So my sister Liz’s figured out how to swing her first-born privilege and use my blogging rights as her oratory platform. A quick bio on her: a three-year D.C. resident, she’s putting her new master’s from American University to good use by working as Gallaudet University’s Capital Campaign Specialist. Ever wonder who’s raising the ten million dollars for the new Sorenson building? It’s her. Read on..

Instead of pilfering my brother’s blog username/password, I’ve decided to just ask him to post this. Just maybe, it’d break my blog shyness. As you may know, there’s some fear in that! But I digress…

I was reading The Chronicle of Higher Education at work. For those who don’t know, in the higher education fundraising world, this is your Wall Street Journal. I came upon an article by Jean Evangelauf about 32 American students who were named as Rhodes scholars last November. 19 men and 13 women will get to study for two or three years at the prestigious University of Oxford in England. They were chosen from 903 applicants and endorsed by 333 colleges and universities. Surprisingly, for the 2nd time in 75 years, none of the candidates endorsed by Harvard University won the award. (Ouch, Yale got three this year!)

But rivalries aside, I was reading this and a thought occurred, “Has there ever been a deaf Rhodes scholar?” So, I did what any smart researcher would do: I Googled it. Good ol’ information monolith Google actually came up with a few Rhodes Scholars whose key award-winning activites included learning sign language or working with deaf students.

Huh? As if we, the deaf, as a population, are deserving of promoting hearing-ass fools (HAF) to gods and goddesses if they actually learn sign language. I wasn’t sure if I should be offended by that or be thrilled at the mere possibility that the most brilliant, overachieving, and overly altruistic people actually took interest in our people and culture. Just maybe, those sign-friendly Rhodes scholars could pave the way for us.

But honestly, the deeper issue here is, what gives them the saint-like status just because they tapped us (no pun intended)? Sure, they won based on many other merits. It is a very selective process and those that won were warranted a paper of honor with a golden coupon of several free trips to London. I would have loved to win that if I only had saved the whales, solved the world’s hunger, and oh, let’s not forget, set up a big candy strip program at a local senior citizen assisted living center. Boy, I’d be exhausted by now. But, seriously, I’d love to see a deaf person win that.

I think, the deaf person’s key activities would be very unique, and quite admirable. Here’s the suggested list of key activities:

• Established an ASL tutoring program for 2,000 local hearing inner city high school students to work closely with Gallaudet. They get their foreign language requirement met and cultural education.
• Pioneered an activity program with my XYZ club once a week at the local senior citizen center, especially for those that suffer hearing loss.
• Set up a partnership with Harvard and Darmouth on urban planning studies incorporating a large deaf and hard of hearing population and do research on using advanced visual technology, with hopes of improving the lives of all mankind.
• Excelled in volleyball, making it to the NCAA Division III finals.
• Spearheaded a think tank committee with The Cato Institute on pioneering in hiring deaf and hard of hearing people as visual strategists for military operations.
• Fundraised over $200,000 in one year to establish a student-funded scholarship fund for deaf international students from third world countries to receive 4-year scholarship at the university of their choice in the United States.
• Worked closely with the DC City Council on making stadiums and restaurants deaf-friendly by offering sign language classes, deaf culture courses, and hiring deaf and hard of hearing employees to fairly represent the large deaf population in the nation’s capital.
• Participated in a disability committee on adding the Smithsonian’s first-ever Deaf Artists Wing at the National Gallery of Art.

I admit, this is a bit deaf-loaded. But, the point I’m making here is pretty clear. We have many opportunities to create partnerships with bigger fish out there.

It is TIME to get our own deaf/hard of hearing Rhodes scholar. A leader that exemplifies what we can do, if we had the energy and altruism. Dang it, we don’t want those HAF winning a Rhodes scholarship just because they learned the manual alphabet and actually possessed a vocabulary of 10 signs. Let them be unique by doing other things, just leave us alone.

To find out exactly what Rhodes scholarship is, check this out: http://www.wpi.edu/Academics/FS/rhodes.pdf.