In 1984, a University of Iowa graduate student set out to convince a skeptical comparative literature faculty that American Sign Language and deaf culture were worth writing about.
Not only were her advisers skeptical about the dissertation topic, they had serious doubts about whether or not ASL was even a language.
"They doubted it had a culture or a literature," she said. "But in spite of their doubts they encouraged me to explore, because as faculty they are committed to truth and knowledge."
After more than three years of travel and video documentation, the student discovered deaf stories migrated around the state and passed down between generations of deaf Iowans. She collected deaf-centric jokes, poems and ABC and number stories where clever tellers combined hand-shapes for letters and numbers, in sequential order to tell a tale.
Deaf culture was real, even by the tough standards of her literature professors. She had it on videotape.
In 1986, the student, Jane Fernandes, was awarded her master's degree for studying the literature of the deaf. In 2007, she became UNC Asheville's provost, a senior academic administrator.
From her own student experience, Fernandes acknowledges ASL is at times improperly disregarded as a foreign language in an academic environment. Deaf people in the U.S. and Canada are bilingual by default, writing in English but "speaking" in ASL, which can lead to the misconception of ASL as a sort of visual English, a corrupt descendant of a parent tongue.
"One of my professors gave me the assignment to prove that ASL was not a language," Fernandes said. "In working on that reverse premise, I was able to convince him resoundingly that ASL is a bona fide language on a par with other languages in the world."
Health and Wellness student Rowan Lischerelli, an ASL speaker with normal hearing and an associate degree in Interpreter Education, agreed hearing people are not always aware of the richness of deaf language and culture.
"There's probably hundreds of signed languages," she said. "Just from the North to the South signs are different. There's East Coast signs and West Coast signs. There are nuances in sign, there's a southern drawl. There's a sign for y'all in the South you don't see in New York City. There's a sign in the South for shoes that in the North translates as slang for homosexual."
UNCA does accept ASL courses as transfer credit, Dean of Academic Administration Patricia McClellan said. However, the university's core curriculum does not specify ASL as one of the languages accepted as a foreign language meeting requirements for graduation.
Historically, graduation with ASL foreign language credit from UNCA required a rigorous process where students petitioned to substitute ASL for an approved language and also transferred in ASL classes from another institution, as UNCA did not offer the language.
According to McClellan, only a small number of students in prior years pursued this option.
Despite ASL proficiency, including interpreting for deaf UNCA students, Lischerelli herself had to undergo a lengthy petition process in order to receive formal administrative approval to graduate in December.
But despite a lackluster history, ASL's status in the educational system is getting an upgrade. Last year, the North Carolina General Assembly signed Session Law 2007-154, commonly called the "ASL Bill," into law.
According to the N.C. Division of Services for the Deaf and the Hard of Hearing, the bill took three attempts and more than 14 years to sign into law. Its three main goals are to recognize ASL as a language in North Carolina, to encourage the state's educational system (including the UNC system) to offer ASL courses for academic credit and to incorporate a standard ASL curriculum.
Jane Fernandes has goals of her own regarding raising awareness of deaf culture at UNCA.
She took one of her first steps in a long-term project of creating more roles for deaf students and faculty at UNCA by helping bring psychologist I. King Jordan, the first deaf president of Gallaudet University, to speak at the university next month.
She said over time, she imagines a growing awareness of deaf culture on campus could result in more opportunities for including deaf and hard-of-hearing students at UNCA.
Many deaf professionals hope her position at UNCA will create greater opportunity for them at public liberal arts universities, Fernandes said.
"I am excited to be a part of this work, pushing the glass ceiling for deaf people in public higher education even higher," she said.
At UNCA, there's room to push. Though many public university functions are interpreted for the deaf, according to Assistant Director of Advising and Learning Support Ethan Fesperman, the number of UNCA students who registered for deaf services this semester is zero.
Lischerelli, who said she's never encountered a deaf student on campus, was not surprised to hear this figure.
"(UNCA) claims diversity, diversity, diversity, but there are no deaf students at UNCA that I am aware of," she said. "Diversity is about more than color."
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