Foreword
I HAVE KNOWN Alan for twenty-seven years. But have I really known him?
It is true that I have observed him conduct meetings; make presentations; circulate among friends and colleagues at receptions and dinners; interact with deaf and hearing faculty, students, and university administrators; and work with community leaders. We have had one-on-one meetings. We have bowled together. His name, persona, and engagements have come up in my conversations with others.
I thought I knew Alan. Then I read his memoir. And reread it. Yes, a lot of what I knew about him emerged in this memoir. But, as I enthusiastically learned, there is so much more.
Alan is not afraid, as so many of us are, to reveal himself from the inside out—from his heart, soul, and inner self.
The reader learns of Alan’s earliest years, his challenges, successes, and disappointments at every stage of his life’s path. He is candid and, at times, most introspective about his fears, ambitions, and innermost feelings.
He paints a comprehensive fabric of his ancestral heritage—starting with his loving and ever-present parents, and progressing to his grandparents, great grandparents, uncles, and aunts—who they all are, where they are from, and what they did in their lives. Throughout the memoir, they appear and reappear as mentors and partners, advising and supporting him, and serving as role models. Alan reflects their values and religion, and these attributes have shaped who he is and underlie his remarkable lifetime accomplishments.
He offers this background in his humble and modest style, which causes the reader to sometimes merge their persona with Alan’s, thereby experiencing his dilemmas and circumstances as if they were their own. There are times when the reader so identifies with Alan that they anxiously await the next paragraph or page to reveal itself.
Above all, Alan speaks over and over again about his devotion to and admiration for his wife, Vicki. They have both been deaf since birth. They started dating when she was a sophomore in high school and he a freshman in college. You can say that they grew up together, informing and learning from each other. They married the year (1965) he graduated (at age twenty-two) with his bachelor’s degree from Washington University in St. Louis.
Vicki is the love of his life, his best friend, closest confidant and partner, and true soul mate. While tremendously successful and accomplished professionally, Alan and Vicki hold their family fabric as clearly their most cherished reason for living. Their children (Bernard and Stephanie/Stefi), grandchildren, siblings, parents, grandparents, and other family members are always in their hearts and minds.
Over the years, Alan and Vicki have developed very close friendships—both personal and professional—with many individuals coast to coast and around the world. They are part of their extended family. Each of these individuals is mentioned by name (surname, given name, or nickname) several times throughout the memoir, many of them appearing both early and late in the flow of Alan’s life story.
Alan’s work ethic has few equals, and that extends from his young days delivering newspapers house to house on his bicycle, to later as a computer programmer working in the FORTRAN language, and, finally, to his days as a faculty member, administrator, and community advocate. He is quick and ready to give full credit to others, of all stripes and roles, for their contributions, large and small. One has the impression that he is underplaying his own unique creativity, risk-taking, and overall contributions.
At each step of the ladder of professional advancement, Alan has not shied away from making hard decisions to foster needed change on the academic, fiscal, and administrative sides of Gallaudet University and the National Technical Institute for the Deaf at Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT/NTID). He has done this consistently through a process of shared governance, in which he speaks to and (especially) listens to students, faculty, administrators, alumni, and members of the community at large. He both informs and learns, gaining and sharing knowledge in the process, arriving at decisions, and taking actions that are much improved over what they would have been without the listening and informing. This process does not necessarily lead to a majority vote decision. Instead, the person who will be held accountable for the decision takes responsibility for making the decision. While not everyone may agree with the decision, they support the action because of the process utilized.
This shared governance approach is an integral part of Alan’s work ethic, his ethical underpinnings, his sense of humor, his upbringing by his devoted parents, his later education leading to a bachelor’s degree, and, ultimately, a doctorate, and his professional experience and expertise. This model has allowed him to lead two great institutions for deaf and hard of hearing students—for six years as president of Gallaudet University and forty years at RIT/NTID. He guided these institutions to major new, societally relevant, and important summits, and even higher expectations for the future. Following the lead of his trustees at Gallaudet, Alan truly looks for “big ideas” and moves aggressively to realize them. For example, at Gallaudet, he established a doctoral program in interpretation and translation, a doctoral program in educational neuroscience, and preprofessional programs in four career areas.
Alan is a wonderful role model for deaf, hard of hearing, and hearing students and professionals across the full human diversity spectrum. He is committed, in particular, to the growth and success of deaf and hard of hearing individuals, and this commitment is illustrated by his leadership roles in numerous local, national, and international organizations and associations serving deaf and hard of hearing individuals.
Alan concludes his memoir by reflecting in general on his forty-six-year journey in higher education, centering his thoughts and recommendations on leadership skills. All of this discussion is very much worth reviewing and absorbing.
Two aspects of Alan’s memoir resonate especially with me. First is his discussion of the critical function of highly trained interpreters. This issue is especially important to Alan, given the fact that he grew up in and had to cope with a world without interpreters. And in college, he was forced to rely on volunteer classmates to take notes for him. Things have improved much since then, but even more can be done on a broader scale.
The second reflection I would like to comment on is Alan’s observation of why Gallaudet and NTID have six or seven times (on an institutional percentage basis) as many students transferring to them as other colleges and universities have. He points out that the college experience must be more than books, labs, lectures, and examinations. Students must also have the opportunity outside of the classroom to interact with one another in a mutually reinforcing social and interpersonal context. They need to have time to develop their leadership skills and form a personal network that can extend over a lifetime. Student government, intercollegiate athletics, student publications, and clubs are a critical part of the overall collegiate learning experience. For deaf and hard of hearing students, the dimensions of their learning development may be arduous at the typical university, where the vast majority of students are hearing and unaware of Deaf culture. Institutions like Gallaudet and NTID provide opportunities for their students to realize this complete educational focus. Upon graduation, students will more readily possess the leadership, socialization, teamwork, and communication attributes that will facilitate their success in both the deaf and hearing worlds.
To sum it all up, this memoir offers an intriguingly touching story of one person’s journey through life, as well as an extremely valuable prescription for personal and professional success. Everyone, both deaf and hearing, will love the story. Everyone, both deaf and hearing, will profit from the observations and recommendations emanating from the story. It takes courage and self-confidence to bare one’s soul and provide a light into one’s deepest thoughts. Dr. T. Alan Hurwitz demonstrates, in his memoir, that he has both.
President Emeritus
Rochester Institute of Technology