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Mason Perkins Scholarships

The Mason Perkins Deafness Fund coordinates four annual scholarships in deafness each designed to improve the lives of deaf and deaf-blind children in Italy and the United States. 

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The Mason Perkins Fund Scholarship and the Roberto Wirth Scholarship, are both privately funded, and with the collaboration of the Italian Fulbright Commission, are awarded to two deaf Italian citizens to study for one academic year in the United States at Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C., the only university in the world catering specifically to deaf and hard-of-hearing students. In the spirit of true exchange, two United States citizens enrolled in graduate programs are awarded annual Fulbright scholarships that are funded by the Italian Fulbright Commission. These students come to Italy for four to six months to engage in research while collaborating with programs getting under way in the area of deaf education.

Fulbright Scholarships in deafness for United States citizens enrolled in graduate programs

Many universities in the United States offer graduate-level programs in deafness-related fields and these well-qualified awardees are selected to come to Italy for a semester. Generally, the students have nearly completed graduate school and have had experience in their field of study. Students are encouraged to maximize their time in Italy by holding seminars related to their field of interest, collaborating on programs under way, and visiting different parts of the country so that they can observe the various educational methods that are being applied in Italy. Dr Elena Radutzky, Director of MPDF, is the scientific consultant to the Deafness Program of the Italian Fulbright Commission.

For more information on Fulbright Scholarships in deafness available to United States citizens, please click on the following link: IIE Italy Program  

The Mason Perkins Fund Scholarship and the Roberto Wirth Scholarship for Italian deaf citizens

The Mason Perkins Scholarship applies to a broad range of fields, including multimedia, sociology, sign language teaching, psychology, but must in some way impact the lives of deaf or deaf-blind children. The Roberto Wirth Scholarship is awarded to a deaf Italian citizen who is studying in the area of preschool deaf education.

Gallaudet University was founded in 1864 by an edict from United States President Abraham Lincoln, and since then it has gained a reputation as the premier university of the deaf in the world, with a student body nearing 2,000 and a faculty that is entirely composed of teachers fluent in sign language, both deaf and hearing. Information resources are plentiful, the networking system extensive, and the experience gained there is as beneficial as it is unique. Our former scholarship winners have profited immensely from their year at Gallaudet and upon their return to Italy, blossoming into key contributors in the deaf education field, have become excellent deaf role models for the children to emulate. 

Previous winners

The Mason Perkins Fund and the Roberto Wirth Fund scholarships for two deaf Italian students for the academic year 2006/2007 were awarded to Romilda Danesi and Laura Di Gioia. These two students studied for one academic year at Gallaudet University in Washington, the only university in the world specialised for deaf students.   

Romilda Danesi, from Cesena, is a communication aide for deaf children and a graduating student in Education at the University of Bologna. Thanks to the ‘Roberto Wirth’ scholarship, Romilda had the extraordinary opportunity to study educational methods and strategies to teach pre-school deaf children.

Laura Di Gioia, from Foggia, is studying for a degree in Italian studies at the University of Turin,  is a LIS (Italian Sign Language) teacher at the middle school of the “Istituto dei sordi” (Institute for Deaf people of Pianezza (Turin), and is passionate about linguistics. Thanks to the ‘Mason Perkins’ scholarship, Laura dedicated the academic year 2006-2007 to studying linguistics and methods to teach English to deaf children through American Sign Language. She hopes to apply these methods for teaching Italian deaf children Italian through LIS and in the future she hopes to train deaf Italian teachers in Italy and Europe.

The two scholarships awardees, like all the previous winners, will present a seminar on what they have learnt to the Italian deaf community.

For more information about Gallaudet University visit their site at www.galluadet.edu

For more information about the Roberto Wirth Scholarships, visit their website at www.robertowirthfund.net