front cover of Controlling Our Destiny
Controlling Our Destiny
A Board Member’s View of Deaf President Now
Philip W. Bravin
Gallaudet University Press, 2020
In March 1988, students at Gallaudet University led a successful protest to demand the selection of the university’s first deaf president. The Deaf President Now (DPN) movement was a watershed event in American deaf history;­ it achieved self-governance for the deaf community and placed Gallaudet in the center of a national media spotlight. Controlling Our Destiny is Philip Bravin’s personal perspective of these momentous events. A lifelong member of the deaf community and proud Gallaudet alumnus, Bravin was a member of the Gallaudet University Board of Trustees and the chair of the presidential search committee during DPN. Although the deaf community had been strongly advocating for a deaf president to lead the university, the board (which had a hearing majority) selected the lone hearing candidate.

       Bravin recounts the discussions and decision-making that happened behind the scenes leading up to and following the ill-fated announcement. He reflects on the integrity of the process and the internal conflict he experienced as a deaf person who supported a deaf president yet felt compelled to abide by his duties as a board member. After the protests, his leadership was recognized when he was selected as the first deaf chair of the board. Photographs and documents add depth to Bravin’s account, many of which will be seen by the public for the first time. I. King Jordan, the first deaf president of Gallaudet, provides a foreword in which he shares his own unique insight into these events.

       Controlling Our Destiny captures the energy and the urgency of DPN. Readers will understand the complexities of the presidential search process and the cultural and historical contexts that triggered the protest. Bravin’s memoir contemplates power, access, community, and the enduring legacy of a movement that inspired deaf people around the world.
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front cover of Deaf President Now!
Deaf President Now!
The 1988 Revolution at Gallaudet University
John B. Christiansen
Gallaudet University Press, 1995

Deaf President Now! reveals the groundswell leading up to the history-making week in 1988 when the students at Gallaudet University seized the campus and closed it down until their demands were met. To research this probing study, the authors interviewed in-depth more than 50 of the principal players.

This telling book reveals the critical role played by a little-known group called the "Ducks," a tight-knit band of six alumni determined to see a deaf president at Gallaudet. Deaf President Now! details how they urged the student leaders to ultimate success, including an analysis of the reasons for their achievement in light of the failure of many other student movements. This fascinating study also scrutinizes the lasting effects of this remarkable episode in "the civil rights movement of the deaf." Deaf President Now! tells the full story of the insurrection at Gallaudet University, an exciting study of how deaf people won social change for themselves and all disabled people everywhere through a peaceful revolution.

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front cover of The Week the World Heard Gallaudet
The Week the World Heard Gallaudet
Jack R. Gannon
Gallaudet University Press, 1989
In 200 full-color and black-and-white photographs, The Week the World Heard Gallaudet depicts, day by day, the Deaf President Now! Revolution at Gallaudet University as it unfolded March 6 - 13, 1988. Author Jack Gannon interviewed such main characters as Greg Hlibok, president of the student government, and Elizabeth Zinser, the University’s president for two days. I. King Jordan, Gallaudet’s first deaf president, contributed the epilogue.
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