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Gallaudet Chooses Interim President
Campus ‘Thrilled’ By Pick of Nationally Known Deaf Leader

The Washington Post
Monday, December 11, 2006; Page B01
By Susan Kinzie, Washington Post Staff Writer

When the board chairwoman announced yesterday that Robert Davila will be the next leader of Gallaudet University, the crowd in the auditorium at the school for the deaf rose to their feet and waved their hands in the air to applaud.

Just weeks ago, the university in Northeast Washington was in chaos, shut down and deeply divided by protests over an incoming president. Now Davila, 74, takes on a school whose future is at stake, and the campus seems united and hopeful.

Davila, a nationally known deaf leader, steps out of retirement to become interim president next month. He spoke with affection of the school but also brought a full slate of ideas. He told his audience yesterday they would move forward because they love Gallaudet. “If we cannot do it together, it will not happen,” he said.

It was as though the campus sighed with relief after months spent fighting over the last presidential appointment, with many feeling that academic and other problems on the campus will no longer be ignored.

“Everyone is thrilled. They’re thrilled,” said Andrew Lange, head of the alumni association, whose pager kept buzzing as people across the country watched a webcast of Davila’s speech.

“He has something that pleases everybody,” said Mark Weinberg, chairman of the faculty senate. “He knows the university, knows the federal bureaucracy, knows higher education issues, and he’s highly respected in the deaf community.”

The son of migrant farm workers from Mexico, Davila grew up poor and went on to become a teacher, administrator and assistant secretary in the U.S. Department of Education.

This role may be his greatest challenge yet.

The last presidential appointment, of former provost Jane K. Fernandes, was terminated by the board in late October after students had shut down the university for several days, the faculty voted no confidence, students were arrested and about 2,000 protesters marched on the U.S. Capitol.

Davila will have to take on divisive issues such as racial tensions and debates over the importance of American Sign Language to the school, cultural and social issues that take on added weight because Gallaudet is for many the heart of the deaf world.

Perhaps even more daunting are the academic challenges at the school now.

The school is undergoing scrutiny from both the federal government, which provides about two-thirds of its funding, and its accrediting group.

In February, the Office of Management and Budget rated the school “ineffective,” raising issues such as chronically low graduation rates. The university has asked to be reassessed, and that is taking place now.

Last week, the Middle States Commission on Higher Education worried many on campus when it delayed a decision on the school’s accreditation.

Gallaudet remains accredited, but the committee said it will visit the campus in January.

Davila’s appointment also comes at a time of profound change in deaf education: As medicine, technology and public policy have expanded options for deaf and hard-of-hearing people, schools for the deaf are no longer the sole or even the most common option for these students. So Gallaudet’s role is evolving, and many on campus have said it is crucial that the next leader have a strong vision for the school’s future.

Because longtime president I. King Jordan steps down in a few weeks, the board needed someone to take office almost immediately.

Yesterday the board of trustees interviewed three finalists, including two Gallaudet professors. Stephen Weiner was a finalist in May as well; he is a popular former dean known for his charisma, intelligence and warmth.

William Marshall, chairman of the department of administration and supervision and former head of the faculty senate, had presented a comprehensive, detailed presidential agenda for change at the school.

Davila said yesterday that he would “tap into that skill and knowledge” and ask Weiner and Marshall to be involved in his transition.

Former protesters were generally satisfied that the search had been fair — a lack of fairness perceived by some was a major complaint about the selection of Fernandes — and several said after Davila’s speech that he had said all the right things. The only thing some wished for was an assurance that protesters would not be punished.

Davila’s speech was emotional, direct, forceful and detailed. He talked about the importance of American Sign Language and diversity to the university, about the need to unite and encourage debate and dissent without walking away angry. He talked not only about the strengths of the school but also about the problems it is facing and how he will address them in his 18- to 24-month term.

The school needs to find better ways to measure how students are doing, he said, and be its own toughest critic.

Some of his proposals centered on ways to prevent frustration over lack of communication from boiling over. “We’re going to see that people have an opportunity to really voice their concerns,” he said. He suggested establishing a council for campus groups to work on issues such as diversity. He said he would begin reaching out to Capitol Hill, the Department of Education, Middle States and donors immediately to reassure them that “this was a bump in the road, and we have a plan.”

Noah Beckman, president of the student government, said he was impressed with Davila, particularly his idea of establishing an ombudsman on campus.

“People want a fresh start,” said LaToya Plummer, another student protest leader.

Davila was raised in a migrant workers’ camp in California, his parents immigrants from Mexico who traveled from farm to farm with their eight children.

One sister died when he was a small boy. His family was poor, all the children sleeping in one bed, everyone helping with the work.

Like many Spanish-speaking farm workers at the time, he did not go to school.

When he was 8, said longtime friend Joseph Fischgrund, who is helping write a biography of Davila, he was working with the rest of the family, shaking trees to harvest plums, when his father had a heart attack.

Davila waited with his father for the ambulance to work its way through the ruts in the fields, but it was too late.

A few years later, he got sick with an illness his mother thought was the flu.

It was spinal meningitis. It left him deaf.

After a few months, his mother packed a suitcase for him and brought him to the train station in San Diego with a small sign that said “Roberto, School for the Deaf, Berkeley,” and sent him off, alone.

There he was given food, shelter and an education.

“My life actually moved forward” after he became deaf, he said. “I never had any sense of loss.”

He learned sign language at the school. And English.

Davila remembered lying awake wondering whether there was a way to pay the $800 tuition. And going to the post office two or three times a day watching for a letter from Gallaudet. He was too scared to open it, and ran home to show his mother.

He had been accepted.

Davila graduated in 1953 and went on to teach.

He was a good and caring teacher, said Weiner, one of the other two finalists, who took algebra from him at the New York School for the Deaf in the mid-1960s.

When Davila got his master’s degree at Hunter College, it was before interpreters were required, so he sat in class hearing nothing but getting extra reading lists from the professor. He went on to Syracuse University to get a doctorate.

He returned to Gallaudet and led the elementary school there.

He went on to be a vice president and professor at Gallaudet, director of the New York School for the Deaf, head of the National Technical Institute for the Deaf and an assistant secretary at the Department of Education.

He recently retired. Now he is starting anew. So is Gallaudet, in a sense.

“I have no magic answer,” Davila said, “but I am a good leader, able to bring people together.” At the end of the day, he walked arm-in-arm with his wife through the campus. It was quiet, peaceful; students were busy studying for finals.

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