A Little Context.

For decades, the Deaf community has labored to convince family members and academics that American Sign Language (ASL) is a language that is a vital part of a deaf child’s development and language acquisition.

Thanks to the work of Dr. Tom Clark and Bob Sanderson, the 1990’s provided an opportunity for Utah State University’s (USU) Department of Communicative Disorders to transition their Deaf Education teacher preparation program from a total communication program to a bilingual-bicultural program. This bilingual, bicultural approach allows deaf children an opportunity to learn and develop in a deaf-friendly environment. As the program took time to graduate teachers, the Utah Schools for the Deaf and Blind (USDB) did not offer instruction for deaf children in ASL.

Actively involved in establishing the BiLingual/BiCultural (Bi-Bi) program at USU was Dr. Freeman King and his wife, Jan Kelley-King. With Dr. Jim Blair, they got this program up and running at USU.

Through enormous effort from the Deaf community and their supporters, society and academia slowly began to recognize the importance and value of ASL, both as a cherished language of the Deaf community and as an important first language for deaf children.

One competing philosophy has made it difficult at certain junctures for ASL and the Deaf community. Some scholars and professionals in the field believed that teaching young deaf children sign language at an early age could cripple their ability to learn to speak and hinder their brain’s development to recognize sounds. This philosophy was part of the foundation of the other deaf education track at USU, which is called the Listening and Spoken Language (LSL) track.

Over the years, each program has operated independently. Then in 2017 the leadership structure reorganized, placing both the LSL and Bi-Bi programs under one director, the LSL director. With competing philosophies, the Bi-Bi program struggled to thrive under the new leadership structure.

This brings us to our current crossroads. The Bi-Bi program has produced some of the finest educators in deaf education. So when USU’s College of Education announced this program’s suspension, it left a lot of people surprised and confused. Suspending such a valuable and critical program doesn’t make sense to the ASL/Deaf Community.

Leading Up to the Decision to Suspend

The College of Education at USU accredits all programs through the Association for Advancing Quality in Educator Preparation (AAQEP). The Bi-Bi program falls under this accreditation requirement as part of the College of Education. Each instructor and professor of the Bi-Bi program are properly qualified and authorized to teach within the College of Education.

In addition to the AAQEP accreditation, the Bi-Bi program also held accreditation through the Council on Education of the Deaf (CED). Up until the organizational changes within the Deaf Education Department in 2017, the Bi-Bi program maintained their accreditation status.

For various reasons, including movements and changes within the CED, 2020 found the Bi-Bi- Program with a lapsed accreditation status. In order to reinstate accreditation, a completely new accreditation application was required.

As the Bi-Bi program instructors and professors worked on the necessary processes to reinstate accreditation, the provost became aware of the lapsed status and involved the dean. As university administrators, they were not only concerned with the accreditation status, but with the quality of the program. This triggered an additional internal review of the program.

Suspension

While a CED accreditation is not required to keep the Bi-Bi program running, the results of the internal review made the dean feel justified in pausing the program until concerns could be addressed. He instructed the director of the Communicative Disorders and Deaf Education department to formally suspend the program. Letters went out to students in January 2022.

After the dean’s formal announcement regarding the Bi-Bi program’s suspension, the CED wrote a letter clarifying that they were not involved in making any recommendations to support this decision. The dean amended his letter to reflect the CED’s position on the matter but still stands by his decision.

Moving Forward

A group of individuals representing the various aspects of community stakeholders (parents, students, deaf adults, interpreters, etc.) met with Dean Al Smith and director Dr. Karen Munoz in February. A brief summary of that meeting can be read here.

Following the meeting, the Dean and Director agreed to work on a strategic planning process to determine the future of the Bilingual/Bicultural program. Updates and information regarding that planning process will be shared on social media and on this website.

If you care about the future of the Bi-Bi program, subscribe and stay informed. We will likely need your help at different points along the way.

Thank you!