Jean Andrews, professor of deaf studies and deaf education, already had earned
Lamar University’s top three honors, as well as the prestigious statewide
Piper Professorship. This fall, she became one of three professors in The Texas
State University System to be honored as a 2008 regents’ professor.
Andrews is coordinator of Lamar’s internationally
recognized graduate programs in deaf education and has
served as president of the governing board of the Texas
School for the Deaf.
The system’s board of regents bestowed the new honor,
which recognizes “exceptional and outstanding” professors
who have achieved excellence in teaching, research and
publication, and community service, demonstrating, in
performance of their duties, an unwavering dedication to
their students, universities and communities.
A member of the Lamar faculty since 1988, Andrews
earned honors as distinguished faculty lecturer in 1996,
university scholar in 1998 and university professor in 2000. In
2004, the Minnie Stevens Piper Foundation awarded her the
Piper Professorship, conferred each year on just 10 faculty
members across the state—and to only 11 Lamar professors in
the 85-year history of the university.
The office of regents’ professor is a lifetime designation,
honoring tenured faculty members who have been
acknowledged by their peers and students as exceptional
and recommended by their university presidents, the
system chancellor and directors of the TSUS Foundation.
Andrews received the regents’ professor medallion, a
$5,000 award “and the gratitude and admiration of the
board of regents.”
“I’ve enjoyed studying, teaching and writing about
language, literacy and deaf studies issues with students and
colleagues at Lamar,” Andrews said. “I’d like to thank my
husband, Jim Phelan ’71, ’84, and my Lamar colleagues,
especially those in the Department of Deaf Studies/Deaf
Education, for their support.”
Andrews has achieved excellence by her work through
the undergraduate and graduate programs at Lamar
University, according to a regents’ resolution, “helping to
raise the prominence of the program in deaf studies and
deaf education to a national level.”
She has trained
deaf-education
teachers who are
employed across the
United States,
including Puerto
Rico, and worked
with her colleagues
to develop the only
program in the U.S.
that trains Hispanic teachers of the deaf. She has also worked
with students now in administrative positions at universities
and special-education programs in Saudi Arabia and China.
The resolution cites Andrews’ linguistic and psycholinguistic
research in developing bilingual methods for teaching
English literacy to deaf children who communicate primarily
in American Sign Language, as well as her authorship of
numerous publications, including books for children such as
the Flying Fingers anthology, the adventure series of a young
hero and his friends who solve mysteries while they work out
conflicts that arise between the hearing and deaf cultures, as
well as CD-ROM software featuring literacy materials in
three languages for deaf children (ASL, English and Spanish).
She has co-authored with psychologists two textbooks that
examine psychological, educational and sociological aspects of
deaf people. One textbook has been translated into Chinese.
“Dr. Andrews’ advocacy for access and support services
for deaf students, her innovative use of multimedia technology
in the classroom, and her service to the community as a
member and president of the governing board of the Texas
School for the Deaf in Austin have made her an exemplary
teacher, scholar, mentor and community leader,” according to
the resolution.
