Education: Higher Education

Historical Overview of Higher Education Institutions for Deaf Scholars

Historically, a higher education degree was difficult to obtain for members of the Deaf community. Nevertheless, there have been pioneering deaf individuals who have demonstrated early on that academic achievement is possible, despite oppressive societal viewpoints. Some of these individuals include Andrew Foster, the first Deaf African American to receive a bachelor’s degree from then-Gallaudet College in 1954, and the first to earn a master’s from Eastern Michigan University. He went on to establish the first school for the deaf in Africa. Helen Keller became the first deaf-blind individual to receive a college degree in 1904 from Radcliffe University; her legacy for authorship and political activism is renowned. Gideon E. Moore was the first documented deaf American to earn a doctoral degree, which he earned from Heidelberg University in Germany in about 1869. He went on to enjoy a very successful career as a chemist.

The majority of deaf college graduates in the late 19th century owed their academic success to Gallaudet University, which is the oldest and the first liberal arts and sciences institution that has inclusively developed a higher education environment for deaf scholars. It began in 1864 through congressional authorization and has graduated over 17,000 students from around the world. In addition to producing scholars who have assumed a number of leadership positions in a wide range of professional fields, Gallaudet University has the distinction of having three deaf presidents preside over the university since 1988 (I. King Jordan, Robert Davila, and Alan T. Hurwitz).

Following the lead of Gallaudet, several other universities have established colleges or campuses that have increased and enhanced the academic experiences of deaf scholars. The National Technical Institute for the Deaf (NTID) is the first and largest technological college for students who are deaf. The college, one of eight colleges of the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT), a private university in Rochester, New York, arose out of the need for a technical institute for deaf students that focused on both trades and scholarship. President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the National Technical School for the Deaf Act in June, 1965, and the college settled on the RIT campus, which was recommended by a national advisory board that reviewed potential universities. The first courses were offered to approximately 80 deaf students in 1968. Since that time, NTID has expanded to over 90 undergraduate and more than 80 graduate and doctoral programs, many that allow cross-registering with other RIT colleges, and serves over 1,200 deaf students. NTID also has the distinction of being the first college to formally educate sign language interpreters.

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