Toast Song

[naraht]

Originally Posted by GMUAPhiOAdvisor

Randy,
As a former Gallaudet student, I "think" I know why Gally isn't on the list for rechartering. There are several factors to take into account:

1) The language barrier. Other than myself, I have yet to meet another fluent, hearing signer who could go in and help the rechartering efforts. That, coupled with having someone learn all rituals in ASL (which I had to do for my social sorority, at a National Convention no less, which I joined at Gally). From experience, I can tell you it's no easy feat.

2) All Gally students are required to complete 80 hours of community service prior to graduation. Given that they already have to do this, having a service fraternity only duplicates the required hours. Again, from experience, I have heard enough grumbling from students about THOSE hours, and I'm not sure anyone would join A Phi O to do more.

3) As the face of Gallaudet changes, so too does the face of the Greek system. There are several social GLOs on campus, but few of them are "national" organizations. Gallaudet, being the center of the Deaf community, has several GLOs that were founded by Deaf, for Deaf. There are currently four social sororities - Phi Kappa Zeta, Delta Epsilon, Alpha Sigma Theta and Delta Zeta. Of these, DZ is the only national group and the reason it was only chartered there is because DZ's national philanthropy is speech and hearing. Not that this is exactly what Gallaudet stands for, but back in the 90's, Gally was not as "Deaf-centric" as it is now. Then, it was more accepting of people whose first language wasn't ASL. Now, as the Deaf community shrinks due to genetic testing and the implantation of cochlear implants in younger and younger children, the Deaf community has become more insular. (This is a similar situation with the social fraternities as well)

4) As the number of Deaf of Deaf shrinks, so does the number of incoming students into the school. The incoming freshman class when I started at Gally (2001-2002) was less than 300 students, and of those 7 of us were hearing. The school is struggling to stay viable now, and it will only get worse as the years pass. With that "shrinkage", the student body will become more "Deaf" and those students who are from generationally Deaf families will want to join the fraternities and sororities that mom and dad joined, and those will tend towards the ones that were founded by the Deaf, for the Deaf.

HOWEVER...having said all this, should A Phi O choose to try and recharter at Gally, I'm happy to lend a hand (or both, as they're both used in ASL )

1) It was done once, is there any way that how it was done could have been recorded somewhere? I don't know if they would have filmed it, but is there any way to write down an official list of what signs are used for a translation? I know that there was discussion on how to translate the toast song in the '90s because it seemed to be done differently at each National Convention. An alumnus might be the way to go there. I believe that Gally does *better* than most other schools in keeping track of Alumni.

2) I know at some schools that have required community service hours that hours done through the chapter can be counted if they properly keep up with the paperwork. That might be a solution at Gally.

3) Not sure why Delta Sigma Phi National Fraternity though. Can't find a Speach/Language connection. I didn't realize the extent that Cochlear Implants have changed. From looking at the Wikipedia entry, it seems that just about any person with a functioning Auditory nerve can get one. (And as you indicated in 4, not having a functioning Auditory nerve at all is more likely than other types of deafness to be genetic.

That was one thing I realized very early with Gallaudet and its culture. If you asked 100 African Americans or 100 Hispanics "Would the world be a better place if there were no more of X?" (X being your group), you would get *presumably* 100 noes(maybe one extreme self-hater). If you asked 100 paraplegics or 100 blind people, you'd probably get 100 yeses (maybe slightly fewer with blindness). If you asked 100 deaf (and yes, using lowercase d was deliberate, almost anyone who uses capital D would say no) people, you'd get some number between 10 and 90 and the two groups would start arguing...

4) There is a *lot* of data on enrollment at Gally at http://www.gallaudet.edu/x2294.xml , which does seem to indicate gradually descending numbers... I'm really not sure how low the numbers would have to go before there would be serious talk at closing the school. A more likely problem might be accredidation or NCAA issues. Gallaudet has graduation numbers that are frankly hideous. As I read their numbers, from the 2008 document (http://ims.gallaudet.edu/pdf/20080227-0001.pdf), only 11% of their entering freshmen from the Fall 2000 class graduated in four years, 26% in five years, 34% in six years and 37% in seven years. However, other years were worse. (only 6% of the entering Fall 1996 freshmen graduated in 4 years). In that respect it is covering an academically *huge* spread of students, from those who if hearing would have only have only tried for admission to their local community college, to those who if hearing might have applied for Cal Tech or Harvard.

OK, if the students are more likely to join Greeks their parents belonged to, maybe we can find some Alpha Phi Omega legacies...