Local News in Brief : CSUN’s Deaf Win Games

Deaf students from Cal State Northridge have defeated teams from the nation’s two largest schools for the deaf in a national college bowl tournament.

CSUN’s three-member team, chosen from among 220 students enrolled at its National Center on Deafness, trounced teams selected from among Gallaudet University’s 2,000 students and the National Technical Institute’s 1,300 students.

The victory earlier this month in Charleston, S.C., at the biennial convention of the National Assn. of the Deaf, will help CSUN gain national prominence and meet its goal of enrolling 500 students, said Victor H. Galloway, director of CSUN’s National Center on Deafness.

“It’s making a difference already,” Galloway said in sign language. “The deaf son of a Gallaudet professor came up to me after we won and said the bowl helped him decide to come to CSUN.”

In the competition, the first ever held for deaf students, competitors viewed questions on a large screen and were given 20 seconds to write their answers on transparencies, which were shown on overhead projectors. Team members communicated among themselves by using sign language.