<HTML><HEAD>
<META charset=US-ASCII http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII">
<META content="MSHTML 6.00.2800.1400" name=GENERATOR></HEAD>
<BODY style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial; BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff">
<DIV>
<DIV>Thank you so much.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>ASL is a real "hit or miss" issue at UCF.</DIV>
<DIV>For example, the schools of business and engineering accept it. (Actually, when a couple of my high school students applied a few years ago they were told those schools don't really care what you take as long as you've had something :-D).</DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Comic Sans MS" color=#004080></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV>But as weird as it may seem, Communicative Disorders will NOT accept it (according to some of my students) -- go figure! </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Comic Sans MS" color=#004080></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV>My information on Education is iffy ... someone told me that ONLY special ed students could opt for ASL. But I'd thought ALL ed students could.</DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Comic Sans MS" color=#004080></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV>What the ASL people at UCF are trying to do is get "equal" treatment throughout. I mean sure, if you're major is Latin American Studies, they're not trying to say you should take ASL (lets get real ... LOL). But if the purpose is to teach you about cultures and communities, connections, communication, and comparisons .... well, geeze, ASL can do that as well as ANY language. (And I'm VERY proud of myself right now, cause I usually manage to leave out one of the ACTFL 5C's ... I got them all tonight :-D.)</DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Comic Sans MS" color=#004080></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV>Pam Rea wrote a really nice explanation of the specifics for this particular issue (she works at UCF and VCC). Here's her info:</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>The UCF Faculty Senate Committee will be meeting Thursday, February 26, 2004, at 4:00p, Key West Room in the Student Union. A resolution to allow American Sign Language to satisfy the foreign language credit in the College of Health and Public Affairs (COHPA) will be presented.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>We (Deaf students, ASL students, and ASL instructors) are requesting your support in this effort. UCF is one of two Florida state universities that does not allow ASL to satisfy foreign language requirements. Year after year efforts have been made to have ASL satisfy the foreign language requirement. Year after year these efforts have been unsuccessful. Help us to make it happen this year!</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>We all know that ASL is a language in its own right. It is the language of the Deaf Community. Come as a show of support that UCF should adopt this resolution and allow American Sign Language to satisfy the foreign language requirement for COHPA. The more people that are there, the more show of support will be presented to the UCF Faculty Senate Committee. We want to encourage members of the Deaf Community to come and "sign out" their support for ASL accepted as a foreign langauge.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>UCF Faculty Senate Committee meeting</DIV>
<DIV>Thursday, February 26</DIV>
<DIV>4:00p</DIV>
<DIV>Student Union, Key West Room</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>See you there!</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>In a message dated 2/23/2004 6:47:18 PM Eastern Standard Time, kaylynnkathy@HOTMAIL.COM writes:</DIV></DIV>
<DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE style="PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: blue 2px solid"><FONT face=Arial>Here is a comment from someone I contacted who is retired from UCF faculty<BR>(engineering dept, I believe).<BR><BR>"I must be mistaken for I thought that UCF has accepted ASL as a foreign<BR>language. Anyway, I have printed out your message, and will see that it<BR>gets in the hands of our signers at church on Sunday."<BR><BR>While I can't go to the meeting (because I'm in another state!), the word is<BR>spreading at least in the Orlando community. Perhaps someone at my<BR>acquaintance's church will attend the meeting. (I didn't know there were<BR>signers at his church!)<BR><BR>His comment, though, raises another question relative to this thread on the<BR>list. Is ASL accepted as a foreign language at UCF but NOT accepted as part<BR>of a graduation requirement? Is that the issue at hand here?<BR><BR>Kathy Hansen<BR>Purdue doctoral student</FONT></BLOCKQUOTE></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Comic Sans MS" color=#004080></FONT></DIV>
<BR>
______________________________________________________________________<BR>
This email has been scanned by the MessageLabs Email Security System.<BR>
For more information please visit http://www.messagelabs.com/email <BR>
______________________________________________________________________<BR>
</BODY></HTML>