Returning student Jim Evangelista knows the University expects him to complete two years of a foreign language to graduate with a bachelor of arts degree.
But he doesn’t want to learn Spanish, or French, or even Japanese. In fact, Evangelista said he doesn’t think he should be required to learn how to speak another language at all.
That’s because the only language Evangelista wants to learn requires no words — only hands.
This week, Evangelista will submit a written petition to the University Academic Requirements Committee to allow him to use American Sign Language (ASL) to fulfill the University’s foreign language requirement.
Evangelista, who plans on working with deaf children after he graduates, said he believes the present foreign language requirements indicate a lack of appreciation for deaf children’s needs.
“We are so conscious in this community for the needs of those who are handicapped or otherwise disabled,” he said. “So why is it that this institution is not acknowledging American Sign Language as a language?”
Evangelista is not the first to ask that question, academic requirements committee member Hilary Gerdes said.
Nationally, she said, requirements committees have discussed the issue for years. And many prestigious schools — including Brown, Yale and Purdue — now allow students to use ASL credit to fulfill the foreign language requirement.
But at the University, few students have petitioned the committee to use ASL credit to meet the graduation requirements, she said, adding that those who have are usually deaf students.
Evangelista is unique in another way, Gerdes said. As a basis for his petition, Evangelista is relying on an Oregon state law passed in 1995 that states ASL classes offered at state universities “shall satisfy any second language elective requirement.”
Although the debate is not new, this law has never been considered in those discussions, Gerdes said.
ASL program coordinators at Western Oregon University, for example, used that law to establish ASL as a recognized language there, she said.
Gerdes said she believes the law is open to interpretation, but she does support accepting ASL for the language requirement. And she is hopeful that Evangelista’s petition will spark further discussion of the issue by the University Senate.
The academic requirements committee can rule on individual cases, but this is an issue Gerdes said that needs to be decided for the entire student body by the University undergraduate council.
The council has discussed this issue before. In 1994 the council passed a motion to continue barring ASL from meeting foreign language requirements. Gerdes said the council also quickly dismissed a motion for ASL to meet the foreign language requirements in 1997.
But next year, the council may discuss the issue again, according to undergraduate council chairman John Nicols. At the end of last year, he said, the issue was scheduled for discussion — but as of now no time or date has been set for that meeting.
Gerdes believes now is the time for that discussion to take place.
“There’s been some significant changes since the 1997 discussion,” she said, including the law on which Evangelista based his petition.
Another new development is an apparently contradictory change in the University’s admission’s requirements — as of 1998, incoming students can use ASL credit to fulfill the high school foreign language requirement.
Despite these new developments, Gerdes said she believes the most important factor in the council’s decision may be whether members are convinced that ASL is a individual language associated with a unique culture.
That didn’t happen at the 1994 discussion, former council member and biology professor Alan Dickman said. He said while he supported the motion, the majority of the council did not.
“The big issue was: ‘Is there really a culture associated with sign language?’” he said. By the end of the discussion, he said, most council members agreed that ASL was a individual language separate from English.
But members did not reach a consensus that the “deaf culture” often discussed in relation to ASL possessed enough unique literary, historical and artistic markers to qualify it as a truly separate culture, he said.
Michael Hibbard, a professor in the planning, public policy and management department, said he felt that way when he sat on the board.
“I have no doubt that ASL is a different language, with its own grammar and syntax,” he said. “But I think the purpose of the foreign language requirement goes beyond that.”
The controversy over the foreign language requirement may lie in the wording, said University Sign Language Instructor Johanna Larson-Muhr.
“I think that what’s happening is that the foreign language requirement is mislabeled,” she said. “What we’re talking about is a second language requirement.”
For example, she said, at many universities, Navajo — a language spoken only in the United States — is offered to fulfill that requirement. She also points to the growing number of Americans who speak Spanish, even though that language is also considered “foreign” under the University guidelines.
Because ASL is relatively new — it was not formally recognized as a language until 1965 — people often do not understand that it is a separate language associated with an individual culture, she said.
“It’s been proven that ASL has linguistic integrity,” she said. “In fact, it has no roots in English at all.”
Evangelista, who began his sign language studies in Larson-Muhr’s class, said he has learned more from her class than just the language. From hearing her stories of growing up with two deaf parents, he said he has also learned to appreciate the deaf culture. It is a culture that he says has its own history, folklore and traditions.
“The deaf culture is so rich and diverse in tradition and culture that to say it is not a culture … is not looking at the larger picture,” he said.
But while the debate over the merit of ASL culture may not be resolved anytime soon, if Evangelista has his way, the issue could be decided based on the existing law alone.
Before writing his petition, he consulted Sandra Gish, the ASL program coordinator at Western Oregon University, for help writing his request. Her advice to him was straightforward, he said: Tell the committee he was requesting that the University allow him to complete the degree requirements as mandated by law and leave at that.
And when it comes down to it, Evangelista said, that is what he plans to do.
“I’m just respectfully asking that the University comply with the state law,” he said.
Student’s petition reignites sign language debate
Daily Emerald
June 25, 2001
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