Silence, absolute silence.
Some, such as Jeff Choates, Ball State American Sign Language (ASL) adjunct professor, are born into a silent world, into a deaf community. He, his parents and his brother are all deaf.
Choate said ASL is the way his family communicates. Now, he wants “everyone to understand ASL as a language.”
While ASL is the sixth most-used language in the U.S., according to Gallaudet University, courses in the language cannot be taken to fulfill Ball State’s foreign language requirements for a Bachelor of Arts degree.
“Why is ASL not offered as a foreign language?” Choate said. “ASL is the true language of the deaf. The deaf communicate with each other using it.
“More and more deaf people become active in the hearing society, participating in any activities that most are in ... We now live in a multicultural country embracing people of different languages and culture.”
Ball State students can currently take Chinese, French, German, Greek, Italian, Japanese, Latin or Spanish to earn at least the three credits of foreign language courses Ball State requires for a Bachelor of Arts degree or for University Core Curriculum (UCC).
Student Government Association (SGA) senator Marcus Jennings co-authored a SGA resolution promoting ASL courses at Ball State. He said the resolution is the first step for the inclusion of sign language courses in the university’s requirements.
“This resolution is supporting the steps to allow this. This is a foundation,” Jennings said. “I hope to increase the number of students that take the course. Then, there is an increase in the number of students who can communicate effectively.”
Student Government Association senator Marcus Jennings co-authored a SGA resolution promoting ASL coursed at Ball State. Currently, students cannot take ASL as their foreign language requirement. Eric Pritchett, Madeline Grosh, DN
Currently, students at both Purdue University and Indiana University can take ASL courses to fulfill foreign language requirements. Ball State ASL courses, however, are offered to all students with limited space due to a lack of resources, said David McIntosh, chairperson of the department of special education.
McIntosh said the department only has Choate teaching ASL courses and because of this, there are only one or two courses offered a semester.
“We are in support of making it fulfill foreign language requirements,” McIntosh said. “However, we have to be able to provide a quality program and find faculty to teach it.”
McIntosh said to offer a quality program, he would want to offer around four ASL courses with three full time teachers per course. He estimated between 10-12 new professors would be needed if ASL was added to fulfill foreign language requirements.
The average salary for all Ball State associate professors, assistant professors and professors is around $77,000 according to The Star Press' 2017-18 Ball State Salaries Database. This means 12 new professors could cost nearly $924,000.
“We don’t want to offer a program where we can’t offer the faculty resources,” McIntosh said. “We don’t know what the demands for ASL courses would be if they were a part of foreign language requirements.”
A survey sent out to the student body over email from SGA estimated the demand for ASL courses. It said 87 percent of the 300 student respondents said they would be willing to take a sign language course if it were a part of foreign language requirements.
Additionally, McIntosh said he would have a difficult time finding ASL professors to teach the courses because there is a shortage of deaf education teachers in Indiana, according to U.S. Department of Education.
While finding the resources for ASL courses could pose problems, the process to allow ASL courses to fulfill the foreign language requirements is simple, said Marilyn Buck, interim provost and interim executive vice president for academic affairs.
Buck said to make a course meet foreign language requirements, it needs to be approved by the Undergraduate Education Committee. To meet UCC requirements, it needs to be approved by University Core Curriculum Subcommittee.
To get approved, the department housing the course needs to write up a proposal and present it to the committees, which are made up of Ball State faculty.
“Not all folks consider ASL a foreign language, or in the same category as foreign languages,” Buck said. “It is totally up to the faculty on the committee on why or why it wouldn’t qualify.”
Zoe Harvey, a junior deaf education major, said ASL courses would benefit more students if it were a part of foreign language requirements.
“When students take the classes, they get to be a part of a really amazing community. The deaf community is unique in the fact that they don’t consider themselves to have a disability. They are strong and independent,” Harvey said. “I was a swim coach and three deaf girls joined the swim team. I had to learn ASL to communicate with them and those girls took me in.”
Contact Liz Rieth with comments at ejrieth@bsu.edu or on Twitter at @liz_rieth.
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