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Farewell to Gallaudet

AS I PREPARED TO step down at the end of my six-year presidency on December 31, 2015, I embraced what I refer to as the culmination of my fifty-plus years of professional work. I was both honored and humbled that Vicki and I were featured in the fall 2015 issue of Gallaudet Today. The article, “President Hurwitz’s Legacy: Bridging the Past toward the Future,” talked about how I had facilitated a transformation in academics, research, technology, and campus enhancements. It also included a heartwarming description of Vicki’s passion for volunteer service during her tenure.

In honor of my retirement, the board of trustees hosted the STEM Matters Symposium. Dr. Jorge Díaz-Herrera, Gallaudet board member and president of Keuka College, was the keynote speaker and spoke about the future of STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) and evolving technologies in higher education, business, and industry. Other speakers included Phil Bravin, Jim DeCaro—past interim president and dean emeritus of NTID—and Provost Carol Erting. Professors Regina Nuzzo, Caroline Solomon, and Paul Sabilia each gave a demonstration of how mathematics, biology, and chemistry could be taught to students at Gallaudet. I was the endnote speaker. I discussed the value of STEM education for students at Gallaudet University.

Three presidents at my retirement party: Robert Davila, Roberta “Bobbi” Cordano, and myself.

Following the symposium, dozens of brilliant students showcased their STEM research to the campus in a poster show and demonstration. As I surveyed their impressive displays and stopped to speak with the young people, my heart filled with love, pride, and hope for their future careers. Gone are the days when deaf children are left in the apartment above the family store, as my father and his sister had been, unchallenged and uneducated. Although it may appear that the days when the hearing world discounts the full humanity and contributions of the Deaf community are gone, we still have a long way to make our society fully accessible to Deaf, hard of hearing, and Deaf-Blind people and people with disabilities.

My trusted colleague, Don Beil, my wonderful chief of staff the first four years of my presidency, said in an interview: “President Hurwitz met with hundreds of students during his totally student-centered leadership of Gallaudet University. This, alone, and without intention, provided them contact with an outstanding role model who proves repeatedly the value of a full education, the value of hard work, and the value of developing leadership and managerial skills. His has also been a life of service. . . . Educated as an engineer, he entered the field of education of deaf people, creating a successful career in preparing students for their futures in a complex, compound world demanding a wide composite set of skills for success. I believe his continued extensive work with students across the campus has encouraged students to learn and make service a part of their lives.”

Vicki and I cherished our time with students both on-and off-campus when we traveled to Gallaudet-sponsored regional academic bowls for high school students. We hosted many student events at House One. We loved attending many student athletic games. We also enjoyed going to their performances at Eastman Theatre and dance shows at Foster Auditorium. We will never forget the trip we took with a group of eighty students during their eight-day First Year Experience educational trip to Costa Rica in 2012, and how we enjoyed zip lining with them.

Zip lining with Gallaudet students in Costa Rica.

DEAF PEOPLE OF COLOR, a group of faculty and staff members of color, asked Vicki and I to be involved with a fundraising event, “Dancing with the Gallaudet Stars.” Vicki was thrilled because she loved dancing, but I freaked out. I never could learn how to dance and often claimed that I had two left feet. Vicki persuaded me to be a good sport and try my best. She had always wanted me to take dancing lessons with her but I had always managed to avoid it. She reminded me that we both did some crazy rum-fueled dancing during my fraternity years at Washington University.

I panicked even more when we learned that each of us would have a different partner. Vicki paired up with Fred Beam, an extremely talented choreographer and dancer. My partner was Nathalie Pluviose, an amazing young deaf woman, who was a professional dancer and a remarkable dance teacher.

Nathalie patiently taught me some basic dance steps. As we repeated them, I kept forgetting the previous steps and would mess up. She kept smiling, and encouraged me to keep learning. I was a bit intimidated when she said we had to do sixty different steps for our performance. I kept making mistakes, but we somehow made it to sixty steps. She surprised me by saying that we needed to learn a second dance with sixty additional steps! Flustered, I kept mixing up steps between both routines. It took me weeks before I could successfully get through each dance.

The evening of the performance finally arrived, and as I was backstage trying to remember all 120 different steps, I kept mixing them up. Nathalie and I were called to the stage for an interview with the judges. Each of the star dancers had previously made a video with a brief explanation of our dancing experience, which was shown to the audience before we began our dancing performances. In my video, I mentioned that it was a learning experience for me while struggling with my two left feet.

Nathalie and I performed our two routines. I was astounded that I was able to perform with ease—something I credit entirely to Nathalie. She was wonderful and gave me a lot of cues to move on to the subsequent steps. When we completed our performances, we stood next to the judges for their comments. One of them, WaWa Snipes, stood up and exclaimed that I had been lying the whole time about my lack of dancing skills.

Vicki and her partner, Fred Beam, placed third in the contest. Although Nathalie and I didn’t place, the experience gave me the confidence to perform on a stage other than simply to give a lecture or a speech. Vicki was thrilled to see that I did have some rhythm after all.

ONE OF THE HIGHLIGHTS during my tenure at Gallaudet University was when Vicki and I were invited by President Barack and First Lady Michelle Obama to be their guests at the annual Chanukah reception at the White House. This was largely due to Leah Katz-Hernandez, a Gallaudet alumna, who served as the White House receptionist, putting us on the invitation list. There were over five hundred people, many of who were representatives, senators, and significant leaders from all over the United States. US Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Vice President Joe Biden and his wife, Dr. Jill Biden, were among the guests we saw. The food was great with a lot of Jewish delicacies, including mini-lamb chops, latkes, and wine imported from Israel. After the president spoke to the audience, we were instructed to go to the lower level for a photo shoot with both President Obama and First Lady Obama. After waiting in a long line, we finally came up to the Obamas with our interpreter. When I introduced myself to President Obama, he said that Gallaudet had been doing a remarkable job. I reminded him that each year he and I cosigned diplomas for all graduating students as is normally done by US presidents (Howard University is the only other university that has this honor). I then commented to First Lady Michelle that I understood that she was a notetaker for a deaf student at Whitney Young High School in Chicago. She brightened and said in sign, “I know sign language and my name is Michelle!” She fingerspelled her name gracefully and without a hitch. The four of us posed in front of a fireplace for our photograph, an unforgettable experience.

President and First Lady Obama and President and First Lady Hurwitz at the White House Chanukah reception.

NEAR THE CONCLUSION of my presidency in December 2015, I was approached by a rabbi who advised us to have the mezuzahs removed from House One should the selected president not be Jewish. Vicki and I were not sure what to do about the mezuzahs but considered donating them to the Gallaudet archives. Later, President-Designate Roberta “Bobbi” Cordano and her wife, Mary Baremore, persuaded us not to remove the mezuzahs because they wanted House One to continue being blessed. Vicki and I were both pleased and gratified.

I often tell people that serving as a university president was like being a small-town mayor with multiple responsibilities. I was ultimately responsible for everything that happened on campus. That entailed leading an academic institution for a comprehensive K–12 school, university academic and student affairs, student/faculty/staff governance groups, student housing, facilities, food services, library services, a hotel, landscaping, snow removals, construction, and parking lots. The board of trustees, to whom I reported to, was like a city council, a governing body. It was a fantastic experience, and I enjoyed working with everyone in different capacities at all levels.

I want to be remembered for my resiliency, integrity, tireless work ethic, business acumen, and respect for openness, flexibility, and diversity. I’d also like to be recognized for my student centeredness, my authentic commitment to Gallaudet University’s bilingual mission, and my steady, consistent emphasis on quality education and service, research, and outreach. Has it been a walk through the park? No, it hasn’t. There were challenges at every step along the way, but everyone at the university worked together to make tremendous progress.

During the last summer at Gallaudet, when Vicki and I traveled to Greece and Turkey for the International Congress for Education of the Deaf and World Federation of the Deaf conferences, we spent two weeks in Italy in celebration of our fiftieth wedding anniversary between the conferences. We rented a car and drove to Rome, along a winding highway to sunny Naples, out to the rolling countryside near Siena and through Siena’s ancient stone streets, to art-filled Florence, and from magical Venice to the businesslike Milan. And in April 2017, we traveled to Berlin/Potsdam, Germany, to celebrate the seventieth birthday of our friends, Asger and Ritva Bergmann, from Copenhagen, Denmark, with forty friends from different countries.

On one of the Greek islands.

In front of the Coliseum in Rome, Italy.

“We are blessed,” I said to Vicki as we strolled home to our hotel, after the lively dinner in Potsdam. As I often do, I thought of my parents, with all of their intelligence and optimism and hard work. Wouldn’t they be happy to see how far education and opportunities had brought their son? Vicki often tells me, “Your parents would be as proud of you today as they always were!”

I continue to have high hopes for Gallaudet’s future. It is important for the university to keep up with the changing world and be on the cutting edge. There will be challenges, but there are good people on campus equal to those challenges. Gallaudet has an excellent board of trustees and a vibrant community. I strongly believe Gallaudet has a bright future ahead and many more lives to lift and shape. And even more important, the lives of deaf people all across America and around the world continue to improve as technology and education improve, as possibilities expand, and as more and more of us have a chance to reach our full potential.