Robert Panara - First Deaf To Be On US Stamp

Robert Panara, became the first National Institute for the Deaf faculty member to be featured on a United States postage stamp.

ROCHESTER, New York -- Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: Robert Panara, who was the first Deaf faculty member at Rochester Institute of Technology's National Institute for the Deaf, knew no limits for what a Deaf person could accomplish.

As a tribute to his achievements, Panara will be honored on a new U.S. postage stamp showing him signing the word "respect."

Robert Panara, A Profile. Video Credit: DCMP.

Panara, who died in 2014 at age 94, joined the NTID faculty in 1967 and for two decades was an inspirational and innovative educator, as he had been previously at Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C.

"During his 40-year teaching career, Panara inspired generations of students with his powerful use of American Sign Language," said the Postal Service, in its announcement Tuesday that the new stamp featuring Panara will be part of the Distinguished Americans series.

The stamp was designed by Ethel Kessler, art director for the Postal Service, and based on an image taken by RIT/NTID photographer Mark Benjamin.

Panara's son, John, who is an English instructor at NTID, sent an email to the NTID community Tuesday saying that the "picture on the stamp is one that you certainly are familiar with, for it has been seen often around campus the last few years, in offices and on hallway walls."

Benjamin's photograph of his father signing the word "respect," John Panara added, is a "theme that will 'ring out loud and free' (to borrow a line from my dad's famous poem) every time the stamp is placed on an envelope!"

John Panara said that when he received an email a year ago telling him that the Postal Service's Stamp Advisory Committee had recommended the issuance of a stamp of his father, he read the email over and over again to make sure he wasn't dreaming.

Harry Lang, a professor emeritus at NTID and author of Teaching from the Heart and Soul: The Robert F. Panara Story, posted on Facebook: "What a nice Thanksgiving present! Bob is certainly looking down with his famous smile right now."

Lang, who was an adviser to the Postal Service on the stamp, noted in the foreword to his biography that the senior Panara was a poet, author, lecturer and theater aficionado.

Panara, Lang wrote, was largely self-educated at a time accommodations were not available for Deaf children.

"He was also among the first wave of Deaf scholars in the twentieth century, and a pioneer in the field of Deaf Studies," Lang noted.

Panara's poem "On His Deafness," written in 1946, has been reprinted many times and won first prize in the World of Poetry contest in 1988. Lang, in his biography of Panara, said the poem is about "how Deaf people can 'hear' with an 'inner ear' of imagination." ... Read The Full Story - Rochester Democrat and Chronicle.

Deaf Scientists Probe Hearing Loss Treatments

Team of Deaf scientists probe hearing loss treatments in Oregon.

PORTLAND, Oregon -- WISN Milwaukee: When Peter Steyger learned to speak, he had to wear hearing aids. At 14 months, he was struck with meningitis. The powerful antibiotic that saved his life largely stripped him of hearing.

His mother, determined to keep him in the hearing community, worked with him an hour a day for four years as part of an intensive regime of speech therapy. Sometimes it took him 10 minutes to learn a single word. He didn't start to catch up to his peers until eight years later.

But today at 54, Steyger is a prominent auditory neuroscientist. At Oregon Health & Science University, he's part of a team of researchers who are studying the auditory system in hopes of helping others who can't hear.

The 10 faculty members in OHSU's Oregon Hearing Research Center are considered trailblazers among their peers.

"I look at their program as a very unique one in the world because of the breadth and the depth of their auditory science and the high quality of the science that's done there," said Jennifer Stone, an auditory neuroscientist at the University of Washington in Seattle.

The center also stands out in another way: It has five professors with hearing loss. Few other auditory research departments have even one scientist with a hearing disability. None has as many as OHSU, experts say.

Their varied biomedical backgrounds allow them to study every aspect of the auditory system, and their personal experiences inform their research.

"They've all got pretty high profiles and are covering lots of different bases," said Jonathan Ashmore, a leading auditory neuroscientist based at University College London in Britain.

Their work has helped make the center, dating to 1967, one of the biggest nationwide. About a dozen other universities have hearing research centers with at least three faculty members. Only about five have 10 or more. OHSU's department of otolaryngology - an ear, nose and throat specialty - is No. 2 in funding from the National Institutes of Health, at $10 million a year, right behind Johns Hopkins University.

For the scientists, it's not been easy. Their hearing loss has complicated their lives. They struggled to follow their teachers and professors, keep up in graduate school and complete their post-doctoral training. They had difficulty taking notes. They suffered from a sense of isolation and found it tough to make friends.

But they found a home at the Oregon Hearing Research Center. They're not alone in their disability, and they have a personal motivation to succeed. Though their research might not cure their own hearing loss, they hope to help the hearing of future generations... Read The Full Story - WISN Milwaukee.

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The Case For Bilingual Deaf Children - UConn

UConn researchers want to understand the science behind how early access to language affects learning in Deaf and Hearing children.

MANSFIELD, CT -- UConn Today: Marie Coppola and a number of other researchers at UConn want to understand the science behind how early access to language affects learning in Deaf and Hearing children. Deaf children are just as intellectually capable as hearing children – but if they do not have early access to language and communication, that intellectual capacity can quickly erode.

Eight-year-old Marie Coppola could hear the dial tone on the other end of the phone. Second ring … third ring. She was a little clammy, but not as nervous as the first few times she’d picked up and dialed on this sunny Philadelphia afternoon.

A middle-aged woman’s voice answered. “Hello?”

“Hello,” Coppola said, affecting what she thought was a deep, confident tone. “I’m calling about your ad in the Inquirer for cleaning services.”

The woman was not fooled. “Excuse me?” she began testily.

“It’s for my mother,” Coppola rushed on. “She’s deaf, but she is highly qualified and can provide references. If you’d like to meet her, I can arrange it. She’s available any afternoon this week …”

Amy Coppola, standing with a hand on her daughter’s shoulder, looked on. Her daughter trailed off, eyebrows furrowed. She tried a few more cajoling words, but finally mumbled, “Okay, thank you,” and hung up.

Her mother didn’t need to ask. “Better luck next time?” she signed.

“Yes,” signed Marie. She trudged across the room, disgruntled.

“I’m going to my room. I’ll be back for dinner,” she signed – in the Deaf custom of telling people where you’re going when you leave, and when you’ll be back – before disappearing down the hall.

Forty years later, Marie Coppola, now assistant professor of psychological sciences and linguistics in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, is still disgruntled. Even today, amid a surge of technology that promises to give Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing people access to sound, Coppola says Deaf people, along with their language and their culture, are not being heard.

Coppola was recently awarded a $1.2 million National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER Award, one of the largest in the program’s history, to study the impact of early language experiences – whether spoken or signed – on how children learn. She hopes her work will help people better understand that sign language is just as worthy as spoken language... Read More: HERE.

The Universal Language Is In Our Minds

Dr. Boudreault: The universal language is in our minds.

BERKELEY, California -- Dr. Patrick Boudreault, who is Deaf, grew up in a quadrilingual and bilingual community in Quebec, Canada. He is a native signer of Langue des Signes Québécoise (LSQ) and American Sign Language (ASL), and is fluent in written French and English.

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The University of California Berkeley linguistics lecturer Dr. Boudreault, explains that language is a fluid thing that's not just spoken. It's something universal that happens in our minds, whether it's communicated with our hands or our voice.

To see more stories, visit https://onwardcalifornia.com/#stories.

Dr. Boudreault is currently a visiting professor with Graduate Studies and Research at Gallaudet University. He serves as co-principal investigator with Dr. Christina Palmer of the University of California, Los Angeles on a grant from the National Cancer Institute on implementing online cancer genetics education in ASL to increase the Deaf community's access to culturally and linguistically appropriate materials.

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Deaf Interpreters: The State of Inclusion

WATCH: Deaf Interpreter Professor, Nigel presented, StreetLeverage.

Nigel Howard talk explored some of the perceptions that challenge better integration of Deaf interpreters into the field and into daily practice. Most notably, the perception that ASL-English interpreters have that requesting to work with a Deaf interpreter is an indication of an inferior skill-set.

Additionally, he highlighted that the definitions ASL-English and Deaf interpreters hold of each other, correct or not, is the basis of their effectiveness working together and that both have equal responsibility for the processing of information and outcome of the communication. Recorded by Street Leverage.

Douglas College Instructor Builds Bridges Between Deaf and Hearing Communities:

For Nigel Howard, working at Douglas College is all about building bridges between the Deaf and hearing communities.

"I am the only Deaf instructor nationally who teaches courses about topics other than interpreters, sign language and Deaf culture," says Howard.

In addition to teaching for the Program of Sign Language Interpretation (INTR), Howard instructs classes on personal and professional development, wellness and community in other programs in the Faculty of Child, Family and Community Studies. While students are required to only use American Sign Language (ASL) in INTR classes, Howard lectures with an interpreter in his other courses.

"There's a pretty progressive attitude here at Douglas College," says Howard.

Howard, who has taught at the college for about 12 years, enjoys elements of both INTR and other courses.

"I get to see both cultures and languages working in this setting. The variety helps me become flexible. I see what's out there in the world in other programs and bring it back to INTR. You need to be skilled in both cultures and languages to move between them," says Howard.

INTR is "my contribution to the students and to the community. I give to them and they give back to the Deaf community," he says... Read The Full Story.

Related Posts: #DeafCanadians