On Friday, May 14, Michele Randolph graduated from UNC Charlotte with the class of 2021, earning bachelor’s degrees in History and Africana Studies. It was her second trip across the UNC Charlotte commencement stage. This time — thanks to the cochlear implants that she received in 2018 — she could hear the applause as she accepted her diploma.

Randolph’s amazing story of determination and perseverance was broadcast on ABC this week.

“Having a national news network like ABC interested in my story was so exciting and humbling,” said Randolph. “I’ve experienced a lot of loss, pain and limitation over the years, yet I finally felt validated through this experience in that everything I’ve gone through might serve to inspire someone else.”

When Randolph first arrived at UNC Charlotte in 1989, she decided that her hearing loss would not obstruct her path to success. This reflects the determination she exhibited at age 12 when she became completely deaf and taught herself to lip read to navigate the world rather than learn sign language. In 1995, she graduated with a degree in Criminal Justice and a minor in Political Science — the first woman in her family to earn a college degree. Resolved to succeed according to her self-defined high standards, Randolph persisted without taking advantage of the University’s resources for students with disabilities, something she realized in retrospect could have enhanced her student experience.

Randolph returned to UNC Charlotte in 2018, with a new ability to hear and a fresh perspective, ready to pursue a new discipline — and with a goal to outpace her original GPA of 2.5. Despite the fact that this time she entered with responsibilities to family life — her daughter, Miracle, was born with special needs — Randolph immersed herself in the University’s offerings, joining honor society Phi Sigma Pi and serving on the Disability Services Student Advisory Board.

A series of challenges and heartbreaking circumstances in 2019 and 2020 could have set her back, but they didn’t. First, after emergency surgery, she returned to campus with 67 staples in her abdomen, aided by an oxygen tank and a walker. Then COVID-19 sent her mother to intensive care and affected her daughter. Last July, her husband, George, suffered cardiac arrest, which ended his life in August.

“I always knew that to get through this season of grief I had to just keep going, but I wouldn’t have been able to do so without the immense amount of support and grace extended to me by faculty,” said Randolph. “All of my professors in the Africana Studies and History departments have personified the meaning of true grace, they’ve understood my difficulties and each of them in their own way have given me an abundance of care, support and motivation to keep going.”

What’s next for Michele Randolph? She has applied for graduate school at UNC Charlotte and aims to one day teach at the University. She is appreciative of her experience.

“As I sat through the graduation ceremony, I was constantly overwhelmed thinking about how different this graduation experience was compared to my first,” she recalled. “For the first time, I heard the national anthem, the conversations going on around me, almost every word of the speeches and I especially heard the ringing of the UNC Charlotte bell — a campus tradition — for the first time!

“The world is so noisy,” she said. “But it’s a good noise.”