Paris Mosley & daughter Jeanie

Photo courtesy of Jeanie Mosley Hall

Howard Hall

Photo courtesy of Jeanie Mosley Hall

       
Jeanie Mosley Hall
News photo

Photo courtesy of Jeanie Mosley Hall

   
daughter
Ilea Hall

Photo courtesy of Jeanie Mosley Hall

       
daughter
Karelle Hall

Photo courtesy of Jeanie Mosley Hall

Cleveland Plain Dealer, 31 Oct 1997

TODAY'S PROFILE: JEANIE HALL -- CSU instructor explains signing

HOME COMMUNITY - Shaker Heights AGE - 44 DUTIES - Teaches sign language

By John P. Coyne

Jeanie Hall was only 4 years old when her mother left home. The youngster was brought up by her father, who owned a shoe repair shop in Dover, Del. Because both her parents were deaf, she learned American Sign Language even before she could talk.

"My father was my whole life," Hall said. "We were very close. He made sure I had whatever I wanted." Her father also was colorblind, she said. "When a woman would bring her shoes in to be dyed, he couldn't distinguish between black, blue or brown, so he would ask me what color to use."

"Dover was a small town, and everybody knew him in the town," she said. "I can remember helping him in the shop when I was only 5 years old, because it was right next to our home.... He would use pencil and paper or I would communicate for him.

"Growing up as an only child immersed me in the culture of the deaf," she said. "I decided to continue my education with a master's in deaf education at Western Maryland College." Three years ago, she received a doctorate in urban education from Cleveland State University.

American Sign Language is the third most common language in use in this country after English and Spanish, Hall said. Sign language is especially common in Northeast Ohio, which has the fourth-largest deaf population in the United States, according to the Cleveland Hearing and Speech Center. Since September, Hall has taught ASL through interactive distance learning, teaching 22 students at CSU at the same time she teaches five students at Lorain County Community College.

"The Lorain students are on a TV screen so I can see them," she said. "Whenever a student has a question or wants to talk, I can manipulate four cameras so that students in both classrooms can see the student asking the question and my explanations." One problem she has encountered, she said, is remembering to turn toward the camera when she is demonstrating a sign, so students at the other campus can see. "It takes a little longer," she said. "I give them a lot of verbal explanation. They imitate what I do and we have practice sessions where they use what they learn."

Hall said most deaf people who use sign language learn it while growing up. Thus, most of the college students she teaches are learning sign language to use in a profession, such as nursing, speech pathology or occupational therapy. "One of the big draws is to use sign language to fill the university's language requirement," she said.

Her husband, Howard, is a psychologist at Rainbow Babies & Children's Hospital and on the faculty at Case Western Reserve University. The couple met when both attended the same church in Dover, Del., as teenagers. "He was a pianist and I was one of the lead soloists for the gospel choir," she said. They both attended Delaware State College.

They have two daughters, Ilea, 14, and Karelle, 11.

Hall, whose heritage is both Native American and African-American, is a member of the Nanticoke Indian tribe, a tribe that has pow-wows every year on the Indian River in Delaware. She is writing an autobiography about her early life growing up in Dover. Before joining the staff of CSU 10 years ago, Hall taught at the Margaret Sterck School for the Deaf in Delaware, the New Jersey Commission of the Blind in Newark, and at Pennsylvania State University.