Gallaudet doesn’t want its name in Metro station subtitle

Gallaudet University students are mobilizing to oppose the idea of moving their university’s name into a subtitle on the nearby Metro station. They’re creating a petition in favor of “NoMa-Gallaudet U.”

At lunchtime on Monday, students gathered on campus for a brief talk by student body government leaders and Fred Weiner, the Executive Director of Program Development for the university. Most students attending raised their hands when asked if they use the Metro station.

Speakers gave a brief history of Gallaudet’s involvement with the station. Gallaudet has been in the neighborhood since before much of the neighborhood existed. Recently, the school has been working hard to reassert its connections to the surrounding community. One way to strengthen those connections is visibility. To that end, the leaders want to keep the university’s name on the local Metro station as a primary element.

Weiner noted that the WMATA Board would be discussing station name changes on Thursday. The public will not be able to speak, but a public hearing will follow on October 27th.

In the meantime, the school will be setting up a petition online advocating for the name “NoMa/Gallaudet U.” Weiner noted that “members of the DC Council,” which likely means at least Ward 5 council member Harry Thomas, Jr., favor this name over DDOT’s proposal, “New York Ave-NoMa” with a subtitle of “Gallaudet U.”

The Gallaudet University community believes that theirs should not be the only university in the region to have its name used as merely a subtitle for a station, rather than a part of the primary heading. Actually, 2 other stations with universities on their names, West Falls Church-VT/UVA and Vienna/Fairfax-GMU, also are slated to receive subtitles. However, 8 other stations with universities will not.

David suggested using subtitles for all stations with points of interest, including universities. Interestingly, Weiner mentioned that the university was promised from the beginning that their name would always be part of the station name. While making it part of a subtitle would technically keep that promise, I believe it would not be in the spirit of such an agreement to relegate the school’s name to a secondary role.

What do you think?

Update: The Program Development office at Gallaudet University sent this comment:

When the station was in the planning stages, I. King Jordan, president of Gallaudet at the time, was on the advisory board that supported establishing the station. He participated in the groundbreaking and was in attendance at the opening. Some of the WMATA meetings regarding the station were held at Gallaudet. At one such meeting, the chair of the board, Gladys Mack, committed that Gallaudet would be in the name of the station. Furthermore, advertisers have used the station to target the deaf community, knowing that it is heavily trafficked by Gallaudet students, staff and faculty.