U.S. Education Official to Head Center on Deafness

A federal education official has been selected to head the National Center on Deafness at Cal State Northridge, succeeding Herb Larson, who is retiring after a 42-year career in education of the deaf.

CSUN officials said they hired Merri C. Pearson, who supervised more than $61 million in federal grants as a program officer at the U.S. Department of Education and taught at Gallaudet University, the nation’s oldest university for the deaf. A formal announcement is expected today.

Pearson is hearing-impaired and signs fluently, but unlike Larson, who is profoundly deaf, she can hear speech. She will be the center’s first female director and at 32, its youngest.

As director, Pearson will continue CSUN’s system of mainstreaming hearing-impaired students by supplying and training interpreters, technological assistance and tutors.

“I am young. I am a teacher,” she said. “I am not a Wonder Bread educator. I think diversity is important--we all have a lot to learn from each other.”

Pearson is expected to use her contacts in Washington to increase funding for the CSUN program, which has an annual budget of $2 million. She will also coordinate a federally funded network of similar support programs at mainstream colleges and universities in California, Idaho, Washington, Oregon, Colorado, Alaska, New Mexico, Nevada, Wyoming, Utah and Arizona. Her salary will be about $85,000 a year.