In this week's copy of the magazine, there is an ad for Graduate education at West Virginia University featuring Yew Choong Cheong, a deaf student who received a 2001 music scholarship to attend WVU's College of Creative Arts. Across the top of the ad is the quote "A physical disability is not an obstacle to pursuing your dreams" under which the words West Virginia University appear. Below that is a photo of Yew Choong Cheong at a piano. Next to him on the right are the words: Simple truths: hearing (loss) is irrelevant. To the right are the words: Word to the wise: I feel Beethoven telling me himself, 'Know who you are' .
There is a short story about how Yew lost his hearing at age 8 and at 14 heard Beethoven,then received the scholarship in 2001. It mentions his close relationship with his mentor and professor as well as a performance in March at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts for 2007 International Young Soloists for VSA Awards. At the bottom of the ad are some stats about WVU's graduate programs. The ad also includes a link to a website for more of Yew's story (you can click above to go there).
I was struck by this ad and thought I'd mention it on here. Any thoughts?
2 comments:
I saw the ad and thought it was positively done. I took it as a plug for the caring faculty members of the grad school targeted at parents.
I didn't see the ad but went over to the web site. I found the video to be full of "inspirational" and "overcoming disability" language which was a turn off to me. The message he gave was you can persevere and overcome anything with hard work which kind of puts a big burden on people with disabilities IMHO.
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