Stephanie Beatty: Valuable Addition to the RC ASL Community

As someone initially working in the Human Services field, teaching and interpreting were never on Stephanie’s radar. But a fateful conversation with an interpreter in Detroit added a second Bachelor’s in Sign Language Studies to her first Bachelor’s in Psychology, and later a PhD in Psychology with a focus on education. After teaching for 8 years, the Residential College is lucky to welcome Stephanie into the ASL faculty– an advancing step to increasing accessibility for the course. 

I immediately noticed Stephanie’s fluency in ASL when she joined the Zoom call. She gently tapped two fingers against her ear, and appeared to point a finger at the ceiling. I easily deduced that she was asking if I could hear her. With these simple actions, I figured that ASL was a rooted part of Stephanie. 

While she never clicked with learning French, Stephanie was fascinated with ASL, the deaf community, and the joys of communicating with them. 8 years ago, she gave teaching ASL a shot in her local community, and found further success– within herself and the community– teaching people from ages 10 to 70. She mentioned the satisfaction she felt whenever her students had an “aha!” moment, when something clicked in them each class. 

Stephanie established the Deaf Awareness Project to increase exposure and awareness of the deaf community. The Project focuses on teaching about the deaf experience from people part of the deaf community. She hopes that “the program continues to thrive, and students continue to be interested in learning, not just about the language, but also about the culture”. Misinterpretation of the community and culture is prevalent, she remarked, so she urged students to ensure they were learning from accurate, reliable sources. Nonetheless, her encouragement towards students was tangible through the screen– the RC is truly glad to have Stephanie join us. 

“I encourage students themselves to not be frustrated with themselves, to be patient with yourself, because you're still learning. Show me again. Ask your question again, and ask your question and sign, ask it again”.