Everyone needs higher education, including the Deaf 2024
The thing I’m most passionate about, hands down, is EDUCATION. I believe that education is the great equalizer, the key that opens the doors of different kinds of opportunities for everyone, no matter a person’s background or socioeconomic status. I believe that education is what makes us citizens rather than subjects and that to have a functioning, thriving democracy, you need educated and engaged citizens who possess the capability of comprehending, synthesizing and applying critical thinking skills to new information.
So, it was perhaps inevitable that I would become a college professor and that what I love most is helping students learn and grow through that learning. I have personally witnessed the transformative power that a good education can have, including in my own life. How else could a Deaf, Black, female immigrant from Africa end up as the provost of the world’s only liberal university for Deaf students? And I see the same in the lives of our students, many of whom arrive as freshmen on campus carrying traumas and suffering from low self-esteem, lacking belief in their ability to be change agents not only in their own lives but the world too. And yet, by their senior year, those students confidently stride forth, ready to face and contribute to a world that too often devalues their worth solely based on their inability to hear.
Perhaps one reason why I so passionately believe in the value of education is that I am an immigrant and like most immigrants I believe in the value of education to help attain the American dream. I love that education also confers not only knowledge, but confidence and an ability to advocate, not only for ourselves but also for others. Education, particularly a liberal arts education, creates the ability to think critically, a vital skill that lasts far beyond those four to six years that students spend on campus. An educated person has a mind of their own and can think for themselves. Education is the bedrock value that underlies civilization. Without it we cannot have a civil society.
So, it is my life goal to make a difference in Deaf education, to ensure that as many deaf people as possible are provided access to a liberal education from kindergarten through college and, ultimately, to ensure that future generations of deaf individuals have access to all life opportunities as active and engaged citizens of the world.
