Gallaudet Chooses Interim President

Some of his proposals center on ways to prevent frustration over lack of communication from boiling over. "We're going to see that people have an opportunity to really voice their concerns," he said. He suggested establishing a council for campus groups to work on issues such as diversity. He said he would begin reaching out to Capitol Hill, the Department of Education, Middle States and donors immediately to reassure them that "this was a bump in the road, and we have a plan."

Noah Beckman, president of the student government, said he was impressed with Davila, particularly his idea of establishing an ombudsman on campus.

"People want a fresh start," said LaToya Plummer, another student protest leader.

Davila was raised in a migrant workers' camp in California, his parents immigrants from Mexico who traveled from farm to farm with their eight children.

One sister died when he was a small boy. His family was poor, all the children sleeping in one bed, everyone helping with the work.

Like many Spanish-speaking farm workers at the time, he did not go to school.

When he was 8, said longtime friend Joseph Fischgrund, who is helping write a biography of Davila, he was working with the rest of the family, shaking trees to harvest plums, when his father had a heart attack.

Davila waited with his father for the ambulance to work its way through the ruts in the fields, but it was too late.

A few years later, he got sick with an illness his mother thought was the flu.

It was spinal meningitis. It left him deaf.

After a few months, his mother packed a suitcase for him and took him to the train station in San Diego with a small sign that said "Roberto, School for the Deaf, Berkeley," and sent him off, alone.

There he was given food, shelter and an education.