PEN-International Consultant, Patricia Mudgett-DeCaro will represented PEN-International and NTID at the 20th anniversary celebration by delivering a lectures regarding her research on postsecondary education for deaf people in China. In addition, she visited the Changchun School for the Deaf and was given a warm welcome by Chu Chuanxue, the school Principal. The school has 300 students from the Jilin Province and 200 Normal education students. The school has a flat screen television and computer console in each classroom and a server for both school education and school email communication. In addition the school has been designated as the National Career Resource Center for all of China with regard to teaching software developed by teachers all over China and housed at this school. Any teacher throughout China can access these programs freely and for those whose school does not have internet, a large package of CDs will be sent.
The activities at Changchun University included a formal celebration of the 20th year of the Special Education program for disabled persons at Changchun, the 2007 Changchun International Forum of Special Higher Education, and the Annual Meeting of China Special Higher Education Research Institute. The formal celebration was attended by local and national leaders from the CDPF and from higher education. We were also shown the new special education building and looked at the Special Education Exhibition Hall at Changchun University.
The International Forum presentations focused primarily upon both the current state of higher education for individuals who are disabled and future goals. Presentations were given by experts from within China, from Japan, and from the United States, and Hong Kong. All of these presentations were offered with simultaneous interpretation. The second day was the Annual meeting and offered a large number of presentations by attendees from all over China and a few from nearby countries. The presentations of both of these meetings will be published. At the meeting, Patricia Mudgett-DeCaro presented an invited paper (see the paper).
Patricia Mudgett-DeCaro represented James J. DeCaro at the Advisory Committee meeting. This is a group established to advise Changchun regarding the future expansion of their Special Education Center to include new directions� including a sign language training center and sign language research center for the country. At this first meeting, committee members discussed questions of scope and focus for the group.
