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Thursday, November 09, 2006

Careful What You Wish For

The victory of Gallaudet University's students in forcing an incoming president they didn't like to leave has brought serious scrutiny to the school.

Faculty vice chair Lois Bragg said the administration has been spinning bad news for years, "trying to hide from the public evidence of low academic standards and absolutely risible admissions policies. . . . The administration has lost all credibility in the campus community."


Graduation rates are terrible:

[Gallaudet's own] 42 percent [figure] is an estimate meant to include any student who graduates, regardless of how long it takes. Graduation rates are more commonly based on the number of students who graduate within six years. By that measure, Gallaudet says it averages a 28 percent rate.


With medical advances, fewer and fewer students want or need to go to a school for the deaf:

Gallaudet has been recruiting more aggressively to keep enrollment up, Kimmel said. Beyond medical advances, federal laws now enable more deaf students to attend mainstream schools. Those laws have been "a double-edged sword," she said.

Several faculty members said they suspect that the shrinking pool of potential students has resulted in the school admitting some applicants who previously would not have met standards.