NTID Lands $1.26M to Expand Global Network

The Nippon Foundation of Japan has awarded the Postsecondary Education Network-International, a grant program housed at the National Technical Institute for the Deaf at Rochester Institute of Technology, $1.26 million to steward a worldwide network to improve education and career opportunities for deaf men and women. To date, The Nippon Foundation has awarded PEN-International more than $4.5 million.

Deaf college students in Japan, China, Russia, the Czech Republic, Thailand and the Philippines will continue to benefit from PEN-International's expertise through improved curriculum, increased access, new technology, multi-media labs, and trained faculty members.

"Perhaps our most important achievement is the growing number of faculty members who are successfully sharing their newly developed expertise within their respective countries," said James DeCaro, Ph.D., director of PEN-International.

DeCaro said significant inroads have been made with associates at Tianjin University of Technology in China, De La Salle University-College of St. Benilde in the Philippines, and Bauman Moscow State Technical University in Russia, who have added more than 20 additional institutions to the network.

"This is the ripple effect we have been striving for," DeCaro added.

PEN-International is a multilateral international effort to network colleges and universities that educate people who are deaf. For more information about PEN-International and its global partners visit www.pen.ntid.rit.edu.

NTID is the first and largest technological college in the world for students who are deaf or hard of hearing. One of eight colleges of RIT, NTID offers educational programs and access and support services to 1,100 deaf and hard-of-hearing students from around the world who study, live and socialize with 14,400 hearing students on RIT's Rochester, N.Y., campus. Web address http://www.rit.edu/NTID.

Visit www.rit.edu/NTID/newsroom for more NTID news.