Deaf people were thrown out of the AG Bell exhibit hall left and right over the past two days, according to the blogs. I can understand it from the conference planner’s perspective, though.
If you’re planning a conference and trying to get people to attend, one of the draws can be a well-attended exhibit hall. People will be more likely to come if you have a wide variety of information on products and services. So it makes sense, at least to the conference planner, to restrict the exhibit hall to attendees only.
Exhibitors will tell a different story, however. They don’t want anything getting in the way of potential customers. I’m all in favor of exhibit halls that are open to one and all. The more the merrier. I recall some conferences where everyone was in workshops and we exhibitors were twiddling our thumbs for hours.
The intermediate approach, and the sensible one too, is to make the hall free for attendees and charge a fee at the door for others who just want to look around.
Someone made a good point: AG Bell was quick to kick deaf people out of the exhibit hall, but would they treat an audiologist who stumbles across the event the same way?
It is unfortunate how AG Bell reacted to this two-day protest. At times confrontational and at times dismissive, the organization missed a good opportunity to show some class and instead came off looking foolish and defensive and embarrassed.
1 Comment
December 4, 2008 at 3:54 pm
Hello everyone,
I am a an ESE teacher for Math and ELA at an alternative school (middle and high). I have had the privilege of having two hearing impaired students, and another on the way. In the last two months, I have learned an astonishing amount of sign language. I even taught my first full 90 minute period this week signing and speaking. However, I want to learn more so that I become more fluent and fluid. The students/interpreter have been extremely eager to teach me; sadly, neither of my students have parents that have a desire to learn sign language and have little to no communication with them. If ANYone knows of a place in Jacksonville, Florida that offers free classes, PLEASE let me know.