POST January/February 2015

ONE OF EIGHT CHILDREN GROWING
UP IN ST. LOUIS, MO., GERRY BUCKLEY
WAS BORN HARD-OF-HEARING. AS HE
GREW, HIS CONDITION PROGRESSED.
THE MORE HEARING HE LOST, THE
MORE DISCONNECTED HE FELT
FROM THE WORLD AROUND HIM. TO
COPE, HE PRETENDED TO HEAR THE
CONVERSATIONS OF HIS FRIENDS AND
FAMILY AS HE SAT IN SILENCE.
“You act like you understand. You
become a good faker,” he explains. “But I was
becoming increasingly frustrated by the time I
was done with high school.”
After graduating in 1974, Buckley came to
the National Technical Institute for the Deaf,
a college at Rochester Institute of Technology
serving deaf and hard-of-hearing students.
Unlike his experience in his mainstream high
school, he was surrounded by deaf students
just like him, as well as hearing students who
were interested and cared about deaf culture.
It was transformational.
“In high school, I would have to watch
for visual cues. I’d laugh when they laughed,
but I never really knew what was going on,”
he recalls. “I came here, and all of the students
were talking, communicating. You don’t have
to fake it. You can be who you are.”
But the climate outside of NTID wasn’t
as welcoming. As a social work major, he and
his fellow classmates had difficulty getting
placements, even in Rochester. People simply
weren’t ready for a deaf workforce. Buckley
was undeterred.
NTID was a national experiment,
established in 1965 through an act of
Congress. As a young student, Buckley was
reminded that the eyes of the nation were on
him and his peers.
“There was a feeling that we were
breaking barriers. That was our role. That was
our responsibility,” he says.
After graduating and working in state
hospitals and mental health institutes, Buckley
increasingly found that he was educating the
people he served, helping them to become
self-advocates. He channeled this passion
“There was a
feeling that we
were breaking
barriers. That
was our role.
That was our
responsibility.”
into more schooling, obtaining a master’s of
social work from the University of Missouri
and earning a doctorate in special education
from the University of Kansas. For the deaf,
education meant so much more than a
diploma.
“Until we have equivalent degrees, we
can’t speak for ourselves.”
He also got involved in the political
process, lobbying for establishment of deaf
social work positions, and seeking to help
an underserved deaf population dealing
with issues such as suicide, alcoholism, and
domestic abuse.
“There was no mental health system for
the deaf. The system wasn’t serving them. It
didn’t know how,” he remembers.
In 1990, Buckley made the decision to
return to NTID, this time as an educator. He
was again called by a sense of responsibility, to
give back to the school that had given him so
much opportunity. He also felt an even greater
responsibility: One of his three children is
deaf.
“He started bringing me to NTID
functions when I was seven years old,” recalls
Dr. Jennifer Miller, Buckley’s daughter. “He’d
point out a wide variety of deaf role models,
and it really cultivated my interest in coming
here and being a part of the college experience
once I was older.”
Like Buckley’s experience decades before,
Miller felt a sense of belonging in Rochester.
“I was very young, but distinctly
remember feeling shocked by how quickly
we were invited to events and holiday
get-togethers,” she says. “It was thrilling
to understand everything, and strangely
wonderful to be around people who didn’t see
me as different.”
The exposure to deaf culture at NTID and
in Rochester contributed to Miller pursuing
her own dreams, without worrying about
being limited by her deafness. She is now a
veterinarian living in Rochester.
After serving NTID for nearly 20 years,
Buckley was named NTID president and RIT
vice president and dean in 2011. He can think
of no better place for new deaf students to
learn and find a sense of belonging.
“I say Rochester is the only place that
you have to worry about finding people who
don’t sign,” Buckley says, joking that it can
be difficult having a private conversation in
American Sign Language in Rochester, because
so many Rochesterians sign.
“Most places here have learned how to
communicate and be accessible. Because it’s
so comfortable, many students don’t want
to leave, but they should,” he says. “We’re
preparing them to give back. We want them
to go back and work on advocacy for other
opportunities in other cities.”
Buckley stays focused on the future,
always looking for ways that he can positively
impact the deaf community, and not resting
on achievements such as a 94 percent job
placement rate and higher average salaries for
NTID graduates.
Right now, the bulk of his time is spent
working with the students at NTID, preparing
them for a career and life ahead.
“I have the best job in the world. This
place believed enough in me to help me
overcome my doubts. I look at the students,
and I know one day one of them will replace
me. One of them will look up and say, ‘That’s
possible.’”
—Jen Palumbo
Matt Calabrese
Issue 9 January / February 2015 | POST 25