Donna Williams: They really did it. They Shut the Centre for Deaf Studies

Thought-provoking metaphor and excellent performance. Congratulations. Poetry and art are also part of the legacy of the CDS.

Duh! I’ve done it again! I’m going cross-eyed…. Humber Bridge not Number Bridge.

The Centre was not specifically for Deaf or hearing people, it was a fully integrated Centre with BSL as the main language, which meant that Deaf and hearing researchers, tutors and students were on equal footing, making it fairly unique. It won funding from various places; the money from the EEC can be a handout or a grant depending on how it’s looked at.

I agree that Deaf people need to learn viable skills, but if they are academically minded, why should they not be able to study and research something close to their heart and of potential benefit to others in both Deaf and hearing worlds, i.e. uncovering linguistics of BSL (a recognised language of the UK, regardless of how it’s referred to) and other sign languages around the world, or looking at deaf communities in other countries and how they survive.

There are several successful D/deaf academics that I can name, all of whom have proven they are good by their publications and their continued employment at various institutions, so I’m not sure what your point is re sinecure jobs. And yes, there was a deaf woman, Jane Cordell, who worked for the Foreign Office and rose to become a senior diplomat before being blocked from a overseas posting because her access needs were ‘too expensive’. Deaf BSL users can do the highest-level jobs, with interpreters, such as those the CDS turned out, but if they are blocked from doing so because it’s not convenient or too expensive then what is the point of Deaf people learning those viable skills you were talking about? Places like the CDS did vital research and showed why Deaf people should be on an equal footing i.e. linguistics of BSL comparable to spoken languages, Deaf people equally capable of qualitative research when given full access, etc etc.

I’ve met deaf BSL users who were company directors, self-employed tradesmen, secretaries, researches, teachers, deaf relay interpreters, communicator guides, writers, academics, presenters, activists and actors, so if anything, I think times have moved on quite a lot and deaf people, whether they use BSL or not, can aim a lot higher, thanks in part to work by places like the CDS who proved that BSL has its own grammar etc and generally proved that D/deaf people are not stupid.

For the hearing graduates, I’ve seen them end up as interpreters, a director of support services at a college, researchers, academics, support workers for deaf people with additional needs and tutors. The Deaf Studies course (and the requirement to learn BSL) were hardly useless.

You have an impressive CV, regardless of whether you used BSL or not. For me, Deaf Studies helped me find my identity and gave me the in depth knowledge of deafness I needed to understand why I felt so isolated in the hearing world – I am quite deaf despite the world’s best efforts to tell me I was hearing impaired, and BSL was a lifesaver because frankly the hearing world is almost totally inaccessible. There is an article by Asher Woodman Worrell somewhere on this website where he explains the value of Deaf Studies departments from his perspective, very similar to mine.

I give you all credit for thriving in the hearing world but for the younger generation coming up, surrounded and isolated by the hearing world, Deaf Studies could give important information and survival skills, which you allude to yourself.

Learning BSL saved my life. I cannot understand speech unless under very specific conditions, and in the real world, those specific conditions are few and far between. BSL however, requires only a clear view of the signer and not necessarily that they be standing within ten feet, in good light, without shade, with no background noise, with no regional accent, without moving their head and speaking in a clear, even tone, conditions that hearing speakers seem to find difficult to remember / cope with. BSL is a language that is used and relied upon every day and as I said above, a range of jobs are available to both deaf and hearing deaf studies BSL-using graduates. If nothing else, there will always be a need for quality BSL interpreters.

A signing Deaf person could take the non-interpreter route (the CDS, like the Deaf Studies course I did at UCLan, offered two streams – one for those intending to be terps, with more emphasis on learning BSL and translation skills and one general) in order to learn more about the background of deafness and the deaf community, like I did. I learned about deaf history, sign linguistics, and in my first lecture, I learned more about my type of deafness than I had in 19 years of dealing with audiologists. I have recently done my MA, which whilst not Deaf Studies per se, (I did Ethics and Social Philosophy) I borrowed from it for my dissertation, and any future Phd will likely be a combined Deaf Studies / Medical Ethics cross-departmental project.

I would LOVE for courses in commercial skills such as physics, maths, electronics, engineering, English etc to be taught in ways that Deaf people can understand. If there were courses like that aimed at Deaf people, that would be great.

This is a separate issue though, in that Deaf Studies is its own subject, aimed at anyone who wanted to learn, deaf or hearing. I believe that Deaf Studies has its own value, and should be preserved. The CDS was one of the more successful Centres of its kind and if the Uni of Bristol genuinely had no money to sustain it, that might be understandable, but given what they are throwing at this new development, the money it would have taken to save the CDS is peanuts.

This is why I have composed the above poem (Thanks Robert!) and why I think closing the CDS was an academic crime. Best wishes, DeafFirefly