Jane Fernandes

Jane Fernandes (born 1956) is an American educator and social justice advocate who was president of Guilford College from 2014 to 2021 and then president of Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio. Born deaf in Worcester, Massachusetts, she studied French and comparative literature at Trinity College and earned her master's degree and doctorate in comparative literature at the University of Iowa, learning American Sign Language as a graduate student. In 1990 she became the first deaf woman to lead an American school designed for deaf, hard of hearing, blind and deaf-blind students, at the Hawaii School for the Deaf and the Blind, where she also set up an Interpreter Education Program at Kapiolani Community College. At Gallaudet University she chaired Sign Communication, served as vice president of the National Deaf Education Center, leading projects on literacy, the move from high school to postsecondary life, and family involvement, and became provost in 2000. Her selection as the intended next Gallaudet president in 2006 drew protests from students, staff and alumni.