Roberta ‘Bobbi’ Cordano is known for being ‘the first.’ She’s determined not to be the last.

Roberta “Bobbi” Cordano is one of USA TODAY’s Women of the Year, a recognition of women who have made a significant impact in their communities and across the country. The program launched in 2022 as a continuation of Women of the Century, which commemorated the 100th anniversary of women gaining the right to vote. Meet this year’s honorees at womenoftheyear.usatoday.com.

In some ways, Roberta “Bobbi” Cordano’s path would always lead her to Gallaudet University. Her parents are both graduates and were deaf, and many from the community she grew up in went there, too.

But Cordano says she took “the road less traveled” to become the first deaf woman and first openly LGBTQ person to be president of Gallaudet, the world’s only liberal arts university for deaf and hard-of-hearing people.

Cordano decided from a young age she wanted to be a lawyer, and law schools didn’t tend to accept Gallaudet graduates, she said, because they “didn't believe that deaf people could be lawyers back then.” So she went to a hearing college.

She did become a lawyer, and went on to be an assistant attorney general in Minnesota before founding two charter schools for deaf and hard-of-hearing children.

Though Gallaudet in Washington, D.C., has been around since 1864, it wasn’t until 1988 that the first deaf president, I. King Jordan, was installed, and only after students and community members shut down the campus in dayslong protests demanding a deaf president.

In 2016, Cordano was named the first deaf woman to hold the post.

“That dream for a better future is why I'm here. I really stand on their shoulders,” Cordano said, as this month saw the 35th anniversary of the Deaf President Now movement.

Today, Cordano said she works to advance equality for deaf people every day in her role at Gallaudet. She advocates for all people to learn American Sign Language from a young age and says two tenets of her view of “transformational leadership” on campus involve giving equal access to both English and ASL, and engaging in anti-oppression work to dismantle inequalities like racism on campus.

And, she wants deaf people to know they don’t need fixing. “Deaf gain” is the concept that “deaf people have something to offer to the world. Our way of being is truly powerful,” she said.

Take, for example, innovations from the deaf community that are widely used today such as closed captioning and the football huddle.

"When we come into the world, we show up perfect. We are perfect just exactly the way we are,” she said.

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Who do you look up to?

My parents. I think about growing up and how much I looked to them as role models. My mother was the first deaf woman in the world to be the chief medical technologist in a medical lab in a hospital. And just watching the way she led, watching her as a scientist in the hospital environment was an amazing experience for me, to see all that she was able to accomplish.

My father was a football coach, he was an athletic director, and he had the winningest record for the football teams. So I had two parents to look up to who were models of how to thrive, how to succeed, how to have drive, and do so with compassion.

Do you have a guiding principle or mantra you tell yourself?

One was shared with me by a deaf woman who was actually one of the very first deaf faculty teachers who taught Latin at Gallaudet. I called her Aunt Penny.

She taught me what she called the three P's. The first one was, whenever you face some kind of frustration or obstacle, you're required to have patience. And when you run out of patience, then you need to persevere. And third, if you've done both of those two things, you'll end up with power, not just self-power but the ability to step into your power and make a difference for others..

Why is representation of deaf people important?

Representation matters. Because when young people see a deaf woman leading Gallaudet University, especially if it's a young deaf child, they look to something and realize it's also possible for them. It's what let me also have that same kind of a dream because I saw so many successful deaf adults, women – my mother included.

It's an opportunity for people to shift their perception of how they see the world or have seen the world growing up, and imagine what deaf people can do or what deaf women can do.

You grew up in a world that wasn’t built to accommodate you. How did you come to thrive?

The key to thriving really stems from your home. My parents and the family that I lived in, of course, used sign language. I had full access to communication in a very loving way.

I had to learn how to survive socially in the hearing world. And that experience was often a lonely one. It was hard. I didn't have interpreters, I didn't have note-takers, I didn't have any kinds of accommodations. I was basically left to myself, my own.

It's brought me to where I am today, and that is to be a bridge between the deaf community and the hearing world.

What are some ways that you get involved in advancing equality?

I think it's the daily work of being president of Gallaudet to advance equality. That's my job. That's what I do. And to make sure that our students have the opportunity and the preparation and the tools they need to go out into the world and thrive. That's advancing equality.

When we look to our youth, they are the future. So to achieve equality, education still continues to be one of the most powerful pathways.

What would you tell your younger self?

I would tell my younger self that I'm so grateful to who she was. I would not be here but for her. Her stubbornness, her willingness to fight, her willingness to just be, to persevere. That child is why I'm here today. So I would tell her thank you.

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Gallaudet University president is a USA TODAY Women of the Year honoree