Students with the ability to hear can experience what being deaf is
like starting Monday during the third annual Deaf Awareness Week.

The week is a celebration of deaf culture, including the recognition
of sign language. Various events throughout the week will showcase what
it is like to be deaf.

The event will kick off with an informational fair at 10 a.m. Monday
in the atrium of the Health Professions Building.

Carol Wojcik, director of Student Disabilities, said there are 20
hearing impaired and hard of hearing students at CMU. Mount Pleasant
graduate student and Deaf Awareness Week Student Coordinator Angela
Manke said this is her third year working with Deaf Awareness Week.

“There will be 10 different boards with different topics related to
the hearing impaired, including what hearing loss is, community
research on deafness and there will also be a famous deaf speaker, Trix
Bruce,” Manke said.

The first event features American Sign Language professor Kevin
Cramer in a role-reversal event where hearing individuals can
experience deafness. It will take place at 6 p.m. on Monday.

Communication Disorders Assistant Professor Susan Naeve-Velguth, who
started Deaf Awareness Week at CMU in fall 2002, will give a sign
language demonstration class at 12:30 p.m. Tuesday in the Charles V.
Park Library Baber Room.  

Bruce, an ASL storyteller, will perform at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday in the
Bovee University Center Auditorium. The performance will be in sign
language without a voice interpreter, but there will be a screen with
English captions, Manke said.

“She will share the experiences she had growing up deaf in a hearing
world,” she added.

Social worker and American Sign Language instructor Kendra Miller
will host a brown-bag lunch at noon Wednesday in the Health Professions
Building activity garden. No talking is permitted and the event is open
to ASL users.

Interested people also can view a French film in French sign
language with English subtitles called “In the Land of the Deaf” at
7:30 p.m. Wednesday in room 2261 of the Health Professions Building.

“Ninety percent of children born deaf have hearing parents,” Manke
said. “It used to be thought of as a primary hereditary disorder, but
it’s not.”

CMU offers accommodations for the hearing impaired.

“Students hard of hearing are offered sign language interpreters and
students who can lip read are provided with notetaker,” Wojcik said.
“There is also an FM systems device available, where professors wear a
small microphone and their voice is amplified into the hearing-impaired
student’s hearing aide.”

The final event for Deaf Awareness Week is an ASL club meeting at
11:30 a.m. Thursday at the Health Professions Building room 2150. Manke
said the club will offer different activities, speakers and
performances.

“We are trying to start an ASL club for anyone who is interested;
the hearing impaired, students with deaf family members — this is a
meeting for anyone,” Manke said.

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