Read my lips: American Sign Language should be included within the Foreign Language Department at NIU.

Currently, students working toward a bachelor of arts degree are required to show understanding of a foreign language equal to two years of college instruction. I was surprised to see that ASL was not included on the list of 13 languages available to students. NIU does offer three ASL classes for college credit, but if the courses were developed into a formal program under the Foreign Language Department, more students could take advantage of it and, even more importantly, learn about deaf culture.

The heading “foreign language requirement” can be misleading because ASL is indigenous to the United States and Canada and is used by an estimated 100,000 to 500,000 people, making it the fourth largest language in the United States, according to www.deaflibrary.org. Because of the misinterpretation that could ensue, many colleges have changed the heading to “second language requirements.”

Sherman Wilcox, an associate professor at the University of New Mexico, has published research supporting ASL for second language requirements. As of Oct. 20, 115 colleges and universities are listed on his Web site (www.unm.edu/~wilcox/ASLFL/univlist.html) as offering ASL for foreign language credit, with the University of Chicago being the only school in Illinois listed.

Sue Doederlein, associate dean for the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, couldn’t remember the specific time frame, but said many years back, NIU

considered offering ASL to fulfill the foreign language requirement.

“ASL has not recently been raised as an issue for inclusion as part of the B.A. requirement,” she said, “but that is not because of a lack of interest; it has to do more with availability of resources, as well as high school equivalency. Right now, a lot of high schools do not provide four years of ASL.”

To be honest with you, after viewing the list of languages offered at NIU, I don’t know of any high schools that offer Burmese or Thai for four years of study, either. But for whatever reasons given, NIU has the capability of joining the list of schools that consider ASL a foreign language. Sure, it will take some time and manpower to structure such a program, but I believe NIU can do it. I’ve been at this school for five years, and I’ve seen how NIU listens to its student body and tries its best to address issues that concern us.

Maggie Cormier, a counselor for the Program for Hearing Impaired and an instructor for two ASL classes this semester, agrees that developing the current ASL courses into a more structured program is a good idea and could shed the misconceptions that ASL is not a real language.

“It would be beneficial,” she said, “because it exposes students to another culture. ASL is an actual language with studies that prove that. It’s a visual language with only the written aspect missing.”

Graduate accountancy major Ted Trenkamp, who is deaf, is a teaching assistant for ASL II this semester and finds his students approach the class with an eagerness to understand the language.

“The students are very receptive to learning sign,” Trenkamp said. “For many, it is required for their major, but they appear to be enthusiastic about learning it for themselves.”

Ae-Jin Ko, a senior accountancy major and a student in Trenkamp’s class, isn’t required to take an ASL course for her major or bachelor of science degree.

“I wanted to continue learning ASL because I took a class in sign during the summer,” she said. “I also wanted to be able to communicate better with my friend Ted (Trenkamp).”

Some colleges fear that including sign language classes into the foreign language program would detract interest in other “traditional” languages. Wilcox found the opposite to be true. In his article “American Sign Language As A Foreign Language,” he reported that colleges that accept ASL as a foreign language show no decline in traditional languages taken, but rather show an increase in student interest for learning another language and culture.

NIU boasts of its continuing vision for unity in diversity, so by including ASL as another option for B.A. language requirements, officials are not just talking about diversity but showing through their actions that ASL is part of a rich culture that deserves to be studied and appreciated.

It’s a shame that deaf culture has only one designated week, usually in November, to bring about awareness.

But that can change at this university. If students wish to express interest for further development of ASL and deaf culture classes, they should call either the College of LA&S or the College of Visual and Performing Arts and leave a message for the college curriculum committee.

If diversifying campus is as important as everyone says it is, then this opportunity shouldn’t go unheard.