We have been counting down the days until nominations open for the 2013 Signature Annual Awards and it is almost here. From tomorrow you will be able to nominate in all eight categories. So look out for the launch on our website.
Do you remember Clark Denmark winner of the 2011 Joseph Maitland Robinson Award for Outstanding Contribution?
Clark Denmark – Worthy Recipient of the Joseph Maitland Robinson Award for Outstanding Contribution 2011
Clark Denmark received the Joseph Maitland Robinson Award for Outstanding Contribution from Signature in 2011.
Clark has been at the heart of Deaf Studies and British Sign Language (BSL) teaching and learning both nationally and internationally for over 30 years. His first involvement with BSL teaching and research came as Research Assistant to the Edinburgh BSL Research Project from 1980 to 1985. He was then instrumental in helping to develop Durham University’s groundbreaking sign language training course. Later, he became Director of Education and Training at the British Deaf Association (BDA). He has represented them in many committees including the World Federation of Deaf (WFD)’s Sign Language Commission and he was the International Chair in the Commission on Sign Language at the 1999 WFD Congress in Brisbane, Australia.
When the University of Bristol’s Centre for Deaf Studies established Britain’s first degree in Deaf Studies in 1992, Clark was a natural choice to join the teaching staff. Over the next 15 years, Clark taught sign language, sign language teaching, deaf history and deaf politics. In 2004 he was seconded to the BDA’s ‘BSL Tuition in Deaf People’s Hands’ project before moving to the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan) in 2007.
Clark’s outstanding career has seen him lead a whole host of groundbreaking projects and partnerships, in fact, too many to mention. He has also been one of the most recognised deaf people on UK television through his contributions to deaf-centred programmes such as the BBC’s See Hear and Channel Four’s Sign On.
Clark said, “I am honoured that, as a member of the deaf community who endeavours to make BSL stronger, and the deaf community a better place to live in every day, I am able to contribute to achieving this in a small way for deaf BSL teachers and BSL learners so that we can make it happen through the empowerment of deaf people. To receive the Joseph Maitland Robinson Award for Outstanding Contribution is an absolute privilege.”