About The Silent Garden

It started with a bold vision of Dr. Paul W. Ogden, author of The Silent Garden: Raising Your Deaf Child and professor emeritus of deaf studies at Fresno State. He had a desire to improve educational and life opportunities for deaf students by providing lectures, workshops and conferences for the deaf and hard of hearing children’s families, teachers, interpreters, professionals and students. The vehicle he chose was creating endowed opportunities that would allow donors the joy of selecting how they wished to support this important work and provide the Silent Garden with permanent funding to undertake the endeavors. Importantly, the endowments allow The Silent Garden to offer all programs at no cost to participants, in perpetuity. 

This idea, with the support and encouragement of the Dean of the College of Health and Human Services, has grown into the rich and bountiful educational program touching the lives of countless deaf and hard of hearing children, youth and adults throughout the United States and beyond. 

The one singular path that was planted in the Silent Garden with an endowment in 2008 is now many colorful, vibrant paths. As the Silent Garden continues to grow, each new path — unlike any other in the United States — provides a unique training ground for students in deaf education, as well as sign language interpreting, all with the common goal of allowing everyone, regardless of needs or abilities, to flourish and thrive!

Today, the Silent Garden includes:

• Robert Duncan Nicol Planned Gift
• Nancy Grosz Sager Endowment
• Joseph and Mary Slotnick Endowment Fellowship for Master’s Deaf Education
• Silent Garden Endowed Chair for Deaf Education
• Scarlett’s Park Conference (Anonymous) focusing on deaf and hard of hearing children and youth with special needs
• Silent Garden Educational Fund (providing The Silent Garden Lectures free to the public)
• Levine Foundation Silent Garden Education Fund
• Ethan Emmett Castro Hard of Hearing Endowment
• Robert and Donna Davila Spanish Speaking Family Endowment
• Emblem Club Scholarship Foundation
• James and Patricia Deaf Education Deaf Education Endowment
• Silent Garden Scholarships
• Joseph and Mary Slotnick Scholars
• Sign Language Interpreting Scholars
• Michael Michner Scholars

More information can be found at the Silent Garden Resource Center.

The Silent Garden is a vital program within the College of Health and Human Services at Fresno State, working collaboratively with the Department of Communicative Sciences and Deaf Studies to academically prepare future professionals in Deaf education and sign language interpreting. 

The Department of Communicative Sciences and Deaf Studies at Fresno State is well known for its leadership in D/deaf education and offers undergraduate studies in D/deaf education, sign language interpreting, and speech language pathology and graduate studies in both D/deaf education and speech language pathology. 

Dr. Paul W. Ogden, currently the Master Gardener, works closely with Dean Kara Zografos of the College of Health and Human Services and the members of the Silent Garden Advisory Committee as they manage all Silent Garden events, scholarships and fundraising work.