Guiding light
A gifted, graceful teacher and researcher enlarges UBC's vision
by Bruce Mason staff writer
Gloria Onyeoziri is helping us grasp previously unseen possibilities.
It's not just that she is an authority on important African
writers who often
work in French. Nor that she brings the invaluable insights of a
woman of colour
and a native Nigerian to help clarify these voices which we have
not heard before.
Nor that she is the only blind faculty member at UBC.
Onyeoziri, an associate professor in French, Hispanic and Italian Studies at
UBC since 1994, points out that Africa is conspicuous in its absence
from Trek 2000, UBC's vision document.
"It is a serious concern," she says. "The university must specialize and
develop strategic partners, but the sweep is so broad -- Europe, the Americas and
the Pacific Region. Why not Africa?"
She explains that the West must begin to approach Africa as a continent of many
countries, many cultures, many languages and diverse post-colonial
challenges.
With characteristic grace and good humour she illustrates a typical stereotype
and a response she has given many times.
"Yes we have universities in Nigeria -- in fact over 30 fine
universities. And
did you know there are more than 350 languages in Nigeria alone?"
"My first book was on Aimé Césaire, the greatest black poet,"
she says. "I am not the first to write about him. I am not even in the first
one thousand. However my approach is unique. He had wide knowledge of Greek,
Latin and French and I come to his work and socio-historic background through
a literary analysis of language and semantics."
In her department and across campus she has a legendary ability to
call students
by name within the first week of classes.
"It is something students appreciate," she says. "I have to listen more
carefully than a sighted teacher and ask my students to occupy the same seat,
but I don't have to worry about remembering them by their appearance alone."
She uses the blackboard.
"I prefer the contact which isn't the same on an overhead projector," she
explains.
"I arrange material in short sentences so they don't become all scrunched up at
the end, but sometimes I have to ask a student to be my secretary at the
blackboard," she adds with the same deep, rich laugh that punctuates her
popular classes.
The daughter of farmers in eastern Nigeria she was spotted early and often as a
gifted student.
She pursued teaching credentials in eastern Nigeria, furthered her studies in
Senegal and completed her Bachelor of Arts at the University of Jos in the
central plateau region.
But a few years before she ever got to university, a problem had appeared.
"No one has been able to fully explain the inflammation of the iris which made
me go blind in one eye," she says. "Missionary doctors struggled in vain to
save the vision in my other eye and I remember rubbing my eyes and saying to
myself, `My education, my education, what about my education?'"
"I do not know how I would react now, but I was 19 then, determined and filled
with ambition," she remembers. "I abandoned a career as a high school teacher
when opportunity knocked."
Onyeoziri had earned a scholarship for study in France but became impatient
with delays, and enrolled instead at the University of Toronto in 1982.
"We met in the summer of '84," recalls husband Robert Miller, a sessional
lecturer in French at UBC. "I had taught in Nigeria for three years and
we had much in common."
"She knows who she is -- not unduly self-confident--she knows where she comes
from and can't be easily discouraged," he says. "There is a lot of respect for
people with disabilities in Nigeria and she has worked hard to convince people
in Toronto and at UBC that with more effort she can accomplish
as much as anyone."
"I would be blind -- or more blind -- without the Crane Resource Centre," says
Onyeoziri. She credits Crane Resource Centre adviser Paul Thiele for his
support since her arrival at UBC.
It includes providing French readers who tape her voluminous teaching
and research material.
"It is a pleasure and a feather in our cap," says Thiele, who is also visually
impaired. "Technology alone won't do the job. It also requires people and
Gloria is proof of the payoff when we take a chance on someone who
has what is ultimately a visual communication disability."
Onyeoziri is an expert in not only African, but also Caribbean literatures in
French.
The poetry, theatre and political historical discourse of Césaire was a
starting point for literary and interpretative semantics, which include
applications to problems specific to African languages and literatures.
"We know little about French cultures and countries outside
France and Quebec
and Gloria brings her own experience and insights -- her
contributions are enormous,"
says Prof. Valerie Raoul, a friend and colleague in the French
Dept. and director
of the Centre for Research in Women's Studies and Gender Relations. "As well,
her disability adds something unique to who she is, and makes her a
truly exceptional
teacher."
Onyeoziri is spending this academic term as a UBC scholar
with the centre
to further her research on Calixthe Beyala. She is also part of "An
Interdisciplinary
Inquiry into Narrative of Disease, Disability and Trauma," a
three-year multi-disciplinary
research project led by Raoul, which is funded by the Peter Wall
Institute for
Advanced Studies.
"I tell feminists and others who say African women are the most
oppressed that,
on the contrary, they are very strong with powerful voices, but
have only recently
begun to create their own literatures," Onyeoziri says.
Janet Mee -- director of UBC's Disability Resource Centre and
the Crane Resource Centre, with its 120 volunteer narrators -- says that both
centres have worked with Onyeoziri to find solutions to a series of
unique challenges.
They include finding technology with speech recognition software
that can function
in both French and English.
"Several weeks after Gloria arrived at UBC, she called to say she was
having difficulty using the elevator in the Buchanan Tower to get
to and from her office on the seventh floor," recalls
Mee. "We immediately
added Braille to the buttons.
"She called back, delighted with the progress, but she was, of course, still
unable to determine which floor she was on when the elevator door opened."
Braille indicators were added on each floor -- a small thing but critical to
Onyeoziri's ability to travel independently.
"To achieve the goal of ensuring people with disabilities are able to fully
participate on campus requires a partnership. Everyone in the university
community has a role to play," says Mee.
"There is no one solution for Gloria or the university, no easy answers, just
lots of collaborative problem-solving resulting in tremendous opportunities to
enlarge our experience."
Onyeoziri is a Christian who says she has had many blessings, particularly her
son Amarachi, a University Hill Elementary School student who has a dream of
becoming an engineer and enjoys playing his visits to Nigeria.
"She is a good friend to us all who often invites students to her home, as well
as a member of our board," says Peter Dove, UBC Pentecostal chaplain and
head of the University Christian Ministries.
"Gloria is a person of grace and good humour who is teaching us what is
possible, despite whatever limitations we may have."
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