Hearing solution helps prof teach

Samuel Gaertner, professor of psychology, hears classroom discussions picked up by overhead microphones, which are transmitted to earphones he wears while teaching.

1:46 p.m., Oct. 17, 2005--Samuel Gaertner, professor of psychology, likes discussion in the classroom and interaction with both the undergraduate and graduate students he teaches, but an increasing loss of hearing over the years was making this more difficult.

“I had a chair on wheels so I could scoot around and be closer to students, but this made me and the students somewhat uncomfortable,” he said.

Then he had an idea. He frequently attended plays at the Du Pont Theatre, previously the Playhouse, in Wilmington and used the headsets there for hearing-impaired patrons.

“The theatre used microphones on the actors and an infrared system to enable members of the audience with hearing problems to hear more clearly,” Gaertner said. “It occurred to me that a system using overhead microphones in a classroom would be helpful to me or to anyone else who had difficulty hearing.”

Gaertner called Dennis Williams, associate director of Information Technologies, University Media Services, with his idea, and that one telephone call started the wheels turning. To determine what kind of system might work, Willliams and Gaertner visited interactive communication facilities in Pearson Hall and then the Early Learning Center, where overhead microphones in a classroom children can transmit sounds to an observation room.

Williams then contacted the Joe DiMartile, University registrar, and assistant registrar Suzanne Stanley came on board to facilitate funding the project and to find an appropriate classroom.

The system was installed in a Gore Hall classroom. Overhead microphones pick up voices, which are then transmitted to earphones that Gaertner wears.

Grateful for the system that helps his hearing and teaching, Gaertner said he was even more impressed by the cooperation and help he received from a single phone call.

“I didn’t even have to fill out paperwork or any forms,” he said, “and colleagues from other schools were amazed at how easily everything fell into place without a lot of red tape.”

Gaertner was so pleased he decided to write UD President David P. Roselle about his experience, thanking Williams and Stanley in particular for their roles.

“While the system and my hearing are not perfect, the system makes a tremendous difference in the quality of what I can hear in the classroom. It’s wonderful!” he wrote.

He concluded his letter by writing, “Finally, I would also like to thank you and other people in the administration for nurturing an atmosphere at the University of Delaware that makes what could have been a very complicated process, easy and seamless across different units.”

A graduate of Brooklyn College, Gaertner received his doctorate from the City University of New York and joined the UD faculty in 1970. His research focuses on intergroup relations and prejudice in such settings as a multicultural high school, stepfamilies and corporate mergers and ways to mitigate prejudice. His research was awarded the Gordon Allport Intergroup Relations Prize by the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues of the American Psychological Association.

Article by Sue Moncure
Photo by Kevin Quinlan

E-mail this article

To learn how to subscribe to UDaily, click here.