Top of Her Game
1986年的罗伯塔·“波比”·科尔达诺就任华盛顿特区总统两周后.C.’s Gallaudet University in January, 她经历了只能用暴风雪来形容的考验.
“雪斯拉”是该地区有史以来最严重的冬季风暴之一, dumping up to three feet of snow on parts of the D.C. 在一个周末的时间里，都会区的大部分地区都被困住了. 那些依赖火车和公共汽车的人发现自己被困住了, and a few neighborhoods, as well as some buildings on Gallaudet’s campus, lost power.
This wasn’t the first challenge that Cordano, 谁在1月1日成为这所著名的聋哑和听障学生学校的校长, was required to overcome in her decades-long career in law, education, and public service. Born deaf herself, 13岁时，她的姐姐因残疾而受到歧视，她决定成为一名律师. 科尔达诺的父母和两个姐妹中的一个都是聋子.
Gallaudet was always in Cordano’s blood. Both of her parents are alumni, 他们从小就给她灌输了对学校的忠诚和敬畏. When Cordano was applying to colleges in the early 1980s, however, most law schools didn’t welcome deaf students, including graduates from Gallaudet. Her parents, 担心如果她去了他们的母校，她就无法实现自己的目标, encouraged her to apply elsewhere.
“They said, ‘If you really want to be a lawyer, and you want to beat the odds, 你必须能够接受你必须去一所听力大学的事实,’” she remembers. “They told me to pick a liberal arts college, something similar to Gallaudet, that was small, where I could be successful.她决定去伯洛伊特大学，主修社会学. 她后来进入了威斯康星大学麦迪逊分校的法学院.
But back to the snowstorm. Cordano, a former assistant attorney general for
他曾在圣路易斯市的一家健康和人类服务非营利组织工作. 在她的专业经验范围之外，她努力想出解决问题的办法. Working with campus staff and administrators, 当食堂停电时，她想出了如何为饥饿的学生提供食物，并委派工作人员清除人行道上的积雪，这样学生们就不会被困在宿舍里.
At one point, 科尔达诺向该校中小学生的家庭开放了她的校园之家.
“我们这里有17个家庭和他们的孩子住在一起，从很小的孩子到大一点的孩子,” she explains. “The temperatures had
(他们居住的)地方温度从67华氏度降到了47华氏度，因为我们失去了热量.科尔达诺估计，她的房子里一度有近50人. 因为她和她的配偶，她有足够的食物储备来养活他们所有人, Mary, have two teenage sons.
Reflecting on the snowstorm three months later, 科尔达诺说，这给了她与学生建立联系的绝佳机会, as well as support their leadership. She explains that before she even took office, 学生们明确表示，他们希望她所有的校园交流都能以美国手语的书面形式和视频博客(视频博客)的形式发布, reflecting Gallaudet’s status as a bilingual university. During the snowstorm, 校园危机领导小组给学生们写了一封电子邮件，告诉他们需要做些什么, 学生团体政府领导人对此作出回应，询问总统的视频博客在哪里.
“Within 24 hours, 学生们根据那封邮件中的内容为整个社区制作了一个签名视频博客,” she says, 他指出，加劳德特学院的专业摄像师通常需要两到三天的时间来制作一段视频. Cordano and the students collaborated on a script, 他们拍摄了科尔达诺用美国手语传达校园安全信息的过程. “他们建立了一个新的黄金标准，以提供访问并确保我们有双语交流,” she says of students.
在1988年被称为“现在是聋人总统”的学生抗议运动之后，加劳德特大学的领导地位引发了长达数十年的争议. Those efforts resulted in the appointment of I. 约旦国王，该校152年历史上第一位聋人校长. 2006年，学校董事会任命了一位聋哑人女校长，学生运动再次被点燃, but not a native speaker of ASL. 董事会最终在她上任之前终止了她的校长职位，因为教职员工对她投了不信任票.
科尔达诺现在是第四位担任总统的聋哑人，也是第一位担任总统的聋哑人女性.
Of her own undergraduate experience, 科尔达诺说，她在伯洛伊特大学结交的朋友在帮助她取得学业成功方面发挥了巨大作用. As a senior, she paid the kindness forward by taking Jennifer Nelson, 一名来自麦迪逊的一年级聋哑学生，不会说手语, under her wing.
“波比、她妈妈和姐姐都鼓励我去加劳德特大学, at least for a while, to immerse myself and claim my heritage,” Nelson says. 她在大二的时候从伯洛伊特转到了加劳德特，并学会了签名, 最终获得了乔治华盛顿大学的潜水奖学金，并在那里完成了本科学业. Today, she is an English professor at Gallaudet. “我认为科尔达诺校长给我们学校带来了急需的士气，”她补充道.
More than anything, 科尔达诺很感激能领导一所她一直觉得在召唤她的学校.
“That old adage, I think, applies here—to those whom much has been given, much is expected, and I’ve had so much opportunity in my life.”
-Bobbi Cordano’86
Katherine Flynn’11 is a Washington, D.C.他是美国的自由撰稿人，也是屡获殊荣的《菠菜白菜吧》的助理编辑.
