We have met with Dean Al Smith and the chair of the program, Dr. Karen Munoz on February 8th, 2022. In attendance were Justin Bodily, Savannah Sparks, and Emma Cole representing USU students as a current Bilingual/Bicultural Deaf Education master’s student (Justin), USU alumna and program applicant (Savannah), and Bi-Bi 5-year program student in her 4th year and just missing the cut off to complete the program (Emma). Dereck Hooley (Deaf), Bronwyn O’Hara (parent of Deaf children), Mykel Winn (SODA), and Emily Bergeson (CODA/SODA/interpreter) attended as representatives of the ASL/Deaf community.
The meeting went over an hour and a half. We were glad that the dean and Karen listened to our concerns about the program, even though they said that the program would remain on suspension for now.
The dean explained they wanted to make changes and improvements to the program. They don’t know how long the suspension will last. We did push for them to keep the program open while making improvements. The dean said that was not possible, though he acknowledged the reason was not simply because of the accreditation issue.
We asked several questions including whether the dean had consulted Dr. Curt Radford. The dean said he had not talked to Curt. Karen was asked if Curt had been consulted and she said he had been involved in the numerous meetings leading up to the program suspension.
We pressed the dean and Karen about the impact the program closure would have on deaf education. We asked how long the program would remain suspended and what it would take to bring the program back. We didn’t get any clear answers but the dean and Dr. Munoz assured us that they knew the program was important and that it wouldn’t remain suspended indefinitely.
We left the meeting feeling somewhat on the same page. Everyone recognized the need for ongoing communication throughout the process for bringing Bi-Bi back. The group decided that Karen would keep in contact with Emily moving forward.
Hello Bibi 