Last March, local community members were invited to dine with SU students and faculty on campus. The food was good and the conversation was lively – and visual.
Hosted by the SU American Sign Language (ASL) Club, the twice-persemester “silent dinner” provides members of the SU and greater deaf and hard-of-hearing communities an opportunity to come together, allowing students to practice their signing and learn more about deaf culture and community. This is just one of the ways SU has worked to expand resources for those interested in deaf studies and, increasingly, for members of the deaf and hard-of-hearing community off campus.
Much of that is thanks to the efforts of Dr. Ellen Schaefer-Salins, a clinical social worker and long-time mental health therapist in the deaf community. She joined SU’s School of Social Work in 2016 after teaching as an adjunct for 20 years at Gallaudet University, the world’s only four-year university for the deaf and hard-of-hearing community.
“I was a little sad when I got to Salisbury that there wasn’t a lot related to deafness since that is what I’ve done my whole life,” she said.
SU did offer classes in Elementary Sign Language I and II. Schaefer-Salins knew that wasn’t nearly enough.
“I started approaching people pretty soon after I got here, asking, ‘Is a deaf studies minor something you would be interested in?’” she said.
The need for the program was apparent.
“The interesting thing happening on the Eastern Shore now is that a lot of people are retiring here, and some of them are culturally deaf people who are retired professors from Gallaudet University,” she said. “There is a larger and larger portion of this community who are following each other to areas outside of Ocean City, Bethany Beach and Rehoboth.”
However, members of this growing community do not have the support they need, especially in ASL interpretation resources for necessary services such as health care, Schaefer-Salins said.
Thanks to her efforts, SU’s deaf studies minor was approved in 2021, with the first classes taking place in spring 2022. Schaefer-Salins serves as the advisor for the minor, in addition to her role as associate professor of social work. By fall 2023, 15 students had already graduated from the program.
More impressive is how quickly the initiative mushroomed. As of spring 2024, approximately 50 SU students were minoring in deaf studies, with 100-plus joining the ASL Club.
Both proved to be good resources for Elizabeth Wash, a spring 2024 graduate. Shortly before starting classes at SU in 2020, she experienced a sudden auditory loss and since has been diagnosed as hard of hearing.
“I learned SU had ASL classes, and I became very excited to take those and embrace that part of my identity,” she said.
When the deaf studies minor launched, she was among the first to declare.
The program includes five courses taught by faculty in the School of Social Work as well as the Modern Languages and Intercultural Studies Department. Students learn about not only the language itself, but also about deaf culture and history, as well as how to work with those who are deaf and hard of hearing.
Wash believes those classes will be beneficial in her anticipated future medical career. Espi Ladrillono, a fellow spring ’24 graduate and immediate past president of the ASL Club, agreed. Like Wash, she plans to pursue a career in health care.
“There are a lot of disparities with deaf and hard-of-hearing people in health care not having access to interpreters or being denied interpreters, working with medical professionals who are not understanding of the culture, being pressured to get cochlear implants or hearing aids,” said Ladrillono, of Rockville, MD.
“Having that knowledge from the deaf studies minor and knowing ASL – I plan to be fluent eventually – will allow me to better treat these patients.”
It’s not all work and no play. Through the ASL Club, students have the opportunity each semester to play Dingo, a portmanteau for “deaf bingo,” during which a bingo “signer” replaces the traditional caller, signing the letter-and number combinations, or sometimes words.
Games like musical chairs (with a flicking of the lights to signal when the music stops) and charades also are popular, Ladrillono said.
Students in the minor also take an annual “deaf immersion” field trip to Gallaudet University and practice their sign language at deaf-owned eateries nearby.
“The students love that day,” said Schaefer-Salins.
In her State of the University address last fall, SU President Carolyn Ringer Lepre announced a new budget initiative to fund ASL interpreters for campus events, realizing another of Schaefer-Salins’ proposals.
In March, for the first time, the University’s Bobbi Biron Theatre Program staged an ASL-interpreted production, attracting more than 30 members of the deaf and hard-of-hearing community to see Little Shop of Horrors.
Last semester, SU also hosted the Maryland Governor’s Office for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing for a day-long event. (As of last spring, Wash was hoping to land an internship with that office before beginning her master’s at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, where she plans to start an ASL club.)
So what’s next? Schaefer-Salins would like to attract more deaf and hard-of hearing faculty to SU (a resource instrumental to the program, Wash noted). Another goal is the eventual addition of open captioning at campus events to further aid accessibility.
SU also is seeking to fill an even greater public need, pursuing a partnership with the ASL Interpreter Training Program at the Community College of Baltimore County that could help boost compliance with a new Maryland law that will require four-year degrees for licensure for ASL interpreters beginning in 2025.
“I’m always pushing,” Schaefer-Salins said.
In the past three years, students like Wash and Ladrillono have benefited from that push, as have approximately 20 minoring in disability studies, a program that grew from the deaf studies minor. (Shaefer-Salins is the advisor for that program, as well.)
“Deaf studies felt like it was a program made especially for people like me,” said Wash. “I can honestly say these have been my favorite classes.
“I see the countless ways that this is going to be useful to me in helping to make the world more equitable and inclusive.”
I see the countless ways that this is going to be useful to me in helping to make the world more equitable and inclusive.”