About the Center for Hearing Access at The Shedd Institute
About
Founded in 2024, the nonprofit Center for Hearing Access is a national advocacy and education initiative of The John G. Shedd Institute for the Arts in Eugene, OR. We champion and educate users, sites, hearing instrument specialists, and audiologists about all ADA-compliant assistive listening systems and other strategies to increase access to theaters, libraries, conferences, government offices, courtrooms, and other public and private spaces. Effective hearing access can be life-changing for people with hearing loss to maintain community engagement.
We create and provide advocacy materials, ADA information, a speaker’s bureau, videos, templates for users and owners/operators, articles, and vendor lists.
Mission
To pursue the understanding and adoption of those principles, practices, designs, and technologies that best realize a world in which seamless and simple hearing access is available to everyone with hearing loss so they can participate fully across all aspects of daily life.
The Center for Hearing Access at The Shedd Institute
PO Box 1497
Eugene, OR 97440
Tax ID 93-1045304 | 501(c)(3) If you are interested in making a tax-deductible donation, please contact us
Website
Audience: people with hearing loss, audiologists, hearing instrument specialists, architects, sound engineers, ADA coordinators, and owner/operators at sites.
The website is managed by Wynne Whyman, MA, MSS, Director of Advocacy and Communication. Wynne, who lives with hearing loss and no financial interest in any company, began managing the website in 2024: redesigning, expanding from hearing loops to all 6 assistive listening systems, adding media, creating handouts, and including more resources.
Background
This website, hearingloop.org, was originally created by Hope College psychology professor and author David G. Myers. David is a person with hearing loss, the son of a mother who became completely deaf, and the author of a memoir of his experiences with hearing loss and hearing technologies (A Quiet World: Living with Hearing Loss, Yale University Press, 2000). From 2013 to 2017 he represented Americans with hearing loss on the advisory council of NIH’s National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders.
Read his articles on hearing loops and his experiences and approach of Getting Hard of Hearing People “in the Loop”
David has no financial interest in any hearing assistance company and is a well-wisher to all companies that enable hearing aid-compatible assistive listening.
He is married to Carol, the creator and host of an informational website devoted to the real Santa Claus, St. Nicholas (aka Saint Nicholas).