College provides the opportunity to explore interests and find your purpose, but not everyone follows the same path to get there. Emily Radebaugh, from Sylvania, Ohio, had dropped out of other colleges twice and was working 60-hour weeks at a warehouse when she decided to go back to school at age 22.
“I was miserable, and I knew deep in my heart that I couldn't continue to work in a place where I was so unhappy,” she says. “After I decided to go back to school, I flitted around the warehouse informing anyone who would listen about my plans to become a history professor.”
Most people at the warehouse were happy for her, but one man she had never spoken to before reacted in a way she will never forget. “He responded by laughing in my face,” Radebaugh says. “He said, ‘No one would take you seriously as a professor. You talk with your hands so much you should do sign language.’
“I was taken aback by how boldly he made fun of me, but I took what he said to heart. I started researching American Sign Language and took to it immediately. I was deeply drawn to ASL, Deaf culture and eventually Deaf education, rights, community and history.”
At 91ֿ, she tried programs in interpreting and Deaf education before deciding to major in ASL through the modern and classical languages department in the College of Arts and Sciences. “It was kind of a journey to get where I am now,” says Radebaugh, who plans to graduate in May 2023. “But I enjoy what I do and have never thought of leaving the ASL umbrella.” Active on the Kent Campus, she is president of the Deaf Access and Allyship Organization.
In summer 2022, she traveled to Florence, Italy, for a study abroad experience. As an ASL major with a minor in Italian studies, Radebaugh focused on those topics, discussing them with her professors in each course she took. She gave a presentation on Italian Sign Language and Italian Deaf culture for an intercultural communications course, studied how emotions and culture impact facial expressions (a core linguistic part of sign language) for a psychology course and explored the LGBTQ community in Florence and its intersectionality with the Italian Deaf community for a course combining LGBTQ studies and peace and conflict studies.
“Florence offered me the richest educational experiences I could have ever dreamed of.”
Emily Radebaugh, senior, ASL major
Radebaugh used her breaks between classes to immerse herself in the culture and explore sign language programs she had researched prior to her trip. On a class trip to Florence’s sister city Siena, during a two-hour lunch break she visited the Siena School for Liberal Arts, which has a Deaf studies program with courses in Italian Sign Language and Italian Deaf Culture & History.
“I met a wonderful woman, who I believe is the head of a three-week Study-Abroad for Deaf & Signers program at the school,” Radebaugh says. “She invited me to come back some day to experience that program, sit in on some of their presentations and meet some of their professors.”
The opportunities and experiences Radebaugh had while studying in Florence were made possible by several scholarships, including the Gary L. and Katy Dix-Brahler Endowed Study Abroad Scholarship and the Fern E. Welling Scholarship Fund.
“Florence offered me the richest educational opportunities I could have ever dreamed of, and I’m extremely grateful,” she says. “I loved experiencing a new culture and language. I felt the more I stepped out of my comfort zone, the more I grew as a person. I’ve grown in living with other people, and I’ve grown in confidence.”
Such experiences are something Radebaugh wants other students to have, too.
“I think overall this experience is going to change my life and open up opportunities in the career I’m pursuing,” she says. “To any student who’s considering studying abroad, I would say, ‘Do it.’ It takes a lot of courage to come to an entirely new country not knowing too much about the language and the culture. But it’s going to give you a new perspective, and it’s going to get you out of your comfort zone.”
Learn more about the ASL program at 91ֿ.