Do you feel that the Indiana Association of the Deaf (IAD) is making improvements? Do you want to offer your own suggestions of how to improve the organization? Do you want to have some say in IAD’s Board activities, discussions, and committees?

The Indiana Deaf community needs to request a special meeting with the IAD Board to discuss the current progress of improving IAD’s bylaws. Our community needs to feel involved with IAD now, not wait the required sixty (60) days before the biannual conference, according to the bylaws. As of August 2018, IAD has yet to announce a public meeting for 2018, which has concerned many of us over the past year.

 IAD's purpose is to “preserve, protect, and promote the civil, human, and American Sign Language (ASL) linguistic rights of Deaf people in Indiana.” If IAD waits until sixty (60) days before the biannual conference in 2019 to announce changes to the bylaws, those of our community who are not a part of the Board and its committees might view the current IAD board and committee members as not having any interest in sharing ideas or participating in discussions with the community until closer to the time of the conference, which would appear to rob the rest of the Indiana Deaf community of an opportunity to offer our own suggestions about changes to the bylaws.  Furthermore, IAD would appear to prefer to hold such discussions among the Board and committee members only.  A 2018 special meeting would allow the community a chance to express our concerns and offer our suggestions about the bylaws.  Plus, not only would the bylaws committee be able to find out what else might be modified, but the committee would also learn what our community as a whole feels about what else does or does not need to change as we head towards the 2019 conference and beyond.

 In the spirit of wanting IAD to become better and stronger now and in the future for the Indiana Deaf community, IAD must be able to show concern that its members are alert and aware of we all need.  Many of us are concerned about IAD, considering that not much information or progress has been announced since the start of the current term in April 2017. IAD is supposed to be not only a safe organization for all to be involved in terms of gender, sexual orientation, race, hearing identity, and backgrounds but also a service to our community. The minimal information that we have been given as of late alarms us and causes us to realize that our community must become more fully involved to see whether IAD is making progress or simply withholding vital information from the rest of our community.

Sincerely,

Current Indiana Association of the Deaf member