Every Monday from 7 to 8 p.m. you can find the American Sign Language Club meeting in Wells Hall. The organization focuses on teaching ASL to MSU’s campus and advocating for ASL classes at the university. For e-board member Hana Sakkijha, the club is about providing a space for people to learn.
“People do want to learn ASL, but they don’t know where they can because it can be hard to find classes at MSU during the school year,” Sakkijha said. “So ASL Club provides an avenue for people who want to learn.”
For e-board member Kaedin Cooper, the club is not only about teaching ASL to club members but expanding the resources and reach of education on campus.
“Through teaching ASL, people have learned more and have gotten a better understanding of the culture,” Cooper said. “Part of the club is outreach and awareness because we’re the only Big Ten university that hasn’t offered ASL classes in recent years.”
The previous e-board started a letter writing campaign to the Board of Trustees advocating to reinstate ASL courses here at the university this past fall. According to current e-board member Nina Blum, the campaign was successful; the university added pilot courses over the summer 2025 semester, but there are currently no plans to run courses during the fall and spring semesters, which the ASL Club hopes to change.
“The board said that they were willing to pilot ASL I and ASL II last summer, and we had to hit a benchmark for how many people signed up,” Blum said. “We found out they were not going to offer it full-time, so in February, I spoke during the public comment section of our Board of Trustees meeting about how we should have ASL classes full-time.”
The club tackles basic signs for communication, including emergency signs, which are important to help prevent dangerous situations.
“A couple weeks ago, we taught emergency signs because sometimes, when deaf people are pulled over in cars, police think they’re doing gang signs, which is definitely a safety issue — people should be able to recognize ASL as something other than dangerous,” Sakkijha said.
Members of the e-board expressed the importance of individuals in society understanding basic signs to be more inclusive toward the deaf community.
“Some people just refuse to accommodate deaf people,” e-board member Brody Tozer said. “So, in the example of police officers, I think it should be commonplace for them to know at least a little bit of signage just so that bad interactions don’t happen in traffic stops.”
The e-board embodies the club’s mission to help people across campus learn and advocate for ASL education — ranging from beginner levels to fluent and bilingual.
“We’re open to any level of ASL; I knew zero when I first started last semester and, if you want to learn something, we do a poll at the end or at the beginning,” e-board member Luke Fochtman said. “So, if you want to learn about something specific, come to that club meeting or if you want to get beginner knowledge, come to our beginner meetings; we want to know what people are interested in learning about.”
The club allows members to dictate what they want to learn while also mixing in relevant seasonal signs to help members learn multicultural content and communicate with diverse audiences.
“We’re not very strict about what we teach or what you know and your level of knowledge. So, if they want to learn about something, we can start from the bottom or if we want to go more in-depth with something, we can do that as well,” Blum said. “I also taught signs for Native American Heritage Month and Black History Month and for winter and spring holidays. So, it was very seasonal and relevant.”
To learn more about the ASL Club, follow them on Instagram at msu_asl.
