admissions, financial, legal, and operating officers, the dean of student affairs and the Clerc Center chief academic officer are deaf. In line with the same goal of student representativeness, the majority of executive-level appointees are women.
== History ==
=== Early history (1856–1900) ===
In 1856, philanthropist and former United States postmaster general Amos Kendall became aware of several deaf and blind children in Washington, D.C., who were not receiving proper care. Kendall had the courts declare the children to be his wards and donated 2 acres (0.81 ha) of his land to establish housing and a school for them. The school was established in 1857 with considerable efforts being made by several concerned citizens, including Edward Miner Gallaudet, of Washington, D.C. Two houses were used at the school's inception, one purchased and one rented.
In 1857, the 34th Congress passed H.R. 806, which chartered the grammar school as the "Columbia Institution for the Instruction of the Deaf and Dumb and the …
