Wichita State students wanting to obtain a bachelor’s degree in American Sign Language will be able to make progress towards that goal in the next academic year.
ASL, broadly used in the deaf and hard-of-hearing population, is recognized by linguists as a language with its own culture. Its addition to the Department of Modern and Classical Languages and Literatures complements the world languages housed there.
“ASL incorporates all of the linguistic design features of a language. It has its own grammatical rules that govern the language,” Kelly Adams, senior sign language interpreter, said. “It has its own lexicon, its own morphology, its own syntax.”
“ASL behaves just like Spanish, French, or German,” Wilson Baldridge, professor of French and MCLL department chair, said.
Additionally, according to Adams, ASL is used by a large community of people to share and visualize new ideas, contributing to its culture.
Shockers will be able to tailor the Bachelor of Arts in ASL to their interests and needs by choosing one of three tracks: The Structure of Language; Language and Culture in Context; or Interpreting Methods.
As demand for certified interpreters increases in Kansas, Wichita State’s program will help grow the talent pipeline for the state. The degree is one of only two in Kansas where students can train to become certified ASL interpreters. Candidates wanting to take the Certified Deaf Interpreter Examination are now required to have a bachelor’s degree.
“Most of the graduates from the KU program tend to stay in the northeastern part of the state to serve the deaf population there,” Adams said. “We have a large number of deaf individuals who live in this area, and I would say most of the interpreters in this area are getting close to retirement age.”
Wichita State’s degree can help fill the gap in interpreting services available for the deaf population here, Adams said, and produce more interpreters to take the place of those who will be retiring. The population, she added, is vastly underserved because of the language barriers and lack of understanding of the culture.
“The new degree responds to the need for qualified interpreters, and the need to bring an awareness of signed languages as natural languages, just as sophisticated, expressive and beautiful as spoken languages,” Andrew Hippisley, dean, Fairmount College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, said. “ASL will be a sister language to Spanish, French and German.”
The major also meaningfully addresses Wichita State’s core value to make the campus inclusive and accessible for everyone. ASL courses attract more than 100 students who minor in sign language or take ASL to meet language requirements in Fairmount College.
The inclusion of ASL as a language option adds another opportunity for students to double major with a language or to fulfill the language requirement for a Bachelor of Arts degree.
“We expect many MCLL majors to spring for the bilingual option, for example French or Spanish plus ASL,” Baldridge said. “This conforms to Wichita State’s applied mission, or purpose, because students will use their translation and interpreting skills in the workplace. It’s applied learning.”