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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 5, 2004)
Jlofie P'utaMcutcU' GenteM 1 * * OF BRAZOS VALLEY 6B Thursday, February 5, 2004 NEWS THE BATTALION YOU COULD HAVE AN STD AND NOT KNOW IT! IF YOU'RE SEXUALLY ACTIVE YOU ARE AT RISK - EVEN IF YOU ARE USING CONDOMS. STD Testing - Free & Confidential Call our Registered Nurse to make an appointment 695-9193 205 Brentwood, College Station More universities are recognizing sign language as a foreign language By Jamie Malernee KRT CAMPUS 4980 Dilly Shaw Tap Rd. Bryan TX, 77808 1-800-364-7232 From computer parts to complete systems... We’ve got you covered. witfi a different rina to it., _ / • Sterling Silver Pendants w/Chain exclusively at.. The TMflce to tall* about a x F Bell Collection 3812 S. Texas Ave. • Bryan • 846-1448 1 light North of Luhy’s next to Sherwin Williams Monday - Saturday 10-6 Many other styles to choose from FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. _ She is talking a mile a minute, but no words come out of her mouth. She’s giving a report on Beethoven, yet the entire classroom is silent. Jessica House is a junior at South Plantation High in. the midst of earning an important grade for her American Sign Language class. Her hands turn, flip, brush, slap and point as she makes her meaning known, eyebrows arching. She is one of a growing number of students who are choos ing to learn the language of the deaf instead of more traditional foreign-language options such as Spanish and French. “I get really into it. I disappear into another world when I sign,” House says, explaining why she and other hearing stu dents are drawn to the class. “It’s like danc ing with your hands.” In 1977, South Plantation was the first Broward public high school to offer American Sign Language, but it wasn’t rec ognized as a foreign-language alternative until 1990. Now 11 high schools in the area have ASL classes. Six public high schools offer ASL in Palm Beach County, where enrollment has more than doubled in the past six years. In Miami-Dade, 14 schools offer ASL to about 1,680 students, although only four of those schools cater to hearing pupils. Nationwide, ASL is also the fastest- growing foreign-language offering at U.S. colleges and universities. Since 1998, 186 new institutions have started offering ASL _ for a total of 234 higher-learning establish ments serving 60,000 students, according to a 2002 survey by the Modem Language Association of America. Jennifer McGonigle-Collins, 31, was exposed to South Plantation High’s program as a student, went on to study the language in college, and now is the school’s only ASL Cathy Oshrain shows a sign to one of her American sign language students at North MIKE STOCKER • KRT CAMPUS Miami Beach High School, in Florida, on Jan. 8, 2004. teacher. To meet the high demand for class es, she teaches seven periods straight with no planning break. She’s often on campus from 6:30 a.m. until 5:30 at night and was recently selected as a finalist for the dis trict’s Teacher of the Year. “I feel like I’m giving back what was given to me,” she says. “To see (students) get to a Level 2 or 3 and want to be an inter preter or a deaf teacher, that is so amazing because what you’ve done in such a short amount of time is change their life.” Many of McGonigle-Collins’ students admit they initially took ASL because they’ve heard the class was a simple way to satisfy the foreign-language requirements needed to get into many colleges. Although some universities still don’t recognize ASL as a foreign language, the number that do is growing. “I’m Italian and we always talk without hands, so I thought it would be easy,” jokes Cassie Rampone, 14. But in McGonigle-Collins’ class, they quickly learn ASL involves a lot more than memorizing signs. ASL has its own gram mar that shuffles word order and omits ot “glosses over" certain words such as “and" or “is.” For example, you wouldn’t say/Tm a junior at South Plantation High,” you’d say, “Junior, where?. South Plantation High.” Bonfire Continued from page 1A HAIR • SKIN • NAILS - COSMETICS - BATH & BODY • ACCESSORIES JOICO rusk tigi Sebastian matrix american crew crabtree & evelyn redken nexxus kms goldwell 'paul mitchell trapp candles and more! TIGI Overland Partners, the company designing the memorial. “The reason why China is importing the granite is because they were providing us with the right sizes of granite, they met the price point and the delivery schedule,” Shemwell said. Raney said money for the granite is coming from private funds, and money from A&M is not being used. “We ordered the granite over the summer, and it took about five months for them to come in/’ Raney said. Shemwell said there are more shipments coming and that all of the shipments should be delivered to A&M within six weeks to two months. Lane Stephenson, deputy director for University Relations, said the granite portals that were delivered are each bigger than a car. Raney said the memorial design is broken into three ideas: the tra dition that brought people together, a connecting path, which will walk visitors through the 89-year history of Bonfire preceding the collapse and the continuous ring shares the spirit that united individuals and made them a pan of something greater than themselves. The 89 stones represent the number of years Bonfire burned on the A&M campus. The memorial also includes 27 stone panels,which will connect to the portals to make a complete circle, she said. Bronze panels con necting each stone will represent the students who were injured. Raney said there are 12 portals that stand for the 12 who died, will each portal facing the direction of their hometowns. “This project means a lot to me,” Shemwell said. “It’s not easy working directly with the families of the men and women whodiedii the collapse. It is very emotional but also helps in healing.” Two vertical planes separate the commotion of the outer world from the intimate experience of the memorial, Raney said. “This is going to be a remarkable and very impressive memorial,” Raney said. “It is amazing how many stones are being used, anditis a first-class memorial — especially for the price. I think the bronze panels that connect each stone will look wonderful.” 1 2 OZ TVtr*r\ jDxbJJ HEAD 6 shampoos beautyfirst Beauty Store Color Salon U A R Y S tj! Z'8 F 1)04, b hissi Acer edfrom ual oriei ig f “I w r 7eai Hassoi Pi fil 3 fedei Fount; Miaul v ent$t Tire Genen tiniven Count) Stui 'earnin View/ aniong year-o; ty at le in ^dne Texas