FACULTY and STAFF ASL Program

This fall, Dirksen of OBLT, Jill Bradbury of FDO, Kim of PST ASL program, Loretta of
ASL-DES and I had several meetings to discuss about need of ASL program for
faculty and staff.
We developed a survey which was sent out to all faculty members earlier this week.
We have been getting good rate of response. For an example, in first 5 minutes, 15
responded. In two days, 120 responded.
We want to feel their pulses for
*
scheduling (e.g. before/during/after semester,
morning/noon/afternoon/evening hours, and frequency)
*

skill levels

*
needs (e.g. vocabulary/semantic, deception, discourse, presentational skills,
comprehension,
production, register, non-manual signals)
We will have next meeting on Dec 12th to look at data, and the proposal generated
by Jill. This retreat will help us to get a better feeling and add/revise the proposal.
Next, we will look at:
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our current ASL courses

*
other institutions (e.g. RIT/NTID, schools for deaf offering ASL courses for
faculty and staff)
*

create new courses

*
figure who would be best to coordinate and what are our roles (FDO, OBLT, PST,
ASL-DES, ASL Center)
*

how to recruit teachers (e.g. new positions, MASLT interns)

centralized office for records/progress (more likely ASL-DSE)

cost analysis

time frames (when and gradual phases)

*
expectations (from Faculty Senate, President and Provost offices for all faculty
and staff)

This retreat meeting will help us with a better pathway.

ASL Coaching / Tutoring Services -

ASL CENTER

Really I will discuss about both ASL Center (ASL coaching and SI) and Distance
Coaching program, because they are closely related.
The ASL Center is newly established. I am working closely with Tutorial and
Instructional Program (TIP) (Sanremi LaRue, and then with Linda Williams and
Thelma Schroeder). My role is more of "facilitator / communicator / liaison" and let
TIP run (office staff, Starfish, statistical work, paperwork, paying SI/coaches).
Meeting/training SI leaders and ASL coaches.
Right now, we are providing SI for ASL 101 & 102 and GSR 103, and ASL coaching
mainly for undergraduate students on Gallaudet campus through STARFISH.
We are expanding ASL coaching to Department of Interpretation (Steve Collins) and
other graduate programs (e.g. Counseling and Gaurav doing the survey with
Graduate students soon)
ASL coaching schedule has been FULL. Just have interviews for 5 SI and 10 ASL
coaches for spring 2013. Wanda, Stephanie, Sanremi and I are involved in the
interviews.
We just started the concept of SI and ASL coaching through videophone. Sam Harris
accepted to be the first one to lead SI through fuzemeeting in Spring 2013. Kent
Babson, Sanremi and I have been working together. We anticipate that it will
expand more, and we will start getting MASLT students for both SI and ASL coaching
through vphone.
Have discussed about tutoring services for faculty and staff. Thelma Schroeder
would address this issue with the administrators about $$$.
That idea of vphone leads to our other dream - Distance ASL Coaching Program. We
can expand our ASL Center to include coaching for outsiders in near future easily.