Published on 01/24/2013 – 10:48 am
Written by Gabriel Dillard
The Business Journal
A pioneer in electronic communication for the deaf has pledged a $1.5 million gift to Fresno State, the university announced today.
Photo: Joseph Slotnick has pledged a gift of more than $1 million to The Silent Garden at Fresno State.
Computer programmer and Harvard University alumnus Joseph Slotnick’s gift will benefit “The Silent Garden,” a project within the Department of Communicative Disorders and Deaf Studies to promote communication for the deaf and hard of hearing.
Slotnick, who has been deaf since the age of three, was involved in the development of teletypewriter technology to help deaf people communicate over the telephone. He was the fifth deaf person to ever attend Harvard.
The gift will establish the Joseph S. Slotnick Distinguished Professorship in The Silent Garden. Slotnick said in a Fresno State-produced video that the gift is meant to help connect parents and their children.
“That’s why I’m able to make this commitment to support The Silent Garden so that parents of deaf and hard-of-hearing children will have the things to work with to help their deaf children,” Slotnick said.
Fresno State Professor Emeritus Paul W. Ogden, who established The Silent Garden, is a long-time friend of Slotnick.
Source: www.thebusinessjournal.com/news/education/4720-1m-plus-gift-pledged-to-fresno-state-deaf-program
