After graduation, native Missourian hopes to help disabled
THE CAPITAL-JOURNAL
The Topeka resident, whose main interest lies in transactional law, is partially blind and partially deaf.
“It hasn't been easy,” Alkire said. “I nearly quit at the end of the first week. It was orientation week, and I didn't have much of a clue about where to go and was generally overwhelmed with the material. People outside of our assigned study groups just weren't coming up and talking to me.”
By Thursday of that first week, Alkire told his study group that he was considering quitting because of technical snafus, his inability to find places in the law school building and his feelings of being overwhelmed.
“One of the group members, a lady named Christi, basically said that I wasn't going to quit on them and that she and the group would help me out,” he said. “After that, they helped me get to places until I could learn the route to get there on my own.”
Alkire, a native of Lexington, Mo., who was born partially paralyzed and with a severe hearing loss, was interviewed about his life and law school experience via email.
Tell me about your earlier education.
“My education can be divided into two phases: pre-blindness and post-blindness,” Alkire said.
After graduating from Lexington High School in 1999, he went to Westminster College in Fulton, Mo., where he graduated with a bachelor’s degree in history and political science.
“About six weeks before I was set to graduate in May of 2003, I started losing my vision,” he said. “I completed the last semester of work and graduated that December. Then I started on my blind life skills journey.”
In 2005, Alkire spent five months at the Helen Keller National Center in Sands Point, N.Y., where he learned everything from technology to basic Braille and cooking. Two years later, he attended Lions World Services for the Blind in Little Rock, Ark., where he worked on blind skills and completed a job training program for the Internal Revenue Service.
“In October of 2007, I moved to Kansas City where I worked for the IRS for six months until my declining vision became too bad to do my job and I had to resign,” he said.
In April 2010, Alkire spent a couple of months at Alphapointe Association for the Blind, where he brushed up on his blind skills to make sure he was ready to return to an academic environment.
Tell me about the onset and cause of your disabilities.
“I was born three months premature,” Alkire said. “As a result, I've always had severe hearing loss and a partially paralyzed right arm, hand and fingers.”
In 2003, he lost most of the vision in his left eye when the retina detached and surgeries to reattach it resulted in a thick layer of tissue growing over the inside of the eye.
Later, he developed acute angle glaucoma in his right eye. Surgery to correct that condition triggered the same type of thick membrane on the inside of that eye.
In the past eight years, vision in his right eye has been reduced to light, some color and some motion.
Why did you decide to go to law school?
“I've always been interested in the law ever since I was a kid,” Alkire said. “I always loved to argue with people — so law school just seemed natural.”
His plan was to take a year off after his college graduation and then enroll at a law school or get an education degree so he could teach high school social studies.
“Chances are pretty good that if I hadn't gone blind I would be teaching high school social studies in some small town in Missouri,” he said. “But when I lost my vision, I figured teaching was pretty much closed off as classroom management would just be too difficult.
“So after learning blind skills and failing to find a job or unable to remain with the IRS, I figured law school fit my skill set and would help me gain employment.”
What challenges have you faced in law school?
“The biggest challenge of law school is socializing with my peers,” Alkire said. “I have difficulty communicating with them because I can't always hear them clearly when in a noisy environment, such as the halls or in the classroom before and after class.”
He said his law school friends are limited to “those few with the courage to come up and introduce themselves to the deaf-blind guy” and a few other people he has met over the past year.
“Unfortunately, I don't have a study group,” he said. “Since I'm hard of hearing and since my computer is all auditory, it makes no sense to study in the library. Besides, since I have to patiently wade though material that others can find at a glance, it would be slow going to study with me.”
When will you graduate and what do you hope to do once you graduate from law school?
“I hope to graduate in either May or December of 2013,” Alkire said. “I'm hoping to go into general practice serving disabled clients with whatever legal help they need, whether it's a dispute with their landlord, real estate transaction, drawing up a will or advocating for them in a discrimination case.”
No comments:
Post a Comment