Seth Whitehead and Emma Osko
Contributing Writers
Seth Whitehead: On Friday, April 5 at 1:41 p.m, Emma and I sent an email to President Anne McCall. The email was politely requesting a meeting with her to discuss the very same topic that this article aims to cover: the current state of American Sign Language (ASL) at the College. We received no response back.
My mother was an ASL interpreter for many years, so when I started high school and needed to pick up a second language, my first choice was clear. I enrolled at Columbus State Community College through a program called College Credit Plus (CCP). I ended up taking three semesters of ASL. When I began looking at colleges in my junior year of high school, the transferability of my credits was a priority. I asked the College’s admissions staff during my visits and was reassured that Wooster accepted credits from other institutions.
During my freshman year, I was told that the college could not accept my ASL credits because they did not have anyone to test my proficiency. So I tried again to reach out to Dean Bowen, who said that “Wooster does not accept ASL as the foreign language requirement, as our foreign language requirement falls under ‘Global Perspectives’ and ASL is American Sign Language.”
Ignorantly, Dean Bowen classified ASL as a purely American language. This is not the case at all. A quick Google search would show many results stating that ASL is used globally. ASL is about 200 years old, and it emerged as the language in the American School for the Deaf in West Hartford, Connecticut. The school was founded by Thomas Gallaudet, and he based ASL upon Old French Sign Language and various signs used as shorthand in America. Gallaudet traveled to France to see how Europeans were educating their deaf citizens. On this trip he met Laurent Clerc, a deaf Frenchman who accompanied Gallaudet back to America and together, they worked to create ASL.
Today, ASL is used throughout West Africa, parts of Southeast Asia and in all of North America. ASL credits are accepted at Princeton, Harvard, Yale and every state university in Ohio. The only other colleges I could find that do not accept ASL are colleges that require you to take language courses on their campus and institutions where languages are not required at all.
Emma Osko: I had a very similar experience as Seth. I enrolled in my CCP program at Cuyahoga Community College (Tri-C) to earn my language credit for both high school and college. When I asked if my credits would transfer I got the same response as Seth, “[The] College of Wooster accepted credits from other institutions.”
Once I started here, I realized that this was not the case for my ASL credits like it was for my English credits. I was told during my freshman year that the college could not accept my ASL credits because they did not have anyone to test my proficiency and because ASL lacked a culture.
I was able to meet with Dean Bowen during my freshman year to talk about why ASL was not accepted as well as how I could petition for credit acceptance. The meeting was relatively short after Dean Bowen said that there had been a previous petition in 2002 that was rejected by the Educational Policy Committee. It was highlighted that the language credit should focus on cultures outside of America. Despite student protests, ASL would remain unaccepted and it was highly unlikely that the Committee would change their decision.
We are determined to change the 2002 outcome with the help of the students of Wooster. First, we call on the Board of Trustees and the Educational Policy Committee to change the current policies. Next, our hope is to receive a response from President McCall to this open letter. The overall goal is to have the College recognize ASL as a foreign language, grandfather in students with ASL credits from other accredited colleges and possibly offer an ASL minor or at least courses in the future.
We will continue to work with local professors and professionals to support this cause. Currently, we have a written petition with 118 signatures from students with the hope that this open letter will educate and open the minds of others.
Editor’s Note: A digital version of the petition can be found at this link.
