How are Buildings and Internal Rooms named at Gallaudet University? The Administrative and Operations Manual states:
2.12 Naming Facilities (last revision in 1994)Other universities have the following policies for naming their buildings. Generally, they state that any building named after the president or an employee, s/he must be:
The Board of Trustees reserves the naming of all major capital assets, including building and large external areas, in recognition of significant philanthropic support of the University’s goals and mission.
The naming of internal spaces is an administrative decision to be made by the President.
1) deceased ORLast I heard, I. King Jordan is alive and an employee at Gallaudet.
2) retired for at least 2-3 years (some policies state 5 years)
And since the Administrative and Operations policy clearly states that only the president can name internal spaces, guess who was president when the Linda K. Jordan Gallery was named?
There is a President's Office Recognition Committee, established in 2003. They developed a detailed Naming and Recognition Guidelines. This committee was never contacted about naming the I. King Jordan Student Academic Center and the Linda K. Jordan Gallery. Apparently someone bypassed this committee and went directly to the Board (and no one but the President can do this).
When approached about this, a Board of Trustees member stated that the Board has its own internal naming committee and that he did not know there was a President's Office Recognition Committee. There was an Art Department committee submitting names for the Gallery (Linda K. Jordan was one of the names on the list) but they also did not know there was a President's Office Recognition Committee and that there were specific procedures to follow (e.g. including campus constituents in making the final decision).
As announced on Inside Gallaudet on September 25, 2006, the Board unanimously approved the naming of I. King Jordan Student Academic Center and the Linda K. Jordan Gallery without going through the President's Office Recognition Committee which is in direct violation of the Naming and Recognition Guidelines.
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UPDATE: It seems that the Recognition Committee DID get word that someone wanted to name the SAC building after Jordan, but since the committee reported directly to Jordan, the 'sticky topic' was deferred to the Board.
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This procedure by Gallaudet's President's office Recognition Committee can help remedy that violation by unnaming both the Student Academic Center and the Gallery, allowing all campus constituents to share their input for the new names.
UNNAMING
1. The University reserves the right to unname previously named areas or facilities in circumstances where its best interests are not served by the continued recognition of the names.Interesting Historical Tidbit: In 1978, Gallaudet College invited the campus community to vote on naming campus streets. There was a committee with a SBG representative, Alumni representative, KDES representative, Staff representative, MSSD SBG representative, Faculty representative and a MSSD faculty member. They narrowed down the nominations from the community from 318 names to 41, and the campus - the alumni, students, faculty and staff voted for the final 8 street names. More on this in a later blog...
2. Unnaming opportunities also exist in the events that the affected donors are unable to fulfill their pledges, and legal impropriety on the part of the donors make the gifts and names subject to reconsideration by the University.
16 comments:
Definitely, we were duped and dumbed down.
The alumni members were asked for whom they would like for the National Institute of the Deaf -Mutes to be named. They named Thomas H. Gallaudet instead of Amos Kendall. (Quid pro quo, the campus was so named for Amos Kendall.)
The President of the national GUAA and the Director of the Office of Alumni must not become too permissible. They must hear vox populi of the alumni and students, not of the BoT and the presidential administration like I. King Jordan.
(Let me be off on a tangent for a moment. I have learned that President Designate Jane Kelleher Fernandes awarded the emeritusship to her husband, Mr. James Fernandes of the Audiology Department sans the proper process of approval from a certain committee in May or thereabouts.)
I think it would be a good idea to publish your blog in The Buff and Blue. That article would engage vox populi amongst the Gallaudet community!
May the power of GUAA rise above the BoT and the university president!
Vox Populi!
Jean Boutcher
See Item #1 in the Nine Points of Grievance
Item #3 in the Nine Points of Grievance asks the board to pass a rule that nothing be named after either King or Linda Jordan.
Wow - that's very important information. I certainly hope this will help and push BoT to reconsider the building names (Irving and Linda Jordan).
Raychelle - you should vlog on this!
It's about time this whole thing is brought to the light for everyone to read about. This is truly a disgrace.
Katherine
Raychelle, thank you for providing us the links showing the conflicts of the current policies.
The fact BoT bypassed this committee in the first place is disturbing, though more likely BoT was never informed of this committee. This reflects the pattern of Jordan violating the established protocols.
Hello - I am glad that you brought this up to our attention because I did share my concern about IKJ's violation of Gallaudet's policies for naming the buildings and many people are still upset about the names on the buildings. Those names are the symbol of oppression at Gallaudet University and they must be removed immediately. I agree with you that Gallaudet should allow all people of Gallaudet Community and alumni to provide their input for the new names after the names are removed from the buildings. That definitely will be part of our healing process. You can check my videos about the violation of the policies and demand for removal of IKJ and Linda's names on the buildings. The links are http://www.savegallaudet.org/?p=52
and http://www.savegallaudet.org/?p=62 Keep up with your excellent work and stay vlogging! : ) - Ron -
damn now i feel i wanna throw up!
pukeee all over IKJFK
The art gallery at WAB should be re-named for Dr. Deborah Sonnenstrahl because as follows:
[1] BA degree in art history
at Gallaudet
[2] Ph.D. in art history NYU
[3] Teaching art history at
at Gallaudet for 33 years
[4] Emerituship in 1990s. Her criteria has been unsurpassed.
Can anyone out there list Linda K. Jordan's criteria?
The Elstad Auditorium should be re-named for Bernard Bragg. I need not list his criteria, for it would be a very long papertrial, but I shall tell you eight things about him:
[1] actor
[2] teacher (drama and education
[3] a founder of NTD
[4] playwright
[5] writer (educaton)
[6] coach of actors
[7] world traveller to teach drama
[8] philanthropist (lover of
humankind through donations).
Jean Boutcher
In my next ?log (I'll TRY A VLOG next time JOEY! SMILE), I'm working on the numbers for: deaf/hearing, gender, and ethnic status of all the names on campus (buildings, auditoriums, plazas, fields, and roads). I bet we all know what we're going to find out...
my interpretation of the guidelines is that the BoT holds all the rights to name anything at Gallaudet. Everyone else has to go through the procedure. The BoT itself does not have to follow the procedure IF the proposal originates from BoT members. All proposals coming from outside the BoT have to go through the President's office for approval.
As for Kellogg and Sorensen (large endowments with more than 51% funding), yes, it appears that the Recognition Committee can be bypassed. But all the other names MUST go through the committee. See below:
B. 1. The President’s Recognition Committee, chaired by the Special Assistant to the President for Planning is responsible for reviewing all names proposed for University properties, academic and non-academic programs, and facilities (existing and planned outdoor facilities, programs, formal recognition structures such as hall of fame and other smaller opportunities). These recommendations will be forwarded to the President and the Board of Trustees for approval. All other recognition opportunities will be reviewed, approved and overseen by the Recognition Committee.
I can see where the sentiment is going here and while that's good and all, I think the first thing you have to do to get what you want is to get Gallaudet to send the 5 mil back to Sorenson. Otherwise all this sentiment's in vain.
I'm not sure where you're going with this. My blog was specifically about IKJordan SAC and Linda K. Jordan Gallery. Sorensen is another story.
Ooops, my apologies, R....was thinking of the SLCC issue. Now that I think about it, though, I think your topic kinda takes a back door to the very same thing.........again, my apologies.
I wondered from the beginning about the naming of the said buildings - and especially that of the art gallery. I'd spent much time in the WAB during my years there and while Linda Jordan was active in pottery, that was about the extent of it.
Not too long after the naming ceremonies became public knowledge, I'd wondered about the appros. of the procecure when most universities did not follow the practice of using a current president's name on a building - it was usually done after retirement within a time frame from departure to the naming ceremony.
Interesting...
Thanks for bringing this to the light.
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