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Sophia Burke
Professor Anderson
COMM 2150-403
29 January 2018
Service Learning Proposal
Community Partner
The contact information for my project is as follows:

Robert G. Sanderson Community Center of the Deaf and Hard of Hearing

5709 South 1500 West
Taylorsville, Utah 84123
Phone: (801) 263-4860

Melanie Sperry
Volunteer coordinator
Cell phone: 801-657-5210
Email: Melaniesperry@utah.gov

Project Plan
I will be volunteering at the Robert G. Sanderson Community Center of the Deaf and Hard of
Hearing to interact within those forced into the Deaf culture and try to improve my
understanding of their norms and community differences. I am in contact with Melanie, who is
informing me of any events I am needed at to help set up and/or run a section. I have already
voluntarily been a volunteer at this center for a little over a year, but I am unaware of my service
hours. Melanie has not responded yet about the times she has wanted me to work, or what
activities I will be doing.

Civic Engagement
Civic Engagement involves the activities which promote the bridging of communities through
socially conscious, thought, and action.
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Personal Culture
I am a bisexual, young woman in a long-term committed relationship with a partner who
identifies as non-binary. I’m a sign language interpreting student at SLCC with the intent of
transferring to USU within their bachelor’s program offered on the Taylorsville SLCC campus. I
previously was a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints but have grown out
of it as I’ve become older and now identify as an atheist. I grew up in Germany until I was six
years old and have since lived in Utah. I consider myself a liberal activist, and I participate in
protests such as the 2017 Women's March where my sign read, “I wish my uterus shot bullets so
the government wouldn’t regulate it.” I also am a snake enthusiast and have a California King
named Basilisk.

Culture Groups
I anticipate working with a multitude of Deaf individuals within the community center, as well as
possibly a few Deaf-Blind individuals. I have not been assigned to any one specific person, but
as the community as a whole.

Challenges
Some challenges I anticipate having in working within this culture is mainly the language
barrier. There is a huge difference between learning a language within a classroom setting, and
actively conversing in that language with native speakers. I am worried I will not be able to catch
up with what is being said, therefore being confused and more of a burden to them than an asset.
Another challenge I am worried about is adjusting from hearing culture to Deaf culture. There
are many variations between the two, such as Deaf culture is extremely invading of personal
space. Everyone is in each other’s business, as well as constantly sharing information hearing
people would consider inappropriate. They are also a very specific culture. An example of what I
mean by specific culture would be that, as a hearing person, if I told a story about my grocery
store visit, I would take maybe a minute maximum generally explaining what I bought and if I
enjoyed it or not. Deaf people, however, would go into full story mode talking about every
person they interacted with, their experience searching for products, what mood their cashier was
in, etc.
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Benefits
One of the biggest benefits I anticipate gaining by working within the Deaf culture during this
service-learning project is breaking down stigmas and educate myself on how they differ from
my own culture. An example of a stigma I would be breaking down is how Deaf distinguish
themselves as a culture is by capitalizing the word Deaf and working to change mainstream
America’s attitude. The Deaf culture doesn’t believe in using the word "disabled" because that
word makes implies “less than” – as though they are lacking something. As well as stigmas, I
would be learning about the various perspectives within controversial deaf issues. For example, 9
out of 10 Deaf infants are born to hearing parents. Many of those parents choose cochlear
implant surgery as soon as they are medically able because it helps their child with speech
development. However, Deaf culture believes mainstream hearing America puts too much
emphasis on the spoken word. They maintain ASL is a complete language, even though they
don’t produce words with their mouths and voices.