As is the case at many colleges and universities, Scripps College has a foreign language requirement that can be fulfilled in one of several ways. One possibility is to take at least three semesters of a language unavailable at the Claremont Colleges and then transfer the credits back to Scripps. Despite the fact that American Sign Language (ASL) is the primary language of approximately one million Americans, it’s not one of 13 modern and classical languages taught at the 5Cs. Curiously, Scripps’ academic catalog explicitly states that “full-course American Sign Language credit” can be used to fulfill the College’s language requirement. I was thrilled when I noticed this small but important detail prior to my matriculation to Scripps as I had taken through ASL IV at Gallaudet University, the world’s only university specifically for deaf and hard-of-hearing individuals.
There is a common misconception that American Sign Language is “just English” and serves as a cop out for students looking to fulfill their language requirements. In reality, the two languages are independent of each other for a plethora of reasons. For example, English operates via a subject-verb-object word order, while ASL uses subject-verb-object, subject-verb, time-subject-verb, and time-subject-verb-object word orders. Also in English, most speakers will increase the pitch of their voice and change word order to indicate the rhetorical nature of a question, while rhetorical questions in ASL require a signer to widen their eyes, raise their eyebrows, and tilt their bodies forward. Another reason ASL is also not “just” signed English is because Pidgin Signed English (PSE) and Signed Exact English (SEE) exist. PSE is a combination of ASL and English that uses grammatical rules from both languages. Alternatively, users of SEE sign every word, including articles (which don’t exist in ASL). As with any language, ASL has regional dialects and accents, and although ASL isn’t a “foreign” language when used within the US, it is a foreign language for signers outside of the country as there are approximately 300 different sign languages used worldwide.
My ability to count ASL as my “foreign” language is anomalous, but my interest in ASL and Deaf culture is shared with peers across the 5Cs. In Fall 2022, Sage Wong-Davies (Scripps ’25) sent out a survey to all 5C students and found out that an astonishing 371 out of 374 respondents (99.2%) selected “yes” in response to the question “Do you think that ASL should be offered at one of the 5Cs?” Then in Spring 2023, Wong-Davies orchestrated a wonderful — and extremely well-attended — Scripps Presents @Noon event featuring DJ Kurs, Artistic Director of the Tony Award-winning Deaf West Theatre company. While I’m thrilled by Wong-Davies’ initiative, I’m also very disappointed that she has to do this work at all. Students at the 5Cs have been fighting this same battle for at least the past eight years. Adding ASL not only provides another language option for students but actually supports and enhances the mission of Scripps College.
There are approximately 6,909 distinct languages worldwide and no college can introduce students to all of them. That being said, the 5Cs do offer an impressive selection of languages including Spanish, French, Modern Standard Arabic, Chinese, Classics (i.e., Greek, Hebrew, and Latin), German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, and Russian. According to the Modern Language Association (MLA), ASL is the third most-studied language — following Spanish and French — at US colleges and universities. In 1990 when the MLA first estimated ASL enrollment, there were approximately 1,602 students, and by 2016 that number skyrocketed to 107,060 ASL students.
American philosopher Martha C. Nussbaum argues that teaching foreign languages is “part of the multicultural story that has received too little emphasis.” ASL not only checks off the box of adding another language to the Claremont Colleges, but it also aligns with Nussbaum’s belief that an “[a]wareness of cultural difference is essential in order to promote the respect for another that is the essential underpinning for dialogue.” Scripps reiterates Nussbaum’s point in its academic catalog when the College states, “One of the most important features of a liberal education is familiarity with the language of a culture other than one’s own. Such familiarity not only clarifies a student’s sense of cultural identity, but also enhances articulateness and enlarges the view of the scope of thought and language.”
Allow me to expand your own “view[s] of the scope of thought and language.” Those unfamiliar with Deaf culture are often surprised to learn that “deaf” and “Deaf” do not mean the same thing. Lowercase ‘d’ deaf is defined as “[t]he medical and audiological definition for having hearing loss, which may differ in severity from one person to another.” Uppercase ‘D’ Deaf refers to those “who are active members of the Deaf community and identify themselves as culturally Deaf.” Many people who identify as Deaf have been deaf since birth, and as a result, ASL is normally their first and thus primary language. People who are capital ‘D’ Deaf often see being Deaf as an identity rather than a disability. The flipside is that a person can be deaf without being Deaf; one’s lack of connection to the Deaf community and culture can be a result of personal choice, external forces, or a combination of both. Obviously, the difference between deaf and Deaf is far more complex than this crash course. The point is that ASL courses — just like any language class — not only teach students another language but also “promote the respect for another that is the essential underpinning for dialogue.”
The dialogue surrounding offering ASL at the Claremont Colleges began prior to my matriculation. After putting out a call on Facebook for any information regarding ASL at the 5Cs, I was able to connect with Alegria Martinez (Pitzer ’18). Martinez started the ASL Club in 2015 because she was disappointed by the lack of ASL and Deaf Studies courses. In 2018, ASL Club approached Pomona’s Linguistics Department about offering ASL and/or Deaf Studies courses. Unfortunately, nothing materialized and the ASL Club never received a concrete explanation. In spite of the Linguistics Department’s lack of transparency, Pomona has offered an ASL table at its foreign languages dining hall, Oldenborg, since at least 2017. Meanwhile, the folks over in Scripps’ Office of Marketing and Communications published an article on an event featuring UCLA Lecturer of American Sign Language Benjamin Lewis and the piece conveniently omitted the fact that ASL is not offered at the 5Cs. Even more scandalous, The Student Life (TSL) reported that the event’s host — the 5C club Disability, Illness, and Difference Alliance (DIDA) — was forced to find and hire its own interpreter for Lewis’ visit because the 5Cs did not have a go-to interpreter for public events. I find great irony in the fact that both Scripps and Pomona tout on-campus events featuring or requiring the use of ASL, while ignoring students’ requests for ASL and Deaf Studies courses.
There has been one instance in which American Sign Language was offered at the 5Cs and it was not at Scripps or Pomona. Instead, in the Fall 2019 semester, Pitzer offered one section of ASL I and all 18 slots were filled. (Pitzer does not even have a language requirement, which adds to the irony of it being the only one of the 5Cs thus far to offer ASL.) I was intrigued by this revelation, and after tracking down the adjunct professor Yazmin Marin’s LinkedIn profile, I had even more questions. Professor Marin’s page states that she was hired to “Develop the American Sign Language department include in [sic] Deaf Culture, Deaf Studies, ASL levels)” and to “Teach American Sign Language in level 1 and 2 and teach Fingerspelling.” I couldn’t find anything on Pitzer’s website to confirm Professor Marin’s claims regarding the initiation of an ASL/Deaf Studies Department. Once again thanks to the power of social media, I was able to speak with Ethan Arvanitis (Pomona ’20) who was in Professor Marin’s class. Arvanitis said that nearly everyone enrolled in ASL I intended to take ASL II in Spring 2020. Towards the end of the Fall 2019 semester, however, Arvanitis and his classmates were informed that Professor Marin would not be returning and Pitzer did not plan to hire another professor to teach ASL II. Arvanitis recalled that he and his classmates were so passionate about continuing their study of ASL that they started a petition. Between Arvanitis’ account and Wong-Davies’ survey, it’s obvious that an ASL sequence would be well received at the 5Cs.
The Claremont Colleges are considered elite educational institutions; consequently, some of the best places to look for guidance regarding implementing an ASL curriculum are the Ivies. Brown, Princeton, Yale, Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania, and Cornell offer ASL. Besides Brown, which houses ASL within its World Languages and Cultures Department, the other five schools offer ASL through their Linguistics Departments.
For years, students at Yale proposed an ASL sequence and combined with strong support from the faculty, Yale’s administration agreed to enact a three-semester pilot program of ASL beginning in Spring 2018. The pilot program was extremely successful, and the University continues to expand its ASL curriculum as demand increases for more advanced courses. For Spring 2023, Yale offered a staggering eight sections of ASL II, two sections of ASL IV, and a Deaf Studies course for students who had already completed ASL I through IV.
Because of the success Yale had with its implementation of ASL following a student-driven initiative, I believe launching an ASL pilot program would be the most logical first step for the 5Cs. A pilot program would allow the consortium to test out different curricula and professors. While Scripps specifically notes its acceptance of ASL for the foreign language requirement, Pomona and Claremont McKenna must also do so to affirm that ASL is in fact a distinct language. (As of Spring 2023, Harvey Mudd and Pitzer do not have specific language requirements.) The pilot program must be, at minimum, three semesters long and include ASL I, II, and III. This structure guarantees that students starting in ASL I will be able to fulfill the language requirement and not fear ending up stranded like Arvanitis and his classmates. The overwhelming majority of Ivy Leagues house ASL in their Linguistics Departments, so I agree with Martinez and the ASL Club that it would be most appropriate for a 5C ASL program to be part of Pomona’s Linguistics Department. Depending on the pilot program’s success, the 5Cs could consider making a separate ASL/Deaf Studies Department as was claimed to be in progress at Pitzer.
The Claremont Colleges offer students an educational experience unlike any other in the world. The consortium gives students access to more courses, extracurricular activities, social groups, and research opportunities than any of the colleges could do on their own. Diverse and multitudinous as they may be, however, those course offerings and academic programs must evolve to meet students’ interests, as well the needs of a more inclusive society. It’s time to stop ignoring the signs that 5C students want to sign.