FY 2008 Annual Report of Achievements - Gallaudet University

• Culver City, Calif. Quest conducted a visual theater workshop for families, with
participants ranging in age from 1 year to 67 years, in collaboration with a local parent
organization serving families with deaf and hard of hearing children as well as a CODA
organization.
• Irvine, Calif. Hosted by the Orange County School System, Quest conducted a two-day
residency with middle school students, a visual theater workshop for high school
students, and a public performance of Alice.
Through Deaf Eyes Project. During FY 2008, Gallaudet focused on capitalizing on the
extensive network of new connections formed during the Through Deaf Eyes broadcast year and
expanding outreach efforts to include new audiences and topics. Highlights included:
• Screenings of Through Deaf Eyes. Public screening events brought more than 5,400 people to
libraries and schools and theaters to see the film. Educational use is more complicated to
determine, as reporting by educators is voluntary. Of note are the international uses of
the film in Thailand and the Philippines, and broadcast events in England, Ireland, and
Denmark.
• Awards. The Through Deaf Eyes project was honored this year with multiple awards
including: the Organization of American Historians’ Erik Barnouw Award; the Alfred I.
DuPont-Columbia University Award for journalistic excellence; the Laurent Clerc
Cultural Fund’s Alice Cogswell Award; and a CINE Golden Eagle Award.
• Preservation. Project staff completed sorting Deaf Eyes’ extensive footage, both interview
and resource tapes, and distributing them to secure storage in the Gallaudet University
Media Department or Archives. Log books of the tapes were shared with these units as
well as the departments of ASL and Deaf Studies, and Government and History.
Becoming Helen Keller Project. Becoming Helen Keller is a 90-minute television documentary
to be launched nationally on PBS in 2010. A cross-platform project, the broadcast will be
accompanied by an online exhibit, a searchable database, and several educational products. Gallaudet
University is working in partnership with PBS and other sponsors to develop the outreach
components for Becoming Helen Keller. FY 2008 was a development year, making preliminary contacts
with dissemination partners and collaborating with educators to secure official endorsement of the
educational products. Outreach plans include pre-broadcast forums in eight cities, which will be
filmed, edited, and made available online via American Masters (WNET New York) to serve as
model programs. Specific contacts/meetings and ongoing exchanges are occurring with: National
Council for the Social Studies; Federation of State Humanities Councils; American Library
Association Video Round Table; American Federation for the Blind; American Association of the
Deaf-Blind; National Association of the Deaf; the Library of Congress’ National Library Service for
the Blind and Physically Handicapped, and Archive of Folk Culture; and VSA arts.
World Federation of the Deaf (WFD) History. CPSO staff contributed to an in-progress
book on the WFD, which focuses on the organization’s 50-year history. Staff were also involved in
research of and writing about deaf international individuals who predated the WFD’s 1951 founding.
A CPSO-authored article related to this project, “Life and deaf: Language and the myth ‘balance’ in
public history,” was published in the summer 2008 issue of Sign Language Studies.
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