Rosemary Chesney, Campus Carrier arts and living editor
Berry’s first ASL interest group met last Wednesday for their first meeting. The group hopes to increase awareness about the deaf community.
Sarah Varnadoe, sophomore, took ASL as her foreign language class all throughout high school and took an ASL college course outside Berry over the summer. She said that the idea to start an ASL group here sparked after giving a persuasive speech about why schools should offer ASL classes during Professor Matt Delzer’s speech class last semester. Varnadoe and Delzer began developing the idea for an ASL group last semester and put the idea into motion this semester.
“American Sign Language is one of the most widely spoken languages and just vastly underrepresented,” Delzer said. “Creating a space where it is recognized, and people can feel seen is so positive for campus culture.”
American Sign Language (ASL) is the third most used language in America after English and Spanish, according to storylearning.com.
About 30 students came to the first interest meeting last week. Varnadoe said that the goal is to gain structure this semester and become an officially recognized club by next semester. Eventually, she hopes the ASL club could lead to ASL credits and classes being held at Berry.
“I think that there is an interest among students and this will give them a good opportunity to start learning about [ASL],” Varnadoe said. “Berry is working a lot more on inclusivity, which is wonderful, but they’re not always focused on every element of [inclusivity]. This will be one more thing to add to the diversity at Berry that people may not have originally thought of off the top of their heads.”
Freshman Madison Howard attended the ASL interest meeting last week. She said that after finding out there are half a million deaf people in America, she decided she wanted to learn ASL as a new language.
“The ASL group will definitely be beneficial as a larger part of the Berry community,” Howard said. “If it could excel past an interest group and we could have it as a class or major that would be a great thing to add to the curriculum.”
Sophomore Benjamin Roush also attended the ASL interest meeting. He said that he has been interested in sign language his whole life because his father was a child of a deaf adult (CODA). After attending the meeting, he said that he will continue with the interest group because he wants to be a part of that culture on campus.
“I think the main thing is being educated and aware of the deaf community,” Roush said. “A lot of students don’t think of deafness as an unseen disability and being aware is one of the best outcomes on campus.”
Varnadoe said that her goal with the ASL group is to cater to whatever they want to learn and practice. The exact meeting dates and times are still to be determined. She said she is also attempting to get in touch with deaf centers and schools in the nearby area to work with the group. Delzer said that his job as faculty advisor is to assist with pointing Varnadoe in the right direction.
“I think it’s a really cool project, and I can’t stress enough that Sarah’s doing all of the work,” Delzer said. “It’s really her baby, and she’s doing a lot of cool work with it. I’m really proud of her.”