HLAA Interviews Jane Fernandes -- the Ninth President of Gallaudet University
By Christopher T. Sutton
In May 2006 Jane K. Fernandes, Ph.D., the provost of Gallaudet University, was selected by the Gallaudet Board of Trustees to become the ninth president of Gallaudet University. Hearing Loss Magazine was given the opportunity to meet with Dr. Fernandes to learn more about her and her vision for Gallaudet. This is also a chance for our members to know more about Gallaudet University and its new president.
Why Did I Wait So Long? My Cochlear Implant Experience
By Ben W. Gilbert
Among all the scientific and medical articles about cochlear implants, the personal narrative is perhaps one of the most helpful types of article to those thinking about an implant. At your request, we will share others’ experiences as they are available to us.
Cochlear implant surgery is fairly well known by the surgeons and the audiologists that deal with it all the time. After all, cochlear implants have been FDA approved for some 20 years, and they have been around in various forms for some 50 years. In fact, cochlear implants (CIs) are probably somewhat “routine” for the professionals that deal with them daily.
What does the Mona Lisa have to do with hearing loss? Gael Hannan knows….
For hundreds of years, art lovers, kings, and peasants have studied the Mona Lisa and pondered the source of her enigmatic smile. Bewitched men (and perhaps a few women) have marveled at her beauty, agonizing over why her lips curve slightly, why her eyes are half-closed, and realized that they would never, ever, know why.
But I, being immune to her romantic appeal, do know why..
Mona Lisa was hard of hearing. I know this, because she is wearing “the look.”
Those of us experienced in the ways of hearing loss recognize in Ms. Lisa the face of one who has tuned out, one who is only pretending to keep up with the conversation. While Leonardo da Vinci painted, he prattled on to Mona about her mysterious beauty that was driving him mad. She sat silently, however, hiding the fact that she didn’t have a clue what he was saying!.
HLAA Interviews Jane Fernandes -- the Ninth President of Gallaudet University
By Christopher T. Sutton
In May 2006 Jane K. Fernandes, Ph.D., the provost of Gallaudet University, was selected by the Gallaudet Board of Trustees to become the ninth president of Gallaudet University. Hearing Loss Magazine was given the opportunity to meet with Dr. Fernandes to learn more about her and her vision for Gallaudet. This is also a chance for our members to know more about Gallaudet University and its new president.
In 1988 Gallaudet University, a small liberal arts university located in Washington, D.C., caught international attention with the Deaf President Now (DPN) movement, when their Board of Trustees selected yet another hearing president to lead the world’s only university exclusively for deaf and hard of hearing people. In recognizing the civil rights issues raised by DPN, a deaf leader, Dr. I. King Jordan, was selected to become the university’s eighth president.
If you are a person with a hearing loss, do you have a disability? Maybe you would describe a person with a mild or moderate loss as not having a disability, but those with a severe-to-profound loss as having a disability.
What about the term “hearing impaired?”
Is this appropriate or not?
We could probably enjoy a lively debate on our message boards at www.myhearingloss.org over this choice of wording. At some point someone would no doubt state that being hearing challenged or having a hearing loss does not make one “impaired.” That person would be absolutely correct, but that is only half of the answer.
This question is one that people with hearing loss ask all the time. There is more than just the “best” hearing aid when it comes to good hearing.
I recently received a letter asking me for hearing aid advice. It seems this woman had just purchased a single $1,500 hearing aid on the advice of her ear doctor. The hearing aid itself -- a popular and well-known brand -- was fitted and sold by a professional audiologist.
But then she learned that a friend had just purchased two hearing aids from Sears for $1,100. She asked me if I knew whether one of the aids was better than the other. Insofar as one versus two aids is concerned, that was an easy question to answer: for most people with hearing loss, two hearing aids are better.
“I was losing contact with people. Increasingly my life was dominated by reading, closed captioned TV whenever I watched it, solitary pursuits like bird watching, the Internet, long-distance running, biking.”
I lost my hearing so gradually I barely noticed it. My wife, whose hearing is so exquisite she can hear the conversation at a table 20 feet away in a noisy restaurant, learned to repeat herself rather frequently in our conversations, now going past 50 years.
I subtly withdrew from most group activities, movies, concerts, parties, as it just got too difficult to understand people. I would nod my head for most of the conversation and then make some inane remark off the subject and see this stunned look. I often had a ten-second delay in processing the conversation while trying to fill in the gaps I couldn't hear. It would be like trying to read this article with parts of the words erased. It was easy for my mind to wander. My work was affected and I decided to retire earlier than I had planned.
