National Technical Institute For The Deaf Research Articles

Global Pride: Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Interpreting

This open-forum article highlights an interview conducted with Colin Allen, a Visiting Lecturer from the National Technical Institute for the Deaf at Rochester Institute of Technology and Abigail Gorman, an activist and graduate student at Birkbeck College, University of London, in the UK. In this interview, they highlight their experiences while coordinating International Sign interpreters for Global Pride, a virtual international global event that took place in June 2020. This was the first time that Global Pride has provided communication access to the international deaf LGBTIQA+ Community via sign interpreting services. (For the purposes of this article, LGBTQIA+ refers to lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, intersex, queer, and asexual. The plus sign allows for the inclusion of different subsects, such as allies, polyamorous, androgynous, and pansexual.) Providing sign language access across multiple time zones for a 24-hour livestreamed event was a “first” for both Global Pride organizers and the two deaf interpreter coordinators. Their experiences offer interpreters and educators a glimpse in some of the many exciting developments of a world that has had to pivot a number of conferences and events to online platforms amid a global pandemic.

Accessibility in Undergraduate Research Experiences: A Novel CURE

CURE courses were developed for Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing (D/HH) students in the Laboratory Science Technology program (Lynn et al. 2020) at the National Technical Institute for the Deaf of Rochester Institute of Technology. Notably, the developed CUREs enrolled all D/HH students and also fulfilled a requirement for the two-year degree program. Attending to accessibility, the courses were taught in American Sign Language and focused on best practices for working with D/HH students in the lab.

What About Me? Theorizing Power and Pushback in Advancing Marginalized Identities

In 2012, the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) received an NSF ADVANCE Institutional Transformation grant to improve the career advancement of women. The National Technical Institute for the Deaf, one of RIT’s colleges, had over 30 Deaf and Hard of Hearing (DHH) female faculty members. The project designated a DHH female faculty team with a budget to conduct a self-directed program of development and networking: the DHH Women’s Connectivity Series. Starting in 2014, other faculty began to request access to these sessions - hearing male and female faculty, DHH male faculty, and faculty of color. They argued that they too experienced marginalization due to issues of gender, race, ethnicity and hearing loss. This article summarizes the Connectivity Series’ story of power, privilege, and pushback. How do DHH women successfully negotiate careers in academia, given the impact of intersectional minority identities (disability, gender, etc.)?

Morphology Instruction in the Science Classroom for Students Who Are Deaf: A Multiple Probe Across Content Analysis.

Deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) students have exhibited a morphological knowledge delay that begins in preschool and persists through college. Morphological knowledge is critical to vocabulary understanding and text comprehension in the science classroom. We investigated the effects of morphological instruction, commonly referred to as Word Detectives, on the morphological knowledge of college-age DHH students in a science course. We implemented a multiple probe across behaviors single-case experimental design study with nine student participants. The student participants attended the National Technical Institute for the Deaf. A functional relation was found between the morphological instruction and the student participants' improvement of morphological knowledge regarding the morphemes taught during instruction. These findings indicate that DHH students benefit from morphological instruction to build their vocabulary knowledge in content-area classrooms, such as science courses.

Prepare deaf students for the workforce

James DeCaro, Ed.D., a senior research professor and dean emeritus at the Rochester Institute of Technology National Technical Institute for the Deaf, has guided deaf students to successful careers in civil engineering since 1971. He shared best practices for preparing deaf students for the workforce, as well as partnering with the community to create a workforce adequately prepared for hiring deaf employees.

Preliminary Analysis of Roadway Accident Rates for Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing Drivers — Forensic Engineering Application

According to the World Health Organization, there are more than 360 million people worldwide with hearing loss. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has reported that close to 30% of the United States population 65 years or older has significant hearing loss. The objective of this paper was to determine if deaf and hard-of-hearing drivers are more likely to be involved in motor vehicle accidents than hearing drivers. Data was extracted from the National Automotive Sampling System (NASS) and motor vehicle accident recordsfrom the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) and National Technical Institute for the Deaf (NTID) campuses. The results of the NASS data analysis indicate that deaf and hard-of-hearing drivers are one and a half to nine times as likely to be seriously injured or killed in a motor vehicle accident. Motor vehicle accident records from RIT and NTID suggest that deaf and hard-of-hearing drivers are approximately three times as likely to be involved in a motor vehicle accident as hearing individuals. Forensic engineers may be able to use this data to assist in forensic engineering analysis in cases where deaf or hard-of-hearing drivers are involved.

Deaf HERstory: Making Strides

EmergenceTo maintain dominance over a minority group, the dominant social group deprives its victims of their history. Frantz Fanon, a leader of the Algerian resistance to French rule in the 1950s, wrote that colonialism is not satisfied with merely holding a people in its grip ... but by a kind of perverted logic, it turns to the past of an oppressed people, and distorts, disfigures, and destroys it.1 Prevented from appreciating the historical experiences and the achievements of their own people, the colonized are kept powerless. Because African Americans have long understood this deprivation, a civil-rights movement occurred in the mid-twentieth century.This evoked a sense of social consciousness leading to the formation of Black studies.2 A domino effect ensued, and women's studies, disability studies, Chicano/a studies, and other disciplines began to evolve. According to historian Gerda Lerner, being denied equal opportunities brought forth the field of women's studies, which also was engendered by the need to improve women's lives.-3Like the impetus for black studies and women's studies, the field of Deaf studies emerged from the now-famous discovery of the linguistic nature of American Sign Language (ASL) in the mid-1960s.4 The first formal Deaf studies program was created in 1980 at Boston University and was followed by similar initiatives at California State University, Northridge (CSUN), in 1983. Initially a department at Gallaudet University in 1994, Deaf studies became a program when it merged with the ASL program in 2002.Studies of Deaf women began in 1993, when Vicki Hurwitz offered the first Deaf women's studies course at the National Technical Institute for the Deaf (NTID) as part of her master's degree program in social work.6 The course, which was a historical review of Deaf women's professional and personal lives, included a field trip to the Women's National Hall of Fame Museum in Seneca Falls, New York. In 1996, the next Deaf women's studies course emerged at CSUN with Genie Gertz, who saw a serious gap in the field of Deaf studies.7 Her course consisted of a multidisciplinary analysis of Deaf women in both the Deaf community and American society. Studies of historical, social, political, educational, and economic factors that affected the status of Deaf women were incorporated into Gertz's class.The course included discussions about Deaf women's struggles and successes and examined historical accounts of Deaf women in the context of the Deaf community.Inspired by both Hurwitz and Gertz, I began the first Deaf women's studies course at Gallaudet in 1997. An additional impetus was a general lack of reading materials on the experiences of Deaf females in my women's studies classes at the University of Maryland. In that first Deaf women's studies course at Gallaudet, I quickly learned that the students had no prior knowledge of general herstory,8 forcing a shuffle in the course syllabus. Since then, the course has begun with a brief exploration of hearing herstory, covering suffrage, first with Susan B. Anthony and her cohorts in the late nineteenth century, and later with Alice Paul in the early twentieth century, and finally with activist Betty Friedan in the mid-twentieth century.This course invariably includes a visit to the Belmont-Paul Women's Equality National Monument, in which Alice Paul and colleagues lived and worked diligently to cinch the 1920 suffrage victory After this introduction the students shift into an exploration of social, educational, and gendered issues among Deaf women. Finding this approach to be useful in introducing women's studies to the students, I continue to use this strategy two decades later, starting the semester with a quick exploration of hearing herstory and ending with a look into the experiences of Deaf females, especially those of Gallaudet alumnae.ResourcesIn addition to realizing that students had no prior knowledge of general herstory, a dearth of published materials, specifically books about, for, and by Deaf women was another challenge in teaching Deaf women's studies classes. …

Teaching Physics to Deaf College Students In A 3-D Virtual Lab

Virtual worlds are used in many educational and business applications. At the National Technical Institute for the Deaf at Rochester Institute of Technology (NTID/RIT), deaf college students are introduced to the virtual world of Second Life, which is a 3-D immersive, interactive environment, accessed through computer software. NTID students use this virtual environment to practice concepts first encountered in the laboratory.

In Memoriam: E. Ross Stuckless

In Memoriam:E. Ross Stuckless Susan Murad Murad, S. (2014). In memoriam: E. Ross Stuckless. American Annals of the Deaf, 159(4), 315–316. Dr. E. Ross Stuckless, longtime faculty member of Rochester Institute of Technology’s National Technical Institute for the Deaf, died July 21 in Connecticut, at age 80. Dr. Stuckless, whose younger brother was deaf, was the first hearing faculty member hired at NTID. He started in September 1967 after serving as coordinator of the University of Pittsburgh’s doctoral program in the education of deaf students. He also had served as an instructor at the American School for the Deaf, West Hartford, CT, and instructor and psychologist at the Western Pennsylvania School for the Deaf, in Pittsburgh. Click for larger view View full resolution In many ways, Dr. Stuckless was responsible for helping to make the case for the existence of NTID. In 1963, he investigated the occupational functioning level of young deaf adults in six states; the study showed that individuals who were deaf were not getting adequate training and were generally underemployed. This research contributed to the surge of interest and concern in Congress and the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare that helped lead to NTID’s founding. Dr. Stuckless served RIT/NTID for 33 years, first as director of research and training, then as director of integrative research. In December 1992 he became special assistant to the director of NTID, and in January 1995 he returned to the faculty, where he served until his retirement in 2000. “Ross had an innate ability to envision how technology could benefit deaf and hard of hearing people,” said Gerald Walter, a friend and former colleague at RIT/NTID. “People would come to his office and talk about an idea, and before they left, Ross would have moved the idea into a plan of action.” Some of Dr. Stuckless’s early research focused on the application of programmed instruction, and later, on computer-assisted instruction in educating deaf students. He was the author of numerous publications, including Educational Interpreting for Deaf Students (1989) and Assessment of the Written Language of Deaf Studies (with C. H. Marks, 1996). “He will be remembered for his foresight in connecting technology to advance education for deaf and hard of hearing students,” said Walter. “When e-mail was first developed, Ross saw its potential as a communication tool for deaf people. He predicted that text messaging would take the concept even further, and envisioned speech-to-text technology that eventually was developed as C-Print here on the RIT/NTID campus and is now used worldwide.” “Ross was a terrific associate and huge innovator in deaf education,” RIT/NTID professor Michael Stinson said. “In the early 1980s, Ross pioneered at NTID the development of real-time speech-to-text technology as a means of communication access for deaf and hard of hearing students in mainstream RIT classrooms. This technology—Communication Access Real-Time Translation (i.e., CART)—was the first-ever effort to provide a speech-to-text service as an accommodation, one that is now provided all over the world. In the late 1980s, Ross suggested that a computer-assisted word abbreviation system on a computer with a standard keyboard could be the basis for a different [End Page 315] speech-to-text service that is easier to learn to use than CART. This suggestion was a key idea in the development of the C-Print speech-to-text service that NTID uses today.” Dr. Stuckless earned his bachelor’s degree at the University of Toronto, a master’s at Gallaudet College, and his PhD at the University of Pittsburgh. He is survived by his sons Randy (Sue), E. Ross “Rusty,” and Evan, and stepdaughter Melinda (Mike) Smith, as well as 11 grandchildren. He was predeceased by his first wife, Lois, and second wife, Carol, a former RIT/NTID employee. A memorial service was held on September 19 in the Schmitt Interfaith Center at RIT. [End Page 316] Susan Murad Communications, Marketing, and Multimedia Services National Technical Institute for the Deaf Rochester Institute of Technology Rochester, NY Copyright © 2014 Conference of Educational Administrators of Schools and Programs for the Deaf...

Motor speech impairment, activity, and participation in children with cerebral palsy

The present study used a population-based sample of children with cerebral palsy (CP) to estimate the prevalence of motor speech impairment and its association with activity and participation. A sample of 79 Victorian children aged 4 years 11 months to 6 years 5 months was recruited through the Victorian CP Register. The presence of motor speech impairment was recorded using the Viking Speech Scale (VSS). Activity and participation outcomes included speech intelligibility (the National Technical Institute for the Deaf rating scale, NTID), the Functional Communication Classification System (FCCS) and Communication Function Classification System (CFCS). A parent completed rating scale was used to examine the association between motor speech impairment and participation. Ninety per cent (71/79) of children demonstrated a motor speech impairment. Strong associations were found between the VSS and NTID (< .001), CFCS (< .001), and FCCS levels (<.001). VSS levels III–IV were significantly associated with restrictions in home, school, and community-based participation as perceived by parents. Although some diversity in activity and participation outcomes was observed within specific VSS levels, the results of this study suggested that children with mild motor speech impairments are more likely to demonstrate superior activity and participation outcomes compared to children with moderate or severe deficits.

Undergraduate research in mathematics with deaf and hard-of-hearing students: four perspectives

Involving more deaf and hard-of-hearing students in undergraduate research is a step toward getting more such students into STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) careers. Since evidence exists that undergraduate research improves retention, especially for some underrepresented groups that have low retention rates — as, for example, deaf and hard-of-hearing STEM majors — it is a particularly pertinent step to keep interested students in these career paths. Nunes and Moreno have suggested that deaf and hard-of-hearing students have the potential to pursue mathematics, but lack the resources. By involving more such individuals in undergraduate mathematics research, we can improve their success rates and promote mathematics research within the Deaf community. Here we describe our experiences working both with and as deaf or hard-ofhearing students in research, as well as advice that stems from these experiences. Each of the authors is a faculty member at the National Technical Institute for the Deaf, a college of Rochester Institute of Technology, and holds a PhD in a scientific field. Three of the authors are deaf, and one (Jacob) is hearing. While this paper describes the experiences and opinions of individuals, and is not meant to be an all-inclusive handbook on how to do research with any deaf or hard-of-hearing student, we hope that it will be a helpful resource.

Beleaguered Poets and Leftist Critics: Stevens, Cummings, Frost, and Williams in the 1930s by Milton A. Cohen (review)

Reviewed by: Beleaguered Poets and Leftist Critics: Stevens, Cummings, Frost, and Williams in the 1930s by Milton A. Cohen Marilyn Walker Beleaguered Poets and Leftist Critics: Stevens, Cummings, Frost, and Williams in the 1930s. By Milton A. Cohen. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press. 2010. In Milton A. Cohen’s Beleaguered Poets and Leftist Critics: Stevens, Cummings, Frost, and Williams in the 1930s, he convincingly argues that literary critics marshaled political and intellectual activism to persuade middle-class poets to write on behalf of the American worker. Before the Great Depression, Wallace Stevens (1879–1955), E. E. Cummings (1894–1962), Robert Frost (1874–1963), and William Carlos Williams (1883–1963) were praised by literary audiences. They had autonomy to write about a myriad of topics ranging from nature to observations about daily life. However, with the advent of a national economic crisis, the previously mentioned poets were bestowed with new responsibilities such as contemplating the politics of the Great Depression and representing socially and economically disenfranchised people. According to Cohen’s scholarship, critics such as Mike Gold, Malcolm Cowley, and Eda Lou Walton, encouraged Stevens, Cummings, Frost, and Williams to write about the working class and the challenges they encountered in modern society. Interestingly, predating Cohen’s cadre of poets, working-class life infused poetry, fiction, and drama. For example, in the Victorian period (1832–1901), writers such as Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–1901), Elizabeth Gaskell (1810–1865), and Charles Dickens (1812–1870) composed sympathetic portrayals of laborers during the Industrial Revolution (1750–1850). Likewise, during the Harlem Renaissance (1919–1940), writers such as Zora Neale Hurston (1891–1960), Claude McKay [End Page 72] (1889–1948), and Langston Hughes (1902–1967) also expressed working-class concerns through setting, dialect, and attire. Furthermore, the scholarship of William J. Maxwell and Arnold Rampersad has chronicled McKay and Hughes’s association with the political left and communism. However, Cohen’s niche is mapping the artistic advocacy of literary critics and poets and illuminating the influence of leftist critics upon American modernist poetry. Consequently, accompanied by histories on literary magazines such as The Liberator and New Masses, personal letters, and explications of verse, Cohen’s Beleaguered Poets and Leftist Critics examines the responses of Stevens, Cummings, Frost, and Williams to economic disaster and working-class suffering. Thus, Cohen close reads the structure, style, and content of each writer’s poetry from the 1930s and their resistance or conformity to the political environment. Whereas Cummings crafted poetic homage to the working class, Frost emphasized individualism for the proletariat. Simultaneously, as Cohen identifies the distinctive qualities of each poet, he also demonstrates their efforts to craft socially conscious verse. Although Beleaguered Poets and Leftist Critics comprehensively analyzes a dimension of being a modernist poet in the 1930s, Cohen could have also emphasized the perils of literary critics influencing poetic production. Instead of inspiration guiding the poet, leftist critics were insisting upon a criterion for literature and attempting to manipulate the creative process. Ironically, the leftist critics were also imposing a supply-and-demand dynamic for a specialized literary sub-genre and jeopardizing the authenticity of artistically progressive verse. Despite the aforementioned reservations, Cohen’s book revels in the poetry and politics of the 1930s. Marilyn Walker National Technical Institute for the Deaf, Rochester Institute for Technology Copyright © 2013 Mid-America American Studies Association

Two ATPases

In this article, I reflect on research on two ATPases. The first is F(1)F(0)-ATPase, also known as ATP synthase. It is the terminal enzyme in oxidative phosphorylation and famous as a nanomotor. Early work on mitochondrial enzyme involved purification in large amount, followed by deduction of subunit composition and stoichiometry and determination of molecular sizes of holoenzyme and individual subunits. Later work on Escherichia coli enzyme utilized mutagenesis and optical probes to reveal the molecular mechanism of ATP hydrolysis and detailed facets of catalysis. The second ATPase is P-glycoprotein, which confers multidrug resistance, notably to anticancer drugs, in mammalian cells. Purification of the protein in large quantity allowed detailed characterization of catalysis, formulation of an alternating sites mechanism, and recently, advances in structural characterization.

Effect of Postsecondary Education on the Economic Status of Persons Who Are Deaf or Hard of Hearing

This article examines the effect that postsecondary education has on earnings and the duration of time spent in the Social Security disability programs for young persons who are deaf or hard of hearing. Our hypothesis is that investments in postsecondary training increase the likelihood of employment for persons who are deaf or hard of hearing and thus reduce dependency on disability-related income support programs. A longitudinal data set based upon records from the National Technical Institute for the Deaf and Social Security administrative records is used for this analysis. We find that those who graduate, even those who graduate with vocational degrees, experience significant earnings benefits and reductions in the duration of time spent on federal disability programs when compared with those who do not graduate with a degree. This finding suggests that reductions in the duration of time spent on Social Security programs are not limited to those with the highest level of scholastic aptitude and that investments in post-secondary education can benefit a broad group of deaf and hard-of-hearing persons. In addition, the data show that individuals who attend college, but withdraw before graduation, fair no better economically than individuals who never attended college.

English

A goal of the Laboratory Science Technology program at the National Technical Institute for the Deaf, a college of Rochester Institute of Technology, is to produce graduates with strong foundations in applied science, hands-on laboratory applications, and “soft skills” necessary for competitive employment as laboratory technicians. Graduates of the program earn Associate degrees, and if qualified, transition to related baccalaureate programs. Those who finish either an Associates of Occupational Science or Associates of Applied Science degree programs tend to go to work in the chemical, biological, biotechnology, pharmaceutical, environmental, forensic, industrial, and food analysis fields. At first glance, the LST program appears to be a typical chemical technology program similar to many others. However, it is the only one of its kind in the world. In order to achieve its successes it had to overcome unique challenges because it serves a large and unique population of deaf and hard-of-hearing students. Program challenges include enrollment, staffing and funding, and students/graduates finding cooperative works experiences/jobs. Still, through the use of outreach to future students, industrial alliances, curricular modifications, and other unique features, the program in now sustainable and growing.

NTID International Symposium on Technology and Deaf Education

The International Symposium on Technology and Deaf Education at the National Technical Institute for the Deaf (NTID) at Rochester Institute of Technology is a bi-yearly (occurring once every two years) conference that attracts professionals, educators, technologists, and researchers who are interested in, developing for, and affected by technology for the education of deaf and hard of hearing students. This mixture of professionals leads to many interesting discussions, presentations, and exhibits with the purpose of dissemination of full research projects and best practices. This year the symposium, June 21--23, 2010, accepted 64 papers each with presentations 45 minutes long, 15 minutes of which were devoted to question and answer, and discussion. Presenters were chosen to reflect the current issues and solutions in both educational and access technologies. The symposium is also a great venue to share works-in-progress, current trends, and state of the art technology shown by 28 posters and 11 commercial exhibits. Over 300 people attended from 17 different countries including presentations by participants from Japan, Thailand, Canada, China, Czech Republic, Russia, Philippines, Poland, and Rwanda.

Audiologists’ Role in Early Diagnosis of Usher Syndrome

Audiologists’ Role in Early Diagnosis of Usher Syndrome

Deaf Studies by Any Other Name?

Welcome to Volume 15 and the 15th year of the Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education. Throughout this volume, the two of us will be co-editing a special section on Deaf Studies, to appear in each issue. A bit of history will be instructive. In 1985, the field of Deaf Studies was in its infancy. Studies of and by deaf people were about their languages, their behaviors, their community histories, and only occasionally about their cultures. In that year, the First International Deaf Researchers Workshop was held at Bristol University. It was limited to deaf participants only and attended by interested scholars and teachers from all over the world. One of the co-editors of the Deaf Studies section (Tom) spoke at this conference on distinguishing deaf people from Deaf people, a convention that had been used before, but not widely, and became known as ‘‘small d’’ and ‘‘big D.’’ The ways that ‘‘deaf ’’ interact with ‘‘Deaf ’’ turned out to be very complex, indeed, perhaps more than we imagined at the time. Discussion for the duration of the conference and for several years after reflected both our determination to understand how to think about categorization and segmentation of people who are deaf and the sometimes problematic ambiguity when we use the sign ‘‘DEAF.’’ So went Deaf Studies, an emerging field marked by ambiguity. Ten years later, in 1995, a group of investigators interested in sign language, the development of deaf children, cognition and learning among deaf individuals, and related areas came together and created the Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education. Finding a publisher was not as difficult as expected, but among the other early tasks was naming the new journal. Input was solicited from a broad audience and suggestions varied widely. It was clear that the word ‘‘deafness’’ was to be avoided, and some people were averse to using ‘‘deaf ’’ as an adjective. One (hearing) observer, for example, emphatically argued that terms like ‘‘deaf education’’ do not make sense, even if they are commonly used. Others argued against phrases like ‘‘deaf children’’ in favor of options like ‘‘children who are deaf and hard of hearing.’’ Attempts to resolve all the contradictory advice yielded either titles too long to fit on the spine of the journal or ones that failed to capture the diverse content that we hoped to publish. At one point, the name quest was taken to Gallaudet University, where a large number of researchers had gathered for a conference on education. Mutually exclusive suggestions continued to overwhelm the editorial group until it was suggested that one of them (the other co-editor of the Deaf Studies section,Marc) ask a prominent member of the Deaf community attending the conference for advice. The situation was explained to her and she responded ‘‘It doesn’t matter which name you choose. You are hearing, whatever you choose will be [seen by others as] wrong. If you were deaf, whatever you choose would be right.’’ Armed with that wisdom, the group sought out the broadest possible title and settled on the Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education. No conflicts of interest were reported. Correspondence should be sent to Marc Marschark, Center for Education Research Partnerships, National Technical Institute for the Deaf, Rochester Institute of Technology, 52 Lomb Memorial Drive, Rochester, NY 14623 (e-mail: marc.marschark@ rit.edu).

English

There is often a particular void in the education of deaf and hard-of-hearing students who intend to become competent working laboratory technicians. Inasmuch as certain basic professional skills (“soft skills”, in this case) are not generally taught in traditional science courses, a new curriculum has been developed in order to enforce these skills. The “soft skills” of focus in this study are safety awareness, technical writing, and teamwork/conflict resolution. The development of the pedagogical tools used to teach these specific “soft skills” are discussed, as well as an assessment of the augmentation in student understanding in each skill area. By incorporating an interdisciplinary approach that enforces “soft skills”, students should find greater success while on co-operative work experiences and have more prominent career opportunities. This curriculum was produced for the Chemical Technology-like program, Laboratory Science Technology, at the National Technical Institute for the Deaf- one of the eight colleges of the Rochester Institute of Technology, but the concepts are transferable to other technical-based programs.

"Globaleyes": A Partnership Between The Nippon Foundation (Japan) and the National Technical Institute for the Deaf (United States)

In a rapidly changing world where postsecondary educators of men and women who are deaf face myriad challenges preparing these men and women to enter a global economy, there is a pressing need for multinational collaboration and partnerships that view current and emerging challenges with "globaleyes." The National Technical Institute for the Deaf at the Rochester Institute of Technology and The Nippon Foundation of Japan formed a foundation/education partnership that led to the establishment of the Postsecondary Education Network International (PEN-International), a collaborative and cooperative network of colleges and universities around the world that provide postsecondary education for students who are deaf or hard of hearing. The network now consists of more than 25 institutions in nine countries.