Michael Ernest, in sign and symbol . . .
This article is about the ECU's program for hearing impaired students. This and other articles may be found in the University Archives.Citation for this article is: "Michael Ernest, in sign and symbol . . . " Pieces of Eight, April 1, 1982.
Even in spoken conversation, Mike Ernest's fingers move involuntarily, forming words in the fluid and graceful manual communication he uses in daily contact with ECU's deaf students.As director of ECU's Program for Hearing Impaired Students, Ernest uses sign language not only with the 20 deaf students now involved in the program, but also with his 14 staff and student interpreters and the members of the ECU Sign Language Club sponsored by the program.
Watching his fingers fly, it's hard to believe that Ernest once found himself "signless" and therefore speechless in a dormitory full of deaf boys at the residential school for the deaf in Morganton.
"I had just been hired by the state to be rehabilitation counselor for the deaf for the 54 eastern cuonties," he said. "My training began with an intensive two-week 'crash course' at the Morganton school. My teacher, too, was deaf."
Gained Proficiency
With subsequent experience and further training at the University of Tennessee's Orientation to Deafness Program, Gallaudet College and special workshops, Ernest has become quite proficient, and is now certified by the National Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf.His first exposure to deafness has left an indelible mark. "I suppose the reason I am so enthusiastic about what deaf people can accomplish is that I never forgot those kids at Morganton. They were the first group of deaf people I'd ever met, and they were involved in the same things hearing teen-agers are -- scouting, movies, cars, sports, photography, their school yearbook. They were achievers, totally different from the popular stereotype of the handicapped."
Since helping to establish and continuing as director of ECU's five-year-old Program for Hearing Impaired Students, Ernest has become confirmed in his belief that the deaf can succeed. ECU is one less than a dozen U.S. campuses which offer the typies of services enabling deaf young people to pursue four-year degrees and graduate work.
A former English teacher, he remains fascinated with sign language. His interpreters at ECU use a mixture of formal Signed English, "Ameslan" (American Sign Language) gestures and finger-spelling, or letter-by-letter spelling of words for which there is no sign. He is comfortable with the slang used by deaf youth, and points out that the deaf of different generations or locations have their own "dialects" or ways of signing.
'Deaf Power'
One sign he particularly likes is the Ameslan way of saying "Deaf Power." The right fist is clenched and raised while the left hand covers the left ear. "Deaf people can achieve and accomplish in the hearing world, if they're given the chance to communicate," he stresses. "A hearing disability is almost incidental, really."We're proud of our students' record; by the end of this semester eight deaf students will have graduated from ECU in a variety of fields. A good deal of credit goies to the faculty who have our students in their classes and labs. Some have even tried to slow down their normally rapid speech so the interpreter can relay each word.
"I know it's unnerving to share a lecture podium with a sign language interpreter, but they have cooperated very well."
