Dear President Randhawa:
Western Washington University has a thriving Modern and Classical Language Department, but I believe Western is missing an opportunity. American Sign Language (ASL), while not a foreign language, would be a lucrative and wonderful addition to Western’s language program.
Around 17 percent of the American population suffers from extreme hearing loss or deafness. Often, these people will use a form of sign language (which is different for every country) to communicate. Estimates suggest around two million people are fluent in Sign Language in the United States. The rest of this ASL users are friends, family members, and specialists that use it to communicate with deaf and hearing-impaired people. But, why should it only be hearing-impaired and the people they most often encounter that use Sign Language?
Many activities such as movies, concerts, etc. focus around hearing as part of the entertainment. These activities are often difficult to enjoy for ASL users to enjoy. Many people like Holly Maniatty who signs at rap concerts to help hearing-impaired people enjoy the show. There are also people who work in business and retail settings who sign to help ASL using customers. Knowing ASL ultimately would make Western graduates more qualified and more likely to get fulfilling jobs once they graduate.
ASL is linguistically another language. While there is no speaking component, the structure of ASL qualifies it as a separate language. This makes people who use ASL and speak or sign another language in addition, bilingual, therefore more marketable. Knowing another language makes a person more employable. As the graphic below shows, people in Montreal who are bilingual employed more than people who speak just English or just French.
Providing ASL classes as Western can only be beneficial to Western and its students. Not only will it provide more opportunities to students once they graduate, but also the opportunity to interact with a new community and broaden their worldview to include people who are often forgotten. ASL could also count as a foreign language credit for new students looking to complete their GURs.
Western will also benefit by having a program many other American universities have added, attracting students interested in working in ASL related fields and those who are simply interested in learning the language. An ASL program would also compliment the Speech and Hearing clinic that already exists on campus.
*Note: Images present in the original proposal have been omitted.
Alisan Keesee 