Gallaudet University - national institution for deaf education

Gallaudet University was chartered by Congress in 1864 as the Columbia Institution for the Instruction of the Deaf and Dumb and the Blind and is named for educator Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet. Edward Miner Gallaudet served as the school's first president and guided its development into the world’s only university designed to be barrier-free for deaf and hard of hearing students. The campus has been a central site for deaf education, advocacy, and leadership in Washington, D.C.