Children's Instructional Summer Program (CISP)

Please call 202/651-5591 for questions or concerns. Also, you can email, cisp.summerprogram@gallaudet.edu for more information

Registration for Parents: Closed

Summer Job Application: Closed

ANNOUNCEMENT

The great news is that the camp is still running this coming summer 2013. The Children's Instructional Summer Camp (CISP) has a new director, Sandy McLennon who will replace Anita Marchitelli who served as the director for more than 30 years. Anita retired last fall.

Sandy is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Physical Education and Recreation here at Gallaudet University in Washington, DC. She will work with staff, specialists, counselors, campers and parents from now on to July 26, 2013.

The 2013 Children's Instructional Summer Program (CISP) registration for children ages 4-12, begins Monday, February 25, 2013, for Gallaudet Employees and Alumni, and on Monday, March 4, 2013, for non-Gallaudet Employees.

Camp Dates: June 24, 2013-July 26, 2013

Where: Gallaudet University Campus-TBA

PLEASE NOTE: Camp fills quickly, to ensure your child's space, we encourage you to sign-up quickly.

***NOTICE: Parents, this summer the CISP will be last. We, staff, will look forward to serve our best to your child/children***

CISP and Personal Discovery

Over the next few months, the Physical Education and Recreation Department will be working with a consulting company to develop a multi-year business plan that will identify how the Personal Discovery Program and CISP can become self-supporting. The business plan may indicate that we need to reduce services while we reorganize. The long-range goal is to strengthen the Personal Discovery Program and CISP to assure that services will continue. The target date for delivery of the consultant’s report, including the business plan, is May 30, 2013.

The bottom line is that the programs are here to stay but how they will operate may change because of even-tightening fiscal and personnel resources at the University. We have to find a way to enhance our revenue and other means of support for the programs. This is why we are asking the consultant to help us look into this matter in order to ensure that the programs survive in a sustainable manner. Simply, if we did not care about the programs, they would have been left to slow but assured collapse that would have ended the programs. I understand that change can be difficult and threatening to some people but we are committed to having the CISP and Discovery program operate sustainably.

History

The Children's Instructional Summer Program (CISP) was founded by Professor Dorothy Hamberg, in 1968. Dorothy was a member of the Physical Education and Recreation Department at Gallaudet and was in charge of all Physical Education summer programs. She passed away in June of 1984. The Program was one of her great loves and also the first in the country to mainstream both deaf and hearing children.

Anita Marchitelli, Program Director since 1984, is an Associate Professor of the Department of Physical Education and Recreation. Anita worked for Dorothy as the Assistant Director to the CISP Program for 11 years. Under Anita's guidance, the program has continued to give university students, especially physical education and recreation majors, the opportunity to work with hearing and deaf children and give the sons and daughters of our students, faculty, staff and members of the local community an opportunity to learn from, play with, and work with each other in a non-threatening and supportive environment.

Philosophy of the Children's Instructional Summer Program (CISP)

Our philosophy is to bring hearing and deaf children and staff together from the local and campus communities. In this environment they all learn to work and play together in a non-threatening supportive arena where unconditional love and non-judgment is promoted.

The CISP program not only offers individuals jobs and work related experiences, but also brings together the entire Gallaudet and local community. Our children are exposed to different cultures and languages as well as have the opportunity to experience many activities and have fun communicating through sign language, body language, lip reading and mime.

The CISP program promotes the concept of community within the campus and local community with the focus on children. (It takes a community to raise a child). The program gives a chance for hearing and deaf children to be exposed to each other with primarily deaf counselors. The environment is one of sensitivity and understanding of the needs of each individual child and staff person. Because the program is founded on unconditional love and non-judgment the children and staff all grow. Our children develop and learn motor skills, swimming, dance, cooperative games, discovery, art, and sign language through total emersion.

The hearing and deaf cultures come closer together while developing a better understanding of each other's needs through this instructional program. Our deaf and hearing staff and our children are given many opportunities to develop creativity, imagination, and teamwork while in the setting of a "real world" environment.

The CISP program provides extensive learning experiences for many of our physical education, education, recreation and psychology majors. They are given the opportunity to learn to function successfully in a hearing and deaf environment, using a wide range of communication techniques with 120 children. The results of this successful and wonderful experience is that these majors feel comfortable out in the hearing world working with deaf and hearing people alike.

All participating individuals inside and outside of Gallaudet's community gain valuable experiences interacting in a mainstreamed program. Most importantly the needs of the deaf become better understood and as a result, more support is given. The entire community comes together as one so our children can be given the opportunity to grow.