Presidency
Jordan became president of the university on March 13, 1988, after the Deaf President Now Protest. He holds eleven honorary degrees and is the recipient of numerous awards, among them: the Presidential Citizen's Medal, the Washingtonian of the Year Award, the James L. Fisher Award from the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE), the Larry Stewart Award from the American Psychological Association, and the Distinguished Leadership Award from the National Association for Community Leadership. In 1990, President Bush appointed Jordan Vice Chair of the President's Committee on Employment of People with disabilities.
On campus, he was widely applauded for his successful efforts to increase funding, including funds for the expansion and construction of two new large-scale centers for education research and support.
On Thursday, September 1, 2005, Jordan announced his intentions to retire from the presidency effective December 31, 2006.
Jordan became the subject of controversy himself when he defended the controversial decision made on May 1, 2006 by the Board of Trustees to appoint Dr. Jane Fernandes as president designate. The announcement of her selection set off a campus-wide protest.
Critics claim that Fernandes was not highly regarded by both the faculty and students, and many deeply suspect Jordan orchestrated her ascension for personal reasons. Jordan, taking a line from page 10 of the 1995 book, "Deaf President Now" (by Christiansen and Barnartt), publicly accused some critics of rejecting Fernandes because she was allegedly not "deaf enough". They replied that such a charge is off-base, because Jordan himself was accepted as president, even though he did not become deaf until he was 21. The protesters insisted that they protested for more profound reasons, such as Fernandes' character, leadership, and policies.
On October 13, 2006, later dubbed Black Friday, Jordan ordered mass arrests of Gallaudet University students at the 6th street gate. A total of 135 student-protesters were arrested. The bail was originally set at $250 as requested by Jordan. The D.C. Metropolitan Police later decided to set it at $50. This set off even larger protest the following day estimated at 1,000 people.
On October 29, 2006 the Gallaudet Board of Trustees met and voted to rescind Fernandes's contract to be the Ninth President of Gallaudet.
He retired from the Gallaudet faculty in December 2008.
Read more about this topic: I. King Jordan
Famous quotes containing the word presidency:
“Some of the offers that have come to me would never have come if I had not been President. That means these people are trying to hire not Calvin Coolidge, but a former President of the United States. I can’t make that kind of use of the office.... I can’t do anything that might take away from the Presidency any of its dignity, or any of the faith people have in it.”
—Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933)
“I once told Nixon that the Presidency is like being a jackass caught in a hail storm. You’ve got to just stand there and take it.”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)
“... how often the Presidency has simply meant that a man shall be abused, distrusted, and worked to death while he is filling the great office, and that he should drop into unmerited oblivion when he has left the White House ...”
—M. E. W. Sherwood (1826–1903)