One little girl taught an entire community sign language, and today she teaches on a campus of over 36,000. 

Sandra Buchholz, lecturer in world languages and cultures, has been teaching college level American Sign Language (ASL) for 18 years, and is looking to further the opportunities for her students by proposing a minor program in ASL at Iowa State University.

“I was born deaf. I didn’t know why,” said Buchholz. “I have two hearing sisters, hearing parents, but my brother and I are deaf. My parent’s didn’t know that I was deaf until I was about 16 months old. Both of them are hearing so they didn’t sign. I didn’t learn until I was five years old.”

According to research done by the U.S. National Institute of Medicine, the critical language learning window is from 18 months to five years old, so learning a language so late was a challenge for Buchholz. 

“I lived in Laurens, Iowa, which has a population of about 1,200,” Buchholz said. “Pretty small. So I started teaching people how to sign. Not long after, everyone in my town could sign. Everyone.”

She is a resource to the 30 to 35 hard-of-hearing or deaf students here on campus, in addition to sign language interpreter, Megan Johnson.

But these resources are too limited, said Kody Olson, director of governmental affairs for Student Government, who is also partially deaf.

“The State of Iowa – and the U.S. in general – has a shortage of interpreters,” Olson said.“ Mostly because there is no four year programs [for ASL] at the major universities. This leads to inexperienced interpreters and fewer interpreters – it really puts a chokehold on the community.”

Iowa State University offers nine classes in deaf culture and American Sign Language, however there is no major or minor program in place currently. According to current president of the ASL club, hard-of-hearing, this is causing people with an interest in ASL to choose not to sign up for classes, and even go so far as to transfer schools. 

“Many students have come to us stating that they want to learn more and they are interested in the culture and language but they can’t spend the time on the classes because there is not a major or minor offered for ASL,” Farver said. 

Farver said many students come to the club who want to learn more about ASL and are interested in the language and culture. These students either don’t take ASL courses since they do not have time, or transfer to schools that offer an ASL minor.

“My own personal goal is to take as many classes here as I can before I graduate, then transfer to a school that offers a four year program because we do not offer one,” Farver said. “We are losing many students to reasons like that, I personally know of one student who will most likely be transferring because of our lack of a program.”

Buchholz is proposing an ASL minor here at Iowa State, but for the past five years she has been unsuccessful due to low enrollment numbers for advanced level ASL courses, which as stated by Farver, is due to no major or minor program being offered at Iowa State.

“Ultimately we hope that the World Languages and Cultures Department, The Liberal Arts and Sciences Department and the university in general determine that ASL offerings are a significant contribution to not only our community but to our body of students,” said Buchholz.

 If you are interested in ASL and getting involved, contact Jordyn Farver at [email protected].