Early in her life, Jacqueline Corey felt a deep calling to explore sign language, so when a course teaching the language became available at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, she seized the opportunity.

“I took it, and I took every succeeding class I could after that to immerse myself in the culture, in the language as much as possible,” she said.

American Sign Language is among the country’s most widely used and studied languages, according to the national campaign Lead with Languages. Corey graduated conversationally fluent in ASL but needed more education to become a licensed interpreter.

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