Missouri university sign language students apply their knowledge throughout the community

From KOMU-TV in Missouri:

FULTON, Mo. - William Woods University has a distinguishing factor that's setting a trend in communications, although doing it's doing so silently.

Students at William Woods don't just learn American Sign Language (ASL)-- interpreting becomes their lives.

"Sometimes I'll walk around campus and say something to myself and sign back to myself," junior Harrison Jones said.

They become immersed.

"We're involved in deaf people's daily lives," assistant interpreting professor Carrie McCray said. "We're at their doctors appointments; we're at their teachers' meetings; we're at their workplace. We're a third wheel."

The students get an opportunity to earn a bachelor of science degree.

"If individuals want to do a national certification - there is one national certification program - by 2012, they have to have a bachelors degree," McCray said.

It's an opportunity not many get, since the four-year degree program is one of only 34 programs in North America.

"We're very fortunate that the school saw the need to move on to a bachelors degree years ago," McCray said.

William Woods instructors don't just teach the language, they teach how to apply it.

"We went to an automobile dealer and I taught them how to sign appropriately," ASL instructor Melanie McKay-Cody said.

To practice, the students have silent lunches."It makes it a little bit easier you can talk with your mouth full and not actually be rude about it," junior Corey Pfautsch said.

Right now, ASL students are working on a project to help public service agencies in Fulton, like the police or fire department, learn to communicate with the deaf.

"We would just show police officers some specific signs they need when they walk up to a car and the person indicates by gesture that I'm deaf," McKay-Cody said. "The police officer can ask for their license by using this gesture that I'm making right here."

The William Woods interpretation of deaf culture focuses on the idea of minority not disability.

"We talk about what deaf individuals can do which is absolutely everything we can do. We don't focus on the negative aspect of the one thing they can't do which is hearing," McCray said.

Through their silence, these students are sent out into the world with a degree that speaks volumes.