By Ashlee Gray
Contributing Writer
On Monday, Oct. 16, Fingers Speak, St. Bonaventure’s American Sign Language Club, hosted its Second-Annual Fingerspelling Event.
The McGinley-Carney Center for Franciscan Ministry held the event, and it was open to all students and community members.
Several students founded Fingers Speak at the beginning of last year , including Jordan Boland, the co-founder and current president of the organization. Boland, a senior bioinformatics major, and other club members have taken sign language courses offered by the university, but had desired to apply sign language outside the classroom.
The club aims to raise awareness for the deaf community both on and off campus and create a respectful understanding for all deaf communities and its culture.
Gina Gerard, a junior education major and member of Fingers Speak, is hopeful for the future of the club.
“Last year, we didn’t have a lot of people in the club,” Gerard said. “This year we do, and we are going to try to get out into the community more.”
Boland expressed his confidence that the event would draw more participants than the previous year. Not only has the club grown in numbers, they have also branched out into the community and invited all to come to the social.
“We have members of the Deaf community coming to this event, and we hope that will increase students interest having them here,” said Boland.
Nearly 30 students attended the event on Monday.
Boland hopes that through the event, the club can “expose people to the deaf culture and the basic unit of American Sign Language, which is how to finger spell.”
Fingerspelling is the foundation of sign language and can be useful when communicating if one does not know other expressions in sign.
Some of the students had no prior knowledge of sign language, but ASL members passed around a paper with the fingerspelling alphabet and numbers. ASL members helped students learn to sign and communicate with the members of the deaf community at the event.
After some practice, the club initiated a game of telephone. The game consisted of two lines that contained both students and community members. Each line raced to be the first group to finger spell a word correctly.
Other students who knew sign languages could jump right into conversation. Nicole Antonacci, a junior psychology major, had deaf friends in high school and would sign regularly.
“I don’t get to see my friends from high school as much, so I don’t get to practice sign as much as I would like,” Antonacci said.
The event provided an opportunity for Antonacci to engage in conversation with Olean resident and use her sign language skills.
Overall, the event seemed to do just as Boland expected. People from the community and university established connections and gained a more in-depth understanding of the deaf community. ASL will host another event in the spring semester.
grayar16@bonaventure.edu
