Head of CSUN Deaf Center Quits Amid Budget Problems

The director of a nationally recognized program for deaf students at Cal State Northridge was asked to resign by campus officials for failing to properly manage funds that pay for classroom interpreters and other services for the deaf, school officials said Sunday.

Victor H. Galloway, himself a graduate of CSUN’s program for deaf students, submitted his resignation Thursday as director of the school’s National Center on Deafness, university spokeswoman Ann Salisbury said.

Galloway had met with top university officials earlier in the week to discuss reports that the center had spent nearly all of its $1.6-million budget for 1989-90 and would run out of money to pay for services before the end of the spring semester, campus officials said.

Herb Larson, administrator of support services at the center, has been appointed acting director of the center, said Dorena Knepper, CSUN’s director of governmental and administrative affairs.

Knepper, acknowledging the center’s financial troubles, described Larson as particularly adept at money management.

She said through a spokeswoman that Larson is charged with “putting the center back on sound footing.”

University officials said Sunday that all of the center’s programs would continue to operate through the end of the fiscal year in June. The university would make up for any shortfall.

Galloway, through his wife, declined to be interviewed Sunday.

The National Center on Deafness, formed in 1963, rose to national prominence as the first program to allow deaf students to attend regular college classes.

Last year, the center moved from the cramped bungalows that it had occupied for 27 years to offices in the campus’ new $2.7-million Jeanne M. Chisholm Hall.

About 200 deaf students are enrolled in the CSUN program annually. They take classes with the assistance of specially trained interpreters and note-takers and study for a broad range of degrees.

Word of the growing financial troubles at the center recently reached the school’s deaf students, who two weeks ago called for a meeting with Galloway.

About 150 students and interpreters attended the meeting to express concern over the program’s finances, campus officials said.

Galloway was criticized for spending more on staff salaries than on student services, campus officials said.

He was appointed director of the National Center on Deafness in 1986 to replace Ray Jones, who was fired by CSUN President James W. Cleary after directing the center for 23 years. School officials said at the time they wanted new leadership with fresh ideas.

Galloway, who has been deaf since infancy, earned a master’s degree through the CSUN National Leadership Training Program for educators of the deaf.

Galloway has undergraduate degrees in math and science from Gallaudet College, a private school for deaf students in Washington.

While working as a research chemist at Lockheed, he started to teach deaf assembly workers basic math and blueprint reading in his spare time.

Eventually, he decided to pursue a career in education of the deaf and enrolled at CSUN.

Galloway was executive director of the Texas School for the Deaf prior to becoming the director at CSUN.