Interpreters make it possible for Deaf and hearing people to understand each other in real time, in classrooms, hospitals, courtrooms, and everyday meetings that might otherwise be inaccessible to someone. Madonna's Sign Language Studies department has trained interpreters since 1975.
This program is built around one outcome: by the time you graduate, you are ready to do the job.
Sign language interpreters live in the state of Michigan, leaving a state-wide shortage
Job openings for interpreters and translators are projected each year, on average
Is the median annual wage for people working as a sign language interpreter
The coursework covers three things you need to succeed as an interpreter: ASL fluency and linguistics (grammar, structure, registers, discourse), Deaf culture and community context, and the mechanics of interpreting itself (holding meaning in one language while producing it in another, in real time, in both directions). By senior year, you're interpreting in supervised field placements and completing a practicum before you ever apply to a job, so you graduate with real experience already on your record, not just a transcript.
No. Most students start in Beginning ASL with zero background. If you already sign, you can request a placement evaluation from the department so you don't repeat material you've already mastered.
Interpreter Assessment and Credentialing gives you the opportunity to prepare for and take the state written examination and the national written qualifying examination, plus simulated performance exams so the real thing isn't a surprise. Certification itself isn't required for graduation, and it's granted by outside bodies (the Michigan and national Registries of Interpreters for the Deaf), not the university.
Interpreters work in K-12 and college classrooms, hospitals and medical offices, courtrooms and legal settings, government agencies, and corporate spaces. Plenty also work through VRS (video relay service), which is entirely remote. Some specialize in one setting, like medical or legal or educational; others stay generalist and move between them.
We are a registered student organization here on campus that strives to help our members achieve their academic goals, build a connection between MU students and the Deaf community, bring awareness to our students about ASL and Deaf culture, raise funds and volunteer for the Deaf community and our club, provide opportunities for relationships between MU alumni and current students, and provide information regarding events for our students and the Deaf community.
We provide students with a fun and friendly environment to practice their ASL skills. In the past, we have had monthly events and weekly silent mingles.
Email us at our club email to receive updates about our current news and events! Also, check out our social media pages.
After Madonna, Tess earned her Master's in Interpretation and Translation at Gallaudet University, researching how culture shapes interpreter training programs. She now works primarily in VRS and community interpreting in the Washington D.C. area, with medical setting experience through an internship at Washington Hospital Center.
"Madonna provided a foundation I couldn't have gotten anywhere else. The faculty were always supportive, both when I was a student and after I graduated"
Take the CASLI performance exams for English/ASL interpreters in the home of the Sign Language Studies department at Madonna University, located in Livonia, Michigan. We offer the gap test, too!
Madonna also offers Deaf Community Studies, and ASL Education majors, which come from the same core foundation in ASL and Deaf culture while featuring coursework specific to each career path, along with a minor in American Sign Language for students who want to build ASL skills alongside another area of study.
B.A., Madonna University
M.A., Oakland University
Ph.D., Heriot-Watt University
734-432-5618, 1405
Danny McDougall, PhD, CSC, is the chair of the Sign Language Studies department. He joined the full time faculty of Madonna University in 2007. He has been a certified interpreter since 1986, specializing in shadowed interpreting for the theatre.
Danny founded TerpTheatre, and is an internationally recognized authority on interpreted theatre (see www.terptheatre.com). He has an extensive background in nonprofit program development and fundraising. He is an alumnus of the SLS department (1986), and holds an MA in Linguistics from Oakland University (1991).
The SLS department awarded him Distinguished Alumnus in 2005. He teaches in the areas of interpretation, advanced American Sign Language, and linguistics.
Bretagne Whitford is an Assistant Professor in the Sign Language Studies department. Bretagne went to Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C. and Rochester Institute of Technology in Rochester, NY. In 2009, she graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Psychology with a minor in Business Administration and Public Policy. She continued on for her master’s degree in Deaf Education, acquired in 2011.
Amongst her education, she worked in a research lab and acquired her research interest in deaf children and the familial characteristics that would have an impact on their literacy. She also takes a fascination with ASL assessments and how to accurately document an individual’s ASL proficiency. She had a paper published in 2011 titled Deaf Individuals’ Bilingual Abilities: American Sign Language Proficiency, Reading Skills, and Family Characteristics in Psychology Journal (Vol. 2, No 1, 18-32).
She takes pride teaching sign language particularly, keen to the fact that she is their Deaf role model and provides the students with the appropriate mental and language framework as they enter the Deaf community.
Jennifer Berrigan is an Assistant Professor in the Sign Language Studies department. A Michigan School for the Deaf alumni, Jennifer attended Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C. In 2005, she graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Biology. She continued for her master’s degree in Sign Language Education at Gallaudet University and graduated in 2017.
Amongst her education, she worked as an intern at Tufts University and James Madison University. She also has worked as the SLPI Coordinator for the MI Department of Education LIO. In 2015, Berrigan competed as a snowboarder at the Winter Deaflympics. Berrigan is no stranger to teaching higher education, working most recently as an ASL instructor in Arizona and Michigan.
