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345 “Globaleyes”: A Partnership Between The Nippon Foundation (Japan) and the National Technical Institute for the Deaf at Rochester Institute of Technology (United States) James J. DeCaro IN 2001, The Nippon Foundation of Japan and the National Technical Institute for the Deaf (NTID) at Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) came together and constructed a vision— a global network to improve the postsecondary education of people who are deaf. Recognizing that education, government, business, and industry are confronted with myriad challenges of globalization, these two organizations saw the need to form a collaborative that would address postsecondary education with “globaleyes.” As a result, the foundation and NTID formed the Postsecondary Education Network International (PEN-International). Internationally, there are a limited number of postsecondary education programs for people who are deaf or hard of hearing, particularly in developing countries. In an effort to address the postsecondary education needs of men and women who are deaf, The Nippon Foundation established a series of endowed scholarships in the United States for deaf men and women from the developing world. The foundation established these scholarships to provide people who are deaf with an education so they could return to their home countries, become role models, and serve as leaders in the deaf community of their respective countries. The scholarships were considered as much a long-term investment in the future of the countries’ deaf populations as an investment in the recipients of the scholarships. The actual outcome, however, proved to be quite different from the original intent. For the most part, scholarship recipients successfully completed their degrees but chose not to return home. Rather, they remained in the United States and pursued their careers. Although that path was of tremendous benefit to each individual scholarship recipient, it had little or no effect in the home country—except to propagate a “brain drain.” That is, some of the best and brightest deaf people left their countries for a postsecondary education and never returned home. This trend led NTID and The Nippon Foundation to partner in an effort to create a network that would improve postsecondary education, primarily in developing countries, so students could receive high-quality education at home that would allow them to enter society and the workplace to compete with their hearing peers. PEN-International established three operational goals to achieve this end in participating countries: 346 G L O B A L E Y E S • Improve teaching, learning, curriculum development, and instructional development. • Increase the application of information technology and instructional technology in the teaching and learning process. • Expand career education opportunities for deaf and hard of hearing men and women internationally. NTID AND THE NIPPON FOUNDATION NTID and The Nippon Foundation were able to form this partnership because the mission, goals, and objectives of each organization were addressed by PEN-International. NTID For the past 40 years, RIT, through its college NTID, has been educating students who are deaf or hard of hearing on a campus that was designed primarily for people who are hearing. NTID is one of the eight colleges of RIT—a major national technological university. At RIT, approximately 1,100 deaf and hard of hearing men and women study and live with their 14,000 hearing peers. NTID supports close to 500 deaf or hard or hearing students who are mainstreamed with their hearing peers in the academic mainstream in one of the other seven colleges of RIT (close to 75% of these in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics curricula). The university has the largest number of mainstreamed postsecondary-level deaf or hard of hearing students in the world. To serve these men and women who are deaf or hard of hearing, the institute employs more than 120 sign language interpreters and more than 50 captioners. The other 600 students study within NTID for sub-baccalaureate associate degrees in paraprofessional fields with their peers who are deaf or hard of hearing. In effect, NTID serves as a national technical community college for these men and women. For 40 years then, NTID has been honing pedagogy, support services, access services, and instructional technology for students who are deaf and hard of hearing in the educational mainstream and in self-contained classes and programs. Because a basic mission of NTID is “to share its knowledge and expertise through outreach and other information dissemination programs,”1 it was determined that NTID should reach out to other countries around the world with proven strategies that could be adapted or adopted for...

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