National Technical Institute for the Deaf

Olga Welch has been dean of the School of Education at Duquesne University since 2005. She also is a professor of education at Duquesne. 

From 1977 to 2005, Dr. Welch held various roles at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, working in the departments of Special Services Education, Counseling, Deafness, and Human Services, Educational Administration and Policy Studies, and Theory and Practice in Teacher Education.

She also was an instructor at the Model Secondary School for the Deaf at Gallaudet University as well as an instructor and supervising principal at the Tennessee School for the Deaf in Knoxville.

Dr. Welch is a member of the American Education Research Association, the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education, the Council of Academic Deans from Research Education Institutions, and the Women in the Deanship Association. 

She is on the advisory boards of the Center for the Study of Catholic Social Thought at Duquesne and the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education; and is on the Editorial Board of the American Annals of the Deaf.

In 2009, she received both the Women of Excellence Award from the New Pittsburgh Courier and the tribute to Woman Leadership in Education Award from the Pittsburgh YWCA.

She has a bachelor’s degree magna cum laude in history from Howard University, and a master’s degree in deaf education and an Ed.D. in educational administration and supervision, both from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.