During his childhood in Dallas, Texas, he never let being deaf hold him back. He grew up learning American Sign Language (ASL) and moved to California in 1994.

Rufus Blair teaches ASL classes and a Deaf Culture class. He was recently recognized as tenured faculty at the San Jose City College Employee Recognition Ceremony.

“It (being recognized as a tenured faculty) is a significant milestone for a faculty member because it’s an official acknowledgement that the college and the districts are committed to having this person be a faculty member for them for as long as they want to be on this campus,” Dean of Language Arts Keiko Kimura said.

Blair said that it feels great to be recognized in this way, and he feels even more motivated in his work now, but he was disappointed that a free trip to Hawaii was not included, he jokingly added.

“I am very thankful to Dean Keiko Kimura, Karen Pullen (coordinator/counselor for Disabilities Support Program and Services) and Rebecca Gamez (foreign language instructor) for their feedback and being on my tenure committee,” Blair said.

The tenure review committee is charged with reviewing a faculty member’s improvements in the areas of teaching, their involvement in the community and their professional development.

The way that Blair has proven to be worthy of this recognition is because he has received positive approval ratings from his students and his peers. He is involved in advocating for the deaf community and has established “deaf chat,” where students can practice their sign language, Kimura said.

Pullen said she thinks Blair is a professional instructor as well as very passionate about teaching ASL and deaf culture.

“I am very proud of him; he is an outstanding professor, and he is very deserving of being recognized as tenured faculty,” Pullen said.

Blair has been teaching at SJCC for 12 years and before that he worked at Cabrillo and De Anza colleges. He received his bachelor’s degree in history and his master’s degree in Deaf Education at San Jose State University.

Blair’s mother also learned ASL to be able to communicate with him.  He has three sisters; two of them know sign language and the other one can finger spell.

Blair said he believes it is important for at least one parent or family member of a deaf child to be able to use sign language so they can communicate with their children. He is glad that his mother was able to do this for him.

“Communication is paramount.  It doesn’t matter if it’s spoken language or sign language; what is important is that communication,” Blair said.

Being deaf has taught him patience, and he said people have to be patient in general whether they are deaf or speaking. He said he has to be patient with his students who do not know sign language when he teaches them and corrects them.

In his free time, Blair said he likes to go out a lot and meet new people.

When he goes out and he tries to communicate with people who are “sign challenged,” as he likes to call them, such as waiters, this also requires a lot of patience from him. He said that in these situations he tries to think of something funny to decrease the tension when these misunderstandings happen.

Blair said he loves the discussions he and his class have in his deaf culture class. They have discussions about the different behaviors between deaf and hearing people, the different educational options related to having deaf children, the language systems for deaf people and relationships and communication between deaf and hearing people. The students in this class are not required to know sign language because there is an interpreter who can interpret for those students.

When Blair does not have an interpreter present when he is communicating with someone who does not know sign language, he gestures and tries to read peoples’ lips and write notes or text messages on his cell phone so that he can communicate with them, he said.

Melinda Hunt, 29, social work major, took Blair’s ASL 1B class and said even though she is not deaf, the class was not too hard.

“He is funny and really approachable so if you had any questions you could just go up to him and ask him,” Hunt said.

She liked his class and enjoyed learning from him because she said the class was really interesting.

“I feel that when the SJCC administration hired me they welcomed me to work here,” Blair said. “I am very honored to be working here at SJCC,” Blair said. “I love teaching here.”