Professional Luncheon Presentation - Part 1

by Cheryl Heppner

Editor: The luncheon speaker was Dr. Alan Herwitz, the head of the National Technical Institute of the Deaf (NTID). Here's Cheryl's report on his comments.

This is part one of three parts.

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Here's Part One

Here's Part Two

Here's Part Three

Alan Hurwitz is the Vice President of Rochester Institute of Technology, and the CEO and Dean of the National Technical Institute of the Deaf (NTID). He holds a Bachelor of Science degree from Washington University and a Master of Science degree from St. Louis University. He got both of those degrees majoring in Electrical Engineering. He also holds a Doctorate in Teaching and Curriculum at the University of Rochester. Alan has been the president of the National Association of the Deaf, and he presently serves on the Board of Directors for the Rochester School for the Deaf. He is a former Board member of TDI.

The Invitation

About two weeks ago I was traveling in Spain with my wife after the World Federation of the Deaf convention there. I brought my BlackBerry with me; maybe that was my mistake. One night while we were there, I got an e-mail from Claude Stout, and he said "Since you're coming to TDI, would you mind being the luncheon speaker?" And I thought, well, my goodness, I wouldn't have enough time to prepare for the talk.

I asked what he would you like me to address. He said, "well, just throw out a few things." So I thought I'd start here with a little bit about my background, my experience on the TDI Board, and my involvement with TDI, as an analogy for the challenges faced by TDI and NTID, and future directions and where we think we should be going.

Growing Up Deaf

First of all, who am I? Well, I was born deaf, and both my parents are deaf. Believe it or not, I was born in Iowa. Many people believe that I must have been born and raised in New York City, and that's not true. I remember one time I was giving a talk at the Iowa Association for the Deaf, and I said, "I'm always proud to say that I'm from Iowa." One deaf person stood up and asked, "If you're proud that you're from Iowa, then why did you move out?" I said, "I moved out so I could promote how great the state of Iowa is."

When I was growing up, there was no way of communicating with people. We had interpreters, but we didn't use the word "interpreter." There was a hearing person who was more like an intermediary to pass on what I had said and tell me what the other person had said and vice versa.

Sometimes there was an emergency where my parents needed to make a phone call. We would go across the street and ask the neighbor if we could use their telephone. That's how we dealt with that in those days.

Once at 3:00 am, there was a family crisis, a health issue. My mother and I ran over to the house of our next-door neighbor. We knocked on her door, and when she opened it, she asked, "What in the world is going on?" I said, "Could you please help us call the doctor?" She ushered us into her home and made the phone call for us. And that was my experience of having access to the hearing world.

Whenever we wanted to visit friends, we would get in the car and drive all the way over to their house. They might live far away. It would be a surprise visit and sometimes they wouldn't be home. We'd write a note and leave it on the door, saying that we'd see them another time. These were the days before we had TTYs and the Internet.

Interpreter Services

I went to the deaf residential school, then I went to a public hearing high school. There were no interpreters, so I feel like I went to school during what we call the Dark Ages. Trying to make do with whatever you could get from class was what you did. Interpreters were a luxury and not part of my experience until I got to my doctorate degree program.

The first time I ever had an interpreter in the class, I was stunned, just was completely stunned. I didn't realize what I had done without all those years. I just took it for granted, and was passive. I just barely got by with Bs and Cs. When I had sign language interpreters, I got all the material, and that really changed my world.

Early TV, Movies and the Green Box

I remember watching many of our favorite television programs, when I was growing up, in the black-and-white television days. We would imagine all the plots of the stories that were taking place by the action on the television. There were no captions. We'd go to the picture show, the movies, and guess the plot. When captioning finally came along, if we revisited those old programs we saw in the days before captions, we thought our own version of the stories was much better.

Over time things started to advance. There was the teletype machine from Western Union that looked sort of like a mailbox, a huge machine that was converted into teletypewriters. Bob Weitbrecht, a very good friend of mine, invented a modem we called the green box. I still have the modem at my home. I will not part with it. Other modems I will let go of, but that green box I hold on to. I cherish it.

When I was living in St. Louis, Paul Taylor was a friend of mine. I'm sure many of you know him. He got the very first green box in the city of St. Louis, and he wanted three more families to join him. I was resistant to that idea. It was the chicken or the egg syndrome. I thought, if I buy this, then I won't really have anyone to use it with; I'd rather wait until the whole community has them. My wife went to the bank, withdrew the money, and brought home the machine. I was grateful she did. It was the model 103 that had the tape where you could pre-write your messages. Whenever I'd come home from work, my wife would have a whole roll of messages going back and forth between her and Sally Taylor.

Establishing the First TTY Network

In St. Louis, we also established the very first TTY network. It grew to over 100 Deaf people having TTYs. We established a formal organization called the St. Louis TTY Organization and addressed many important issues that arose. There was the issue of how to call hearing people through the TTYs, so we thought, well, why don't we ask for a couple of hearing volunteers to do an experiment with a teletype machine installed in their home. They could make a call to the hearing counterparts that we wanted to reach as an experiment. They agreed. And now we have advanced so much further to VRS, Video Relay Services.

Exponential Growth

If you were to chart it, exponential growth took place in technological advances with video relay services. For example, I've got my BlackBerry. I flew to Siberia. That's way out there on the other side of the world. My BlackBerry works beautifully. I didn't have one issue at all. I had five bars, no dropped signals, fantastic.

Two years ago when I was in Russia on a previous trip, the BlackBerry didn't work, but in that two-year period things had advanced so much that fiber optics have infiltrated everywhere on the planet, and the BlackBerry works just fine. It works in China. When I went to Japan, I showed them my BlackBerry, which I was very proud of. They said "It's a little outdated, Alan. Here is a newer model. Take a look at this."

So my BlackBerry didn't work in Korea or Japan because their technology is so far ahead. Two months ago I went to Hungary -- Budapest -- and I met with some deaf people there who are leaders of deaf organizations in that country. They were trying to make plans for a luncheon that was to take place the next day. They opened up their cell phones and started signing to a person with another cell phone. That technology's in place already, and we don't have that here in the States. What's the matter with America? They've got that already and we don't. They assured me that we would have that technology soon. When the G3 arrived here, they were already in G4 mode.

This morning's panel about high-definition television was fascinating. What the implications will be for the future are staggering.

Here's Part One

Here's Part Two

Here's Part Three