented “Transformative evaluation mixed methods” and “Gender and transformative evaluation,” at the Evaluation Conclave in New Delhi, India.

* Information in this announcement is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under grant number SBE-0541953. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.