Despite being one of the University’s smaller student organizations, the Deaf and Hard of Hearing Club has a big goal on campus.
The LSU Deaf and Hard of Hearing Club is an organization centered around inclusiveness — bringing together students from the hearing, deaf and hard of hearing communities.
“The goal of the club is to further interaction between deaf and hearing communities because they so often don’t interact,” said DHH President Emily Cook. “So especially this year, we’re trying to have a bigger push toward, instead of just giving lessons all meeting, we’re going to have our deaf and hearing members just hang out, interact, get to know each other [and] learn about the culture from the people who belong to it.”
Communication disorders senior Ariel Johnson found her place in the Deaf and Hard of Hearing Club her freshman year. She has served as an officer of the club and remains an active member.
“My experience with this club is just refreshing, being hard of hearing, because where I came from probably the only one of my age in my community that was hard of hearing,” Johnson said. “A lot of people aren’t educated on it. Here, even though our hearing members are not deaf or hard of hearing, they understand. It’s just having that empathy to empathize with others, and that’s what I love about this club. I don’t feel like I’m different or I have to explain my situation.”
The organization also extends their inclusiveness to communities outside of the University.
“We work really closely with the [Louisiana School for the Deaf],” Cook said. “We volunteer at a lot of their events. We go to a lot of their sporting events to support them because not a lot of people go. It’s a boarding school so a lot of their parents can’t attend these events, and we want them to feel supported and encouraged.We volunteer at their fundraisers, their PTA things, anything that we can do to help the school we do.”
The organization offers free sign language classes every Thursday for members of the club and charge $25 per semester for non-members. The classes are taught by Natalie Delgado, a teacher at the Louisiana School for the Deaf.
DHH hosts their club meetings every other Thursday. Their next meeting is Sept. 7 at 6:30 p.m. in Coates Hall.
The club can be contacted via email at [email protected].