American School For The Deaf Alumni Hope To Save Iconic Building

From: Hartford Courant - Oct 1, 2012

By JULIE STAGIS, jstagis@courant.com
The Hartford Courant

WEST HARTFORD ——
In May, the American School for the Deaf broke ground on a $20 million, 60,000-square-foot facility at the top of its great lawn on North Main Street, just yards in front of Gallaudet Hall.

Along with the decision to construct the state-of-the-art building came another that saddened many in the school community – Gallaudet, the symbol of America's first school for the deaf since 1921, would be torn down.

Although construction on the new building is underway, a group of mostly out-of-state alumni has started a petition to save the stately 91-year-old red-brick building with its two-story cupola.

The Concerned Alumni Committee posted a petition on Change.org about a month ago that asks the ASD board of directors to postpone the demolition to give the group a chance to find a way to preserve the hall. It had 533 signatures as of Monday afternoon.

About 84 of the signatures were verified as alumni, according to Marilyn Rettig, the school's director of institutional advancement.

Jean Coltart of Maine, a 1964 graduate who is leading the charge to save the building, said the group wants to save Gallaudet because of its historical significance.

"It's a world-famous landmark representing ASD as the first school for the deaf in the United States," Coltart said. "Gallaudet Hall is the national symbol for deaf education in the deaf community."

The school maintains that restoring Gallaudet would be "prohibitively expensive," according to Rettig. It would cost between $37 million and $42 million to fix the building, which was shut down by the fire marshal about three years ago, she said, because of numerous code violations and asbestos.

Only the cafeteria is still used by students. Classes are held in portable rooms and other buildings around campus.

Moreover, Gallaudet is too big for the school's current population, and doesn't meet students' needs, Rettig said. Enrollment peaked at 500 in the mid-1970s but has since declined to 200 students.

The building contains many small classrooms and is not wired for modern technological advancements.

The Concerned Alumni group said the school didn't contact enough alumni before moving forward with the project, and that the members found out about the plans just a couple months ago.

Rettig said the school did its due diligence before starting the construction project and deciding to demolish Gallaudet. Information was posted online and distributed through a weekly email newsletter, and the project was featured in the school's annual report, she said.

Alumni, funders, neighbors, parents, students and staff were told of the plans and invited to campus, she said.

Members of the Concerned Alumni Committee are meeting with the school's board of directors on Oct. 19 to discuss possible solutions.

The group hopes to secure funding to renovate it the building, perhaps for a different use, Concerned Alumni member Jane Golightly said.

But the school hopes to show the alumni that saying goodbye to their beloved building is the only way to move forward.

"We're going to listen to what they have to say and try to make them understand. Our goal is to serve our students," Rettig said. "If we could have done that with Gallaudet Hall, we would have loved to.

"We're not trying to minimize how the alums feel," she said. "We just need to serve the best interests of the school, and the future of the school."

© 2012, The Hartford Courant