Building Their Own Emory Experience

Valentina Esho began self-learning American Sign Language (ASL) in middle school to better communicate with a family member. It wasn’t until she joined the Emory American Sign Language club that she realized she had learned a kind of pidgin, where she was signing every word from the spoken English, as opposed to translating the big picture organically.

“If we’re translating something from spoken English to ASL, we’re not going to sign every single word in that sentence,” says Esho, a neuroscience and behavioral biology and chemistry double major. “Instead, we might sign a completely different sentence that gets at the idea that’s actually trying to be conveyed. There are different grammatical structures for ASL, and it’s a completely different language than spoken English.”

The club mostly consists of hearing members whose first language is English. As president, Esho says the group’s mission is to help Emory students connect with the deaf and hard-of-hearing community, promote accessibility and encourage people to learn how to sign conversationally.

Esho enjoys the feeling of community and camaraderie she gets from practicing ASL with her fellow club members. The club hosts “voice off” outings — like at the High Museum or somewhere for brunch — where attendees only communicate in sign language.

Most of all, Esho appreciates the ways ASL expands her arsenal of communication. She says it’s a whole different mode of expression and describes the language as physical and direct.

“I think it’s easier to communicate emotions,” she says. “A lot of sign language is based on facial expressions, so you need to overexaggerate whatever you’re feeling.”

“For example,” she continues, “I’m pretty scared about graduating, so I’m like, ‘What am I going to do after this? Where is my life going to take me?’ And I’ve found that easier for me to communicate in sign language.”

The Oxford Mycology Club was born from a simple curiosity. Hannah Hsiao and a friend had seen several nature-based YouTube videos about fungi identification, and they found it a fascinating and oddly relaxing topic of discussion.

Not far from their dorm, the Oxford Nature Trail stretches far into the woods and is home to many fungi native to Georgia and the Southeast, as well as various other fauna often explored by Oxford science classes on warm spring days.

“I wanted to go out into the forest and look for the fungi,” says Hsiao, a sophomore mathematics major. “It’s surprisingly difficult to find a lot of them.”

With a club of about 12 active members dedicated to fungi knowledge and identification, as well as to appreciating the general beauty of nature, these specimens can still be hard to find, Hsiao says, but thanks to community the burden is a bit lighter.

“I really appreciate the social aspect,” she says. “I do sometimes go out into nature and look for mushrooms on my own, but when I’m on the trail with my club, it feels more like we’re all looking at these cool things together.”

The low-stakes nature walks are also fertile ground for discussion of all kinds, and Hsiao says she’s deepened friendships thanks to these conversations that extend well beyond mycology. Sometimes, though, the hunt for a mushroom will take the group off the trail and “on a trek through dense foliage.”

For Hsiao, one mushroom worth such a devoted hunt is the lactereus paradoxis, commonly called the silver blue mill cap, of the agaric family.

Hsiao describes it as having a “middle divot where the stem meets the cap. In its young phase it’s super blue, but once it starts to mature it gets all these beautiful purplish hues and a silvery sheen. It becomes almost galaxy-like.”

With a mushroom like that, Hsiao says, “It’s rewarding when you’ve gotten to the point you can make the correct identification.”

Nina Selders, a sophomore studying human health and English, describes Volunteer Emory as an organization “for students to go out and change the world through service.”

In her two years at Emory, Selders has tried to live out that ethos. She is the organization’s associate director and leads a weekly service trip to Tapestri, a group that works with individuals affected by domestic violence and human trafficking and provides advocacy and education. She and her crew help with administrative work and fill packages that Tapestri sends to families in need. She also volunteers once a week at the NICU of Emory Decatur Hospital.

"I'd say it's fulfilling, but I try not to use that word because it's not about me,” Selders says. “I think volunteering has given me a new perspective. You work with so many different types of people and you never know what they're going through until you get a chance to speak with them. It's opened my eyes to things that are troubling people that I would have had no idea about, and I can learn about those things through helping other people."

The group often partners with other student organizations across campus. Selders recently attended a Volunteer Emory tree planting event with the Emory Climate Reality Project, and she remembers other events with Slow Food Emory and the Emory soccer team.

“It’s hard to get people to start volunteering, but I find that once they do it’s hard for them to stop,” she says.

Selders also believes these experiences will help her in the future, both personally and professionally.

“I want to be an occupational therapist,” she says. “A lot of that has to do with knowing others’ backgrounds, knowing their personal stories, knowing what kind of personal treatment they need. What I’ve learned from volunteering is going to help me be able to connect with those patients.”

The act of volunteering is also one of continuous learning, Selders says: “It's good to have a scope outside of what you already know.”

A Woodruff Scholar from the United Kingdom, Henry Pang had never tried ballroom dancing before he arrived at Emory in 2021. His closest experience was karate or kickboxing.

His first semester on campus, though, he signed up for a social dance class held by the Emory Department of Health and Physical Education, which connected him with Emory Ballroom Dance. After his first practice, he was hooked.

“You find yourself dancing with strangers,” says Pang, who three years later is club president. “That’s the whole point of the club. You get to connect with strangers in a way you wouldn’t in any other context.”

The organization hosts weekly classes at the beginner and intermediate levels for Emory students. Once a semester, it holds a celebratory campus ball — most recently, Bridgerton-themed in the fall, and Valentine’s in the spring. The group also participates in competitions across the country.

Pang, a double major in economics and Arabic, appreciates how dance brings people together. He calls his fellow club members “family” and has even used it as a tool to connect with the broader community. Each month, Pang leads lessons at the American Cancer Society Hope Lodge for patients receiving cancer treatment at Emory and their caregivers.

“I have such a passion for it that it’s easy,” Pang says. “I can do it even when I’m tired and even when I’m stressed with other work. It’s quite healing, as well.”

Perhaps no dance is more healing than the tango, he says: “It’s dramatic. It’s powerful. There’s a lot of tension between the partners.”

Pang says the fact he started as a beginner and is now the organization’s president and an instructor is a testament to the group’s strong and supportive culture. Still, he admits to occasional nervousness on the ballroom floor.

“I think it’s a constant journey,” he says. “I still think about messing up my steps, but everyone is extremely kind. Everyone is sympathetic, and everyone’s learning at the same time.”