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MEDIA ADVISORY NEW RESOURCE ROOM OPENS DOOR FOR DEAF AND HARD-OF-HEARING COMMUNITY, HONOURS YORK ALUMNUS AND EDUCATOR RON COPE TORONTO, January 12, 1998 -- A new resource centre that will enrich the lives of the deaf and hard of hearing is being established at York University to commemorate the late Ron Cope, a York alumnus and tireless educator and advocate for those with hearing loss. The official opening of the Ron Cope Gateway Resource Room, on Monday January 12, 1998, is one of many events during York's Disabled and Proud: Access Awareness Event 1998, which runs throughout January. As a teacher of special education, Cope's commitment to deaf education went far beyond his own classrooms, and he was a strong believer in the need to take deaf people out of institutions and integrate them into the regular school system. His belief in the need to provide deaf and hard-of-hearing students with the resources to participate in mainstream education led his friends and colleagues to establish the Ron Cope Gateway Resource Room in his honour. "This was Ron's dream, that members of the public and students could freely access the kind of resources we have in the Resource Room, such as print, computer and audiovisual resources, a Web site for the deaf (http://www.yorku.ca/admin/sa/roncope), and a telephone device for the deaf (TTY)," said Joseph Bobyk, a longtime friend of Cope's and the Chair of the Ron Cope Fundraising Committee. Cope earned his Bachelor of Arts from York University in 1973, and went on to receive his master's degree in special education at the University of Toronto. His teaching career began at age nineteen in a tiny one-room schoolhouse in Footes Bay, Muskoka. When he died at age 51 in 1984, he was nearly finished a PhD in special education, and was working as the director of support services for the hearing impaired and for the multi-handicapped at George Brown College of Applied Arts and Technology. The Fundraising Committee has received extraordinary financial support from friends and colleagues of Ron Cope, and has raised more than $60,000 for the Ron Cope Memorial Fund. The Fund will not only help in the operation of the Resource Room, but it will also enable York University to offer the Ron Cope Bursary, an annual bursary for deaf, deafened and hard-of-hearing students. The bursary's value will be between $500 and $1,000, depending on the success of the Memorial Fund. The first student will benefit from the bursary next year. At the opening of the Resource Room, visitors will be given a guided information session by Rebecca Heiman and Angelo Tocco. Heiman, who has moderate-to-severe hearing loss, is a mass communications and sociology student at York who hopes to pursue a career as a university professor and writer of children's books. Tocco, who is profoundly deaf, is a recent York graduate with bachelor's degrees in physical education and teaching. York is home to approximately 50 to 60 deaf or hard-of-hearing students. "There couldn't be a better tribute to Ron Cope than to establish a Resource Room like this at York University," said Cora Dusk, York's Assistant Vice-President (Student Affairs). "York is proud to be able to continue Ron's work by offering resources not only for its deaf and hard-of-hearing students, but also for people in the wider community looking for information pertaining to the deaf community."
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Sine MacKinnon
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