A BRIEF LOOK BACK

The history of the education of deaf students in the United States is rich and colorful. Unfortunately, the education of students who are hard of hearing has received relatively little attention.

Deaf students. The first school for deaf students was founded in 1813. Within a few years, publicly supported residential schools had become available to deaf children in virtually every eastern state, and by the late 19th century, one or more such schools were located in almost every state. Day schools and classes were established in metropolitan areas, giving many deaf students the option of commuting.

While only a handful of deaf students had the resources and were encouraged to go on to college, most residential schools included a strong vocational education component. These developments were paralleled by the formation of several national organizations of educators of the deaf, numerous teacher-training programs, and a growing literature about deaf people and their education.

In 1864, Gallaudet College was established in Washington, D.C. as a federally supported postsecondary institution mandated to serve deaf students throughout the nation. While for many years its enrollment remained small in proportion to the numbers of deaf high school graduates nationally, it had great symbolic significance for all deaf people and led to a well-informed and effective deaf leadership throughout the country. Gallaudet has since become a university and has a full-time enrollment of more than 1,400 deaf students (Rawlings, Karchmer, DeCaro, & Allen, 1995).

In the 1960s the federal government began to take an active role in the special education of all handicapped children. This led to a major increase in university-based research focusing on deaf children and adults, and support for more than 50 colleges and universities to train teachers and leadership personnel to serve deaf children. This also led to a strengthening of vocational rehabilitation services at the state and local levels, including provisions for subsidizing deaf students to attend college in order to increase their employment opportunities.

In 1965, Congress passed legislation leading to a second national postsecondary program for deaf students, the National Technical Institute for the Deaf (NTID), on the campus of Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT). NTID has a full-time enrollment of approximately 1,100 deaf students (Rawlings et al., 1995) of whom almost one-half are enrolled in regular RIT baccalaureate-level courses with hearing classmates and support services as needed. Several services used with postsecondary deaf students in mixed hearing/deaf classes elsewhere were first introduced at NTID.

In the same period, the federal government funded several regional postsecondary programs, two of which remain active today-programs at St. Paul Technical College in Minnesota and California State University at Northridge (CSUN) with a full-time enrollment of more than 200 deaf students. A more recently funded program is actually a consortium of 10 affiliated colleges in the Southeast region offering special services to deaf students. This consortium, named the Postsecondary Education Consortium (PEC), is administered by the University of Tennessee.²

Deaf students have also benefited greatly from the presence of more than 2,000 two-year community colleges throughout the country, affording young deaf adults the opportunity to enroll in career-oriented curricula near their homes. Many are also able to take advantage of liberal admissions policies. As we shall see, large numbers of deaf students are now being served by these colleges.

---

page 2 of 15

---

¹ In the order listed above, the authors are associated with National Technical Institute for the Deaf (Rochester, New York), University of Tennessee (Knoxville, Tennessee), University of Arkansas (Little Rock, Arkansas), and Brooklyn, New York.
² In 1996, the role of the federally funded regional programs at St. Paul Technical College, California State University at Northridge, and the University of Tennessee was changed. These regional programs no longer receive federal funds for direct student support services and/or program expansion activities. These regional centers were joined by a fourth center at the National Technical Institute for the Deaf to serve as regional centers for outreach and technical assistance for the midwestern, western, southern and northeastern regions of the United States. More information, including addresses, is provided in the appendix of this report.