Most students have visited the Music and Speech Building, but few have
ventured down a side hallway into the world’s largest museum devoted
to hearing aids. Nor do most students hiking toward the Student Recreation
and Wellness Center realize they are passing a crumbled artwork once valued
at half a million dollars. In fact, nearly every building on campus has
a treasure buried within — all it takes are open eyes and an inquisitive
mind to find them.
By Adam Gibbs and Monica Arjev
Photos by Jeff Bowen
Hearing aid museum
How do you start the world’s largest hearing aid museum?
By accident.
In spring 1966, Kenneth Berger, a professor of audiology who died of cancer
in 1994, was misquoted in an interview with the National Hearing Aid Journal
(now Hearing Journal). During the interview, Berger said he wanted to
start a hearing aid “
display.”
However, when the interview was published, it used the word “museum.”
Soon, boxes and boxes of old hearing aids began to arrive from all over
the world.
From pre-electric resonators to digital hearing aids, the Kenneth W. Berger
Hearing Museum
in the Music and Speech Building is home to more than 3,000 hearing aids.
However, it is not the only hearing aid museum. The Central Institute
for the Deaf in St. Louis and the Smithsonian Institution in Washington,
D.C., are among some of the places that also have hearing aid displays.
While most students don’t know it exists, the museum has received
some publicity. Alabama’s Heather Whitestone, who was crowned Miss
America 1995, visited the museum after giving a speech on campus. Whitestone,
who is deaf, is the only Miss America winner to have a physical handicap.
Two years later, The New York Times put the museum on its front page.
That same year, David Letterman and Jay Leno wanted to feature the museum
on their shows but were turned down because Irvin Gerling, director of
the hearing aid museum and associate professor of audiology, knew featuring
the museum was for comedic purposes.
“The humor would be a slap in the face to the hearing impaired,”
Gerling says.
With a collection appraised at more than $1 million, the museum continues
to add to its collection through donations.
“Any old hearing aids that manufacturers feel they can’t sell
sometimes get sent here,” Gerling says.
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