Program will offer students chance to learn, live with ASL

MSU is taking American Sign Language, or ASL, out of the classroom and into the community.

Beginning in the fall, students will be able to participate in a residential hall program where ASL is the primary mode of communication.

The living/learning option will be located in Snyder-Phillips Hall and will provide students who are deaf or hard of hearing, as well as those who use or study the language, with an environment that embraces it.

Marta Belsky, the program coordinator, said the option will give students the opportunity to practice using the language more than twice a week in the classroom.

“Deaf and hard-of-hearing students attending MSU will be able to fully communicate with their peers (the students on the floor), which doesn’t happen on other floors where no one uses sign language,” Belsky said in an e-mail.

MSU will be the first college or university in Michigan with this type of program.

Students must have a basic ability in ASL and commit to communicating through ASL to participate.

An ASL floor mentor also will be fluent in ASL and have knowledge about the deaf community, Belsky said.

Kyle Callahan, a German junior, said he became interested in ASL in high school and began learning all he could about deaf culture.

Callahan said he plans to participate in the program and pursue a degree in deaf education so he can learn more about what he said many think of as a “subculture.”

“It’s below the radar for a lot of people,” he said.

Harold Johnson, a professor of special education and co-director of the deaf education teacher preparation program, said the residential option will send the message that MSU is a welcoming place to the deaf community.

“It can really enhance the depth and breadth of learning for those not only studying ASL, but those using it in their day-to-day lives,” Johnson said.

Film screenings with panel discussions in ASL, poetry events, dramatic plays and deaf comedians are a few of the events that could involve the community, he said.

“It’s not limited — it takes you out of your usual way of thinking and being understood,” he said.

The program was developed through a partnership among the College of Communication Arts and Sciences, College of Education and College of Social Science.

All students are encouraged to apply, but those pursuing related degrees in communicative sciences and disorders, deaf education or social work are highly encouraged to participate, said Jill Elfenbein, an associate professor of communicative sciences and disorders.

Last fall, the coordinators surveyed beginning ASL classes and found more than 60 majors were enrolled in the courses.

Elfenbein said increasingly, students may find ASL will either be an asset or necessary when they are preparing for their future careers.

ASL is the third most commonly used language in the United States, following English and Spanish, she said.

“When students study other languages, they can choose to study abroad to immerse themselves in the languages. ASL was developed here in the U.S. — there is no study abroad program,” she said.