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Language: Classes are growing in popularity m Continued from Page 1 My schoolmates’ parents would n’t let their kids come near me.” Growing up with discrimina tion cemented Larson-Muhr’s de sire to devote her life to studying deafness. Now, Larson-Muhr, a certified Sign-linguist and head of the University’s Communica tion Disorders program, is one of two instructors who teach Amer ican Sign Language at the Uni versity. “There’s really a growing inter est in ASL. We offer three sec tions of Sign I and II, and they al ways fill up,” said Larson-Muhr, who divides her time between the University and helping out with community events, such as interpreting for Mayor Jim Tor rey's State of the City address Wednesday. Larson-Muhr’s af ternoon class was packed Tues day, with waiting lists for each section. ‘T’ve always been interested and have wanted to take it, just to know it for myself,” said sopho more Whitney Reynolds. ASL is more than just signs. It has a written form and its own grammatical structure that close ly resembles Chinese or Navajo, and it can be more difficult than most students imagine. “It’s a physical language, too, and the course is more like a dra ma class because of all the ex pression you need to convey it,” Larson-Muhr said, explaining that ASL has thousands of signs and variations. American Sign is only one of about 200 different forms around the world. Schol ars estimate there are roughly 500,000 speakers in the U.S., making it the third largest non English language in the country. The popularity of Sign classes at the University indicates its growing prominence nationwide. More than 90 universities and colleges from Yale to East Texas State recognize ASL as a full for eign language. The University, however, still does not accept ASL. “It's a really controversial is sue,” said Teresa Quinn, inter preter coordinator at Disability Services. “Many people in acad emics don’t regard it as a lan guage because they feel it is not different enough from English, and also that there is no literature or culture connected with it," she said. Hillary Gerdes, a University Senator who is on the Academic Requirement Committee, said she would like to see ASI, be come part of the curriculum. A motion was passed in 1994 by the Undergraduate Educational Policy Coordinating Committee that recognized its significance, she said. But the committee de cided ASL should not be accept ed as a language. Yet many people, like Ruth Bradley, disagree. Bradley, a Uni versity interpreter who has worked with the deaf since 1967, calls the policy “discrimination” and one that creates barriers to deaf students. “Far too many people who should know better don’t recog nize it,” she said. “It's insulting when someone degrades your language, because language is a great deal of who we are as peo ple.” Bradley argues that despite some academic objections, ASL does have a rich literature and culture. "There’s film, poetry, and plays written in and for ASL," she said. “It’s been proven and researched by linguists as having all the elements of a language.” Larson-Muhr said she will con tinue to advocate for ASL and fight misconceptions about it. She said her work interpreting for a seminar about Sudden In fant Death Syndrome recently made her mother realize her son’s death was not the fault of her deafness. “My mother just never had ac cess to that kind of information before." Proposal: Difficult to predict future changes in funding State aid State appropriations for higher education from 1997-98: Oregon State University Oregon Health Sciences University 53,948,000 Portland State University ■■■M8.054.000 University of Oregon IHMM 45,388,000 Southern Oregon State University Ml 6.122.000 Western Oregon State University ■ 13,328,000 Oregon Institute of Technology ■ 14,969,000 Eastern Oregon State University ■ 11,393,000 Community colleges tBTgrMMM— Student aid M&16.250.000 Other ■Hi 6,250,000 SOURCE: The Chronicle of Higher Education CARA STRAZZO/Emerald is Continued from Page 1 ture committees are working on proposals. OSSHE’s Budget and Finance Committee is working on Kitzhaber’s suggestions to create a new budgetary proposal that al lows tuition and state dollars to follow students to their institu tions. The present system pools the tuition money from separate institutions and redistributes it. OSSHE board member Tom Imeson, vice president of govern ment, public affairs and commu nication for PacifiCorp in Port land, chairs the Budget and Finance Committee and also served on the governor’s Higher Education and the Economy Task Force. The proposal is expected in late spring. In the short term, it appears that the University will benefit the most, along with Portland State University, Dennis said. "They have the largest enrollment with the cheapest degree programs,” he said. Schools like the Oregon Insti tute of Technology and Eastern Oregon University are likely to lose out with the new tuition dis Gov. Kitzhaber’s recommendations e Changing the way tuition dollars are distributed so that the tuition | students pay goes to their school instead of into the system budget ■ Establishing a system budget process that shows what programs 1 are being subsidized and why • Shifting the management focus from the needs of individual institu- j tions to the needs of the public and | economic marketplaces; shifting | budgetary priorities to match ^Achieving complete transferability of | courses among community colleges, universities; facilitating transferability with private and out-of-state schools tribution because of the high cost of their programs, he said. Dennis said it is difficult to pre dict what the decentralization of tuition dollars will mean for indi vidual institutions in the long run. “At the University of Oregon, you could see bigger classes, you could see UO shying away from more expensive programs that are important to the state,” he said. But the current favorable cli mate toward technology could also mean a redirection of subsi dies to schools like OIT, which can show benefits to high-tech in dustries, and less subsidies for schools like the University, whose philosophy and English degrees are less appealing to busi ness, Dennis said. The Governance and Structure Committee is “looking at ways to increase campus autonomy over program creation and making campuses more enterprising,” Clifford said. By more enterpris ing, Clifford said individual insti tutions need to be “more creative in meeting the needs of the state.” The Higher Education and Economy Task Force, which made one of the reports Kitzhaber based his recommendations on, is composed primarily of Oregon business leaders; it is chaired by John Lee of the Providence Health System in Portland and includes Eugene’s Gretchen Pierce of Holt and Associates and Randy Pape of The Pape Group. 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