Successful Meeting With Lynn Woolsey!!!
Four Community Representatives' meeting earlier today with
Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey
October 26, 2006
To Anyone and Everyone who is concerned about the Gallaudet situation:
Four community representatives from the Bay Area met with Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey (Democrat from the Santa Rosa area in CA) who is also on the Gallaudet University Board of Trustees today.
We were happy that Woolsey made herself available for this meeting rather than appoint one of her staff to meet with us.
The meeting lasted about 25 minutes and she provided us with opportunities to share our thoughts and concerns.
She is aware of what has been going on at Gallaudet and she has been involved in conversations and discussions since May with different constituents: parents, students, alumni, etc. She mentioned that a group was meeting with her staff at the DC office. She also said she has been doing "outreach" - but couldn't share more details. She said it was confidential.
Woolsey *is* planning to attend the BOT meeting on Sunday. We told her we were thrilled to hear that because we felt that it was important that she attend.
We told her we were meeting with her because we wanted her *direct* involvement in the BOT and what's happening at Gallaudet. We stated that we wanted her direct involvement for two primary reasons: 1. we are very concerned about the safety of our students, especially in light of the bulldozing incident yesterday morning. 2. there is a leadership crisis happening right now at Gallaudet. The situation has been escalating since May to its current boiling point and the BOT has not stepped to firmly bring this situation to a resolution.
Woolsey felt strongly that the situation must stop now - and that she did not want to see any more injuries to the students. The situation has gotten the attention of Congress and she does not want to see it have an impact on the funding for Gallaudet.
She asked us why we thought Jane Fernandes was not a good choice for the provost position 6 years ago. We shared with her some specifics about what had happened at the Clerc Center during Fernandes' tenure: enrollment declined, students were taken out and sent to other schools, staff's tenure were taken away from them, and the faculty organization was disbanded.
She then said that she wasn't interested in how we got to this point
(meaning that, she wasn't interested in knowing what Jane said or what Jane did). she wanted to know what we could do from this point going forward to bring a resolution to this situation.
We stated clearly the FSSA's 2 demands: 1. to re-open the search process, which would require Jane Fernandes to resign and 2. no reprisals. Woolsey said she wanted to add one more thing to the demands - that there needs to be a process for reconciliation. She suggested that we bring in an outside mediator. We then mentioned to her that outside mediators have already offered their services: NAD and Mr. Imperator from American Association of People with Disabilities. Those offers were declined by the Jordan administration. When we firmly stated FSSA's demands, Woolsey didn't question or challenge those demands.
Woolsey overall was very positive about Gallaudet and Gallaudet's role in the world. She said that if we couldn't find peace within our own community, then how can we find peace in the world?
The meeting then ended (earlier than we would have liked to). We left with her a folder that included Professor Bob Johnson's 17 page treatise..a sampling of about 10 Open Letters written by parents, GUAA, former/current professors, professionals in the field, etc. as well as one page of the PART report, the faculty's response to the PART report and graphs showing the student and faculty's polls from April gauging their acceptance of each of the 3 finalists - which showed that Fernandes was dead last in the student and faculty polls respectively. Plenty of reading for her plane ride to DC, hopefully!
Overall, she seemed to "get" the issues. She didn't say it outright, but we got the sense that she truly was committed to bringing about a positive resolution at the BOT meeting Sunday.
Now.we're hoping for the best!
Unity for Gallaudet!
Michele Berke, Jim Brune, Chriz Dally and Sylvia Wood
Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey
October 26, 2006
To Anyone and Everyone who is concerned about the Gallaudet situation:
Four community representatives from the Bay Area met with Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey (Democrat from the Santa Rosa area in CA) who is also on the Gallaudet University Board of Trustees today.
We were happy that Woolsey made herself available for this meeting rather than appoint one of her staff to meet with us.
The meeting lasted about 25 minutes and she provided us with opportunities to share our thoughts and concerns.
She is aware of what has been going on at Gallaudet and she has been involved in conversations and discussions since May with different constituents: parents, students, alumni, etc. She mentioned that a group was meeting with her staff at the DC office. She also said she has been doing "outreach" - but couldn't share more details. She said it was confidential.
Woolsey *is* planning to attend the BOT meeting on Sunday. We told her we were thrilled to hear that because we felt that it was important that she attend.
We told her we were meeting with her because we wanted her *direct* involvement in the BOT and what's happening at Gallaudet. We stated that we wanted her direct involvement for two primary reasons: 1. we are very concerned about the safety of our students, especially in light of the bulldozing incident yesterday morning. 2. there is a leadership crisis happening right now at Gallaudet. The situation has been escalating since May to its current boiling point and the BOT has not stepped to firmly bring this situation to a resolution.
Woolsey felt strongly that the situation must stop now - and that she did not want to see any more injuries to the students. The situation has gotten the attention of Congress and she does not want to see it have an impact on the funding for Gallaudet.
She asked us why we thought Jane Fernandes was not a good choice for the provost position 6 years ago. We shared with her some specifics about what had happened at the Clerc Center during Fernandes' tenure: enrollment declined, students were taken out and sent to other schools, staff's tenure were taken away from them, and the faculty organization was disbanded.
She then said that she wasn't interested in how we got to this point
(meaning that, she wasn't interested in knowing what Jane said or what Jane did). she wanted to know what we could do from this point going forward to bring a resolution to this situation.
We stated clearly the FSSA's 2 demands: 1. to re-open the search process, which would require Jane Fernandes to resign and 2. no reprisals. Woolsey said she wanted to add one more thing to the demands - that there needs to be a process for reconciliation. She suggested that we bring in an outside mediator. We then mentioned to her that outside mediators have already offered their services: NAD and Mr. Imperator from American Association of People with Disabilities. Those offers were declined by the Jordan administration. When we firmly stated FSSA's demands, Woolsey didn't question or challenge those demands.
Woolsey overall was very positive about Gallaudet and Gallaudet's role in the world. She said that if we couldn't find peace within our own community, then how can we find peace in the world?
The meeting then ended (earlier than we would have liked to). We left with her a folder that included Professor Bob Johnson's 17 page treatise..a sampling of about 10 Open Letters written by parents, GUAA, former/current professors, professionals in the field, etc. as well as one page of the PART report, the faculty's response to the PART report and graphs showing the student and faculty's polls from April gauging their acceptance of each of the 3 finalists - which showed that Fernandes was dead last in the student and faculty polls respectively. Plenty of reading for her plane ride to DC, hopefully!
Overall, she seemed to "get" the issues. She didn't say it outright, but we got the sense that she truly was committed to bringing about a positive resolution at the BOT meeting Sunday.
Now.we're hoping for the best!
Unity for Gallaudet!
Michele Berke, Jim Brune, Chriz Dally and Sylvia Wood
posted by DeafBayBlogger at 8:16 PM
2 Comments:
What about her response to the no-confidence vote regarding the BoT?
That's a very good question. All I have is the above information. If I can find out, I'll post here.
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