THECITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK

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Education for Deaf Students
at LaGuardia Community College

Rebecca Aranow’s painting communicates a warm feeling at LaGuardia Community College’s
Program for Deaf Students.

or children who can hear,

the process of learning to

communicate is so gradual
and natural that they cannot re-
member the stages by which it
was mastered; they come up
against the difficulty of learning
language only when they try to
learn a foreign language. For
those born unable to hear, how-
ever, their native language is a
foreign language.

Most of us feel greater sym-
pathy and make greater accom-
modation for the visually-im-
paired and the physically dis-
abled than for the deaf. We
cannot see or hear “deafness”. It
occurs to few of us that in higher

education, where the mastery of
abstract concepts and sophisti-
cated vocabulary is essential,
deaf persons are at a greater dis-
advantage than the visually-im-
paired and physically handi-
capped persons who have ac-
quired language through their
ears. Deaf persons, in fact, espe-
cially those who have been deaf
since birth, may be the most seri-
ously handicapped student The
City University has undertaken to
educate.

The Program for Deaf Adults
(PDA) at LaGuardia Community
College in Long Island City was
initiated in 1974. By the Spring of
1985, one hundred and sixty deaf

students were enrolled in the
program. In March 1985 the pro-
gram received impetus and en-
couragement when Governor
Cuomo addressed one hundred
of these students, attended their
classes, and pledged $150,000 in
State support to PDA. Without
special funding, the high cost of
the program would be prohibi-
tive. To meet the needs of its
present student population and
reach those in the city who can
profit from it, LaGuardia offers a
comprehensive program in con-
tinuing and cooperative educa-
tion. Students elect courses from
five areas of concentration, all of
them supported by special test-
ing for placement, counseling,
and the services of trained in-
terpreters and instructors.

The Guided Independent
Study Program (GIS), for in-
stance, offers non-credit courses
emphasizing the information and
skills bearing upon educational
and vocational opportunities—
courses in Adult Basic Education,
English as a Second Language for
the foreign-born deaf, Prepara-
tion for the General Equivalency
Diploma, College Preparation
Education and College Study
Skills. This GIS program also of-
fers courses in computers and
wordprocessors and such “per-
sonal development” courses as
Photography and Driver Educa-
tion. The GIS, which has grown
from twenty-two students per
quarter to ninety in the Spring of
1985, has been augmented by
funding from the New York State
Vocational Education Act of 1976
and the Job Training Partnership
Act (JTPA) to offer students
courses in food services and cler-

15



ical skills as well. With increas-
ingly enthusiastic cooperation of
industries and offices, program
director Fern Khan reports, her
staff not only trains students but
places them in internships where
they learn and later, earn on the
job. The initial reluctance to hire
a deaf person is being converted
into an informed concern to uti-
lize their potential as reliable and
capable employees. The job-de-
veloper for the LaGuardia PDA
carries with her a tape to demon-
strate “what a hearing-impaired
person hears”—a demonstration,
apparently, that speaks louder
than words.

Increasingly, there is a need for
more instructors who are qual-
ified to teach deaf students. The
PDA staff presently consists of six
full-time professionals, two part-
time professionals, eleven para-
professionals who serve as
tutors, eighteen part-time in-
terpreters, and four to six adjunct
instructors. A third are deaf; all
are skilled communicators. Most
of the tutors are deaf, and those
who can hear must be able to
sign. Interpreters are assigned to
students taking credit courses;
they are rarely needed in the
non-credit courses, where stu-
dents and teachers communicate
in sign language. The coordinator
of Tutorial Services, Dorothy
Pakula, was the first deaf
graduate of LaGuardia Communi-
ty College.

The need to communicate with
deaf persons has evoked a sym-
pathetic response not only in em-
ployers through the JTPA Pro-
gram but in academic instructors
at the college and in students
with normal hearing who realize

16

Coordinator Carole Lazorisak and Director Fern Kahn discuss their paperwork.

they are handicapped by not
knowing a language the deaf
population understands. It is
now possible for hearing stu-
dents at LaGuardia, for example,
to take a course in American sign
language for academic credit to-
ward an Associate of Arts
Degree.

LaGuardia’s success with GIS
students has enabled the college
to encourage the enrollment of
deaf students who obtain their
GED into credit courses as well.
There are now forty-five students
working for academic degrees in
“all curricular areas.” LaGuardia,
(Fern Khan explains) as the only
college in the city to offer both
credit and non-credit courses for
deaf students can be justifiably
encouraged by the numbers of
students who graduate from non-
credit to credit courses. She be-
lieves that the college environ-

ment stimulates these students to
achieve what their nonhan-
dicapped peers achieve. Most
come from families and schools
where communication is minim-
al. Even after graduation from
high school, many do not pos-
sess an academic diploma and
are unaware of postsecondary
opportunities. Those “lucky”
enough to find even low-paying
jobs are frequently frustrated by
their limitations for advance-
ment. At LaGuardia, says Khan,
“deaf students see deaf people
achieving, working and doing
well.” Those placed in outside
positions know that the staff at
the college can intercede to solve
problems and misunderstandings
that arise in connection with
their work. “They know we are
here. ..they can call on us.”

The special resources required to
educate deaf persons for careers

and improved employment pres-
ent a staggering budgetary bur-
den, a burden that has been
borne in part by state and federal
funds (from the United States
Department of Education, the
New York State Department of
Education, the Vocational Educa-
tion Act and the Job Training Part-
nership Act). According to a re-
cent evaluator, however, the PDA
program “has far outstripped the
resources available to it,” despite
the generous support of the col-
lege President, Joseph Shenker
and the success of Director Khan
and her staff as fund raisers from
the state and the community.
They proceed, nevertheless, in
the expectation that if they con-
tinue to educate not only the
deaf but the hearing majority
who have been traditionally
“deaf” to the need of this promis-
ing minority, the support will
continue and become commen-
surate with the need.

Because of PDA's unique posi-
tion in higher education for the
hearing-impaired in New York
City, Fern Khan hopes to estab-
lish a research center for collect-
ing and developing materials for
higher education. She points out
that much research has been
done on elementary and second-
ary education for the deaf but
very little on the efforts made at
postsecondary levels. Fern Khan’s
interest in disseminating informa-
tion not only to the deaf adults
but about deaf adults is an
idealism shared by many Ameri-
cans today: the incorporation of
minorities into the mainstream of
the nation’s life, socially, eco-
nomically, and intellectually. Di-
rector Khan whose background is
social work, says she is “very in-

Girl talk in the LaGuardia Community College cafeteria.

terested in working with popula-
tions who need support or spe-
cial programs or access. | like
developing programs.” Three
years ago she initiated a program
which now provides academic
and leisure activities for children
at the college on Saturday morn-
ings—“a college for children”.
There is a program for deaf chil-
dren called “Exploring New York
City” funded by the Queens-
borough president, Donald
Manes.

The Coordinator of the Deaf
Programs, Carol Lazorisak, works
hand-in-hand with Fern Khan and
Dorothy Pakula, Coordinator of
Tutorial Services. Until this year,

Deborah Copeland served as
their Academic Counselor. Now
Lehman College has hired her to
develop an upper-level program
which will enable graduates from
LaGuardia’s PDA to continue
work toward the Bachelor’s De-
gree. “We have the students,”
Director Khan asserts, and thanks
to her efforts and those who
work with her, the students now
have programs.

17

—— SSS