The ASL Program offers a Bachelor's degree (major) or a minor in ASL within the division of the Humanities. Students with majors in other divisions can broaden their education with course clusters in ASL. The ASL Program offers practical preparation for people entering a variety of professions in the field of deafness, such as deaf educators, sign language interpreters, researchers, counselors, government specialists, program administrations, or community service personnel.

We offer a full 4-year liberal arts degree, with classes in ASL as a language, in the literature and culture of the American Deaf community, in the linguistics and psycholinguistics of signed and spoken languages, and classes in teaching ASL as a second language. In addition, we offer instruction in a second sign language, Japanese Sign Language. Our program is not, however, an interpreter training program, although a B.A. in ASL provides an excellent background for students who plan to obtain a master’s degree or other form of certification in interpreting.

The ASL Program is affiliated with the University of Rochester's Sign Language Research Center, the Center for Language Sciences, the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, and the Department of Linguistics, where faculty, graduate students and visiting scholars pursue interdisciplinary research in the linguistics and psycholinguistics of ASL and other sign languages of the world.