I got to say that it was not a great experience to try to contact the visitor center and schedule a guided tour. I had tried using the online form and even email but I had no answer or confirmation, but since I found out about the open house for Graduate student and they had a tour schedule during the day I decided to go anyway and try to join in with the graduate tour. That, however was not needed, I was able to arrive early enough to join the regular visitor tour as a walk in when I arrived at the visitor center.
After a 30 min tour of a very few buildings I started to ask around for more info and did my own tour.
Every body on the information center or any department I went in to ask questions was super friendly even though my signing is still at a slow pace and many mistakes.
Starting from the security booth, to the Safety Dept Staff who gave me a free parking permit for being the first time visiting I started to get the feeling that the university spirit is really filed with good vibes.
At the food court, the so very patient server was so nice to wait for me and explain every thing about the food that was served, I ordered a (some king of) stuffed potato that was supposed to be served in two but I only asked for one and the cashier was confused on how to charge me..well, she made a way and all was fine.
The gift shop lady, also gave me a smiley face while our signed conversation was really brief but I was able to ask for a bag to carry the souvenirs around.
I stopped by the information desk twice, 1st to ask where the polics or governmental studies building was, however since I didn't know for sure the name of the program, the attendant, who seemed to be also an student took his time to ask questions and made sure that I understood his signing by also fingerspelling when he thought I didn't get what he was saying. All was well and I ended up checking out the building and the Library which was right in front of it. Big library, very intersting building and again with some cute artifacts from when the University first opened.
The second time I went to the information desk was to ask about the film program, which they told me there was none. Strange because I have seen twitter and facebook pages for the film department and I heard of some people who went to the art program specializing in film. Anyway, maybe it doesn't exist anymore or the person who I talked to at the information center doesn't know about it, but he did know about the theater department and showed me how to get there. The theater was closed of course, it is not a show time, but the person on the administration office was hearing and luckily I was able to talk to her with no mistakes saying that I was visiting the campus, she found a student who took 5 minutes to show me the theater..woohoo for me, I saw the theater history wall and going through back stage I also saw the construction room, lighting equip, brak area, wardrobe and ..let's just say..I was feeling at home.
The Visitor Center and the Museum was pure history about the university, the grand event of DPN and the evolution of technology that helps Deaf people to communicate with the haring world. Being a great admired of art and history, I just felt I was seeing the best of the university on those 3 building.
Moving to the rest of the university, it is amazing new building has most rooms and common spaces separated by glasses so people can communicate across the hall easily. The media room is extremely neat with so many computers and from what the tour guide mentioned, that is a private area where students can make a video of themselves signing, in case they have an assignment and they do not want to type in the computer, they can just sign on.
Also, many of the classrooms are equipped with computers and big screen tvs..the one we went in had at least 30 Mac machines and 2 70+ big screen tvs..I'm not even thinking how much that room alone cost on equipment.
One interesting fact the tour guide mentioned, every faculty needs to be fluent in ASL, when they apply for a position, they undergo a test with the ASL committee and if they find him/her not proficient enough they can still be hired and a interpreter would be provided to teach classes, but the new hired faculty member would have to become proficient withing 2 years, and contractually if he/she is not they would be let go. But honestly, living and breathing ASL in that place, one could be proficient in 6 months, I bet!!
Many building are historic and they are beautiful architectures but that is not the point of this journey, the point is, in Gallaudet, there is no communication barrier that would stop anybody there. Even not knowing ASL, or signing at all, they have the technology to overcome the barrier to understand each other, and the places where the technology is not available, they have staff and even the regular students who are much patient and understanding to take their time to make sure people understand them and vice versa. It may not be a true reality in the Deaf community outside the University ground, but in there I felt like an insider and would love to go back and maybe take a course and live that spirit more in deep. Go Bison!!
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