Gallaudet BOT announces 5-year extension for President Bobbi Cordano; Dr. Glenn Anderson as chair
On Wednesday evening the Gallaudet University Board of Trustees announced that they have extended President Roberta “Bobbi” Cordano’s contract for another five years.
The Trustees also announced that Dr. Glenn B. Anderson will take over as the Board Chair for a two-year term and would replace the former chair, Seth Bravin.
Trustee Jose “Pepe” Cervantes will take over Greg Hlibok’s role as the Chair of the Governance Committee.
It is important to note that Bravin and Hlibok were Kappa Gamma members when they were Gallaudet students. Both will remain on the board, but they no longer hold their leadership roles.
Gallaudet President Cordano suspended the Kappa Gamma fraternity on June 9 and called it the “face of systemic racism.”
Full disclosure: I was a former Kappa Gamma member from when I was a Gallaudet student. Gallaudet University is a sponsor of “The Daily Moth.”
Now, back to the news. It is important to note that the National Black Deaf Advocates (NBDA) sent an open letter to the Gallaudet Board of Trustees in June criticizing President Cordano for using the Kappa Gamma suspension as a deflection from concerns raised by Black students of systemic racism on campus. The NBDA made seven demands in the open letter, with the seventh being the removal of Cordano and for the Board to start a new presidential search for an inclusive deaf president.
After this, President Cordano had an online live-streamed conversation with Dr. Laurene Simms in which they addressed the NBDA open letter. Dr. Simms said she did not support NBDA’s seventh demand and said she would continue to work with Cordano for her to unpack and address racism.
Some time later, Dr. Glenn Anderson posted a public vlog calling on others to support the NBDA.
[Sponsored Video from Convo: https://bit.ly/2RyMogR]
At the end of June, the Board of Trustees announced that two Black Deaf board members have resigned: Claudia Gordon and Duane Halliburton. There was a third Board member who resigned, a hearing white man named James F.X. Payne.
Gallaudet University has since posted a microsite in which they outlined their anti-racism vision and commitment. Several members of Gallaudet’s executive team have posted vlogs in which they made commitments to dismantle systemic racism.
Two weeks ago, on July 16, President Cordano said in a vlog that she would commit to doing anti-racism such as addressing the conduct of officers towards Black students and students of color, challenges in their human resource system, and challenges students face in the classroom and other parts of the university experience. She also said it was not her intention to blame Kappa Gamma for systemic racism at Gallaudet but suspended it because of its plan to reintroduce the use of robes.
Things were somewhat quiet for the past two weeks. The Board of Trustees had a virtual retreat on July 20 and 21 and that’s when they decided to make Dr. Anderson a Board Chair and to execute President Cordano’s new five-year contract.
The Trustees said they felt President Cordano’s management of the Covid-19 pandemic and her commitment to support the university’s anti-racism work are demonstrations of her leadership.
Dr. Anderson used to be on the Board of Trustees, serving from 1989 to 2005 (16 years) with 11 years as a chair. The bylaws of the Board of Trustees do mention that a Trustee member can only serve three three-year terms and if they are re-elected to a fourth term, they can serve until they have a successor. Dr. Anderson had a successor and became a “Trustee Emeritus,” which allowed him to have a voice on the Board, but the bylaws do not allow an Emeritus to be counted as a member of the Board. I have reached out to the Board of Trustees to clarify what process was used to appoint Dr. Anderson because it is unclear.
So, this is a lot that is happening with Gallaudet. I am working on collecting some community members’ responses to the above, and will be posting a follow-up story hopefully tomorrow. Feel free to share your thoughts here in the comments, and I may share some of them tomorrow.