Picture yourself in one of the University of Oregon’s giant lecture halls, excited for your first day of class. You find a seat somewhere in the middle, and when the professor walks out, you’re ready to finally learn something about your newly-decided major. But when he starts to talk, you can’t hear a thing. The sound completely dissipates before it gets anywhere near your ears, along with any knowledge you could have possibly absorbed.
For students who are hard of hearing, this is a particularly challenging problem that they face every day. This is why UO has recently launched an initiative called Project AMP, short for Amplify My Professor, which encourages professors to use microphones in lecture halls.
Project AMP is a product of the College of Education and UO Chapter of NSSLHA, the National Student Speech Language Hearing Association. The goal of this project is to raise awareness for the need for microphones or other amplification in lectures in order to help students who are hard of hearing have a better classroom experience.
“A lot of times, students who are hard of hearing might feel shy [about wanting] to sit closer to the front,” President of UO’s chapter of NSSLHA Alice Smith said. “It’s not that they’re disabled or anything, it’s just that they need extra assistance and support.”
While Smith says that the communication disorders classes do use microphones, most of the College of Education does not, which extends to classes at the university as a whole. But this project is faced with challenges.
“[Even though] they don’t have a visible disability, they’re still here. It’s hard to get through to break that habit of not using a microphone,” project assistant Alison Stewart said.
Based on data collected last year by project director Karen McLaughlin, out of 172 observations, 67 percent of the time professors did not use a microphone. The survey she then put out to all respondents showed that the professors who indicated that they didn’t use a microphone in class said it was because they felt they didn’t need one.
Project AMP aims to have all professors on campus using a microphone in their lectures. Going forward, it hopes to spread Project AMP’s mission to several other schools in order to help students hard of hearing in different areas as well.
“I definitely feel this will affect their experience,” Smith said. “Not just for students hard of hearing, but other students who would prefer a more clearly amplified professor, because it cuts out background noise, and they don’t have to second guess while taking notes or miss the lecture. I think it will benefit all students.”
Project AMP gives a voice to students hard of hearing
Jordyn Brown
November 13, 2015
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