Introduction | The mimic and the freelancer | The advocate | The student and the believer

Kim Bates takes her seat at the front of the Green Hall auditorium. Scanning the room, she locks eyes with second-year law student Ryan Schwarzenberger. When Dennis Prater starts his evidence lecture, Kim’s hands glide up and down to convert what comes out of Prater’s mouth into a silent sequence of symbolic gestures that most can identify — if not understand — as sign language.

She translates his emphatic, gravelly voice, signing so forcefully that when her hands connect they can be heard from across the room.

For every word Prater, Connell Teaching Professor of Law, says, Bates reacts. If students ask a question, she immediately pivots in her seat, turning toward the professor as if asking it herself. Her face — framed by her bob of auburn hair — rises and falls with the rhythm of speech.

Although the other 25 students are focused on the professor, Ryan is completely engrossed in the movement of her hands. For him, Kim is a lifeline, the only person in the room capable of translating the day’s lesson into terms he can understand.

Kim is a sign language interpreter, the University’s interpreter coordinator, and one of only a handful of signers deaf KU students can rely on to make the world of academic sounds accessible to them. She’s had to become an expert in near countless subjects in order to provide accurate interpretation for her students.

And because the number of interpreters is small, Kim’s work extends beyond campus. She’s delivered bad news in emergency rooms, interpreted for former president Bill Clinton when he came to KU in May of 2004, and interpreted at funerals — all the while using the skills she learned in drama classes to go beyond mere words to communicate body language and mood.

Currently, five KU students have deafness severe enough to require an interpreter (and sometimes two) in each of their classes. As interpreter coordinator, Kim needs to be wherever her students are: working in the classroom; interpreting for University-wide events such as convocation and commencement; running across a soccer field to make sure Emily Cressy can understand her coaches’ instructions. She even traveled to England on a study abroad trip.

As coordinator, she schedules freelance interpreters to be placed in classes around campus wherever students need them. She works one-on-one with each student to iron out the kinks of their respective schedules and ensures students have supplementary support such as note takers, real-time captioning of lectures, and FM-transmissions that some can pick up with their hearing aids. She also spends approximately 15 hours a week out in the classroom signing and interpreting herself. That much time in the classroom also means that Kim has nearly free rein to audit whatever classes the University has to offer.

The beginner

Kim grew up the youngest of five siblings in the rural community of Chapman, where she was introduced to signing during seventh grade, when a deaf student named Jeremy transferred into her class. He required the assistance of an interpreter, and though she recalls her classmates welcoming their new peer, they put forth little effort to communicate directly with him.

“Nobody was learning to sign; everyone was forcing him to read lips,” she said. “Communication takes effort on everybody’s part.”

The unfairness of this disparity sent Kim on the journey that now defines her professional life.

To learn how to talk with her new classmate, Kim befriended his interpreter, Kerry Bowell. Over time, Bates grew close to Bowell and her entire family, particularly her son David, who is deaf. Dave agreed to work with Kim as she taught herself to sign. She began slowly, learning to finger spell “The Pledge of Allegiance” letter by letter. He would taunt her, starting to sign it himself when she was halfway through and still finish first, but he’d also teach Kim her first words in American Sign Language, often called ASL.

ASL contains its own systems of syntax and grammar. These factors set it apart from other styles of sign language that mimic exact English in a physical way.

Kim and Dave sat together in the bleachers at Chapman High basketball and football games and practiced her signing. He gave Kim her ASL book. While she studied signing, she also studied acting and forensics, and now credits her time in the performing arts for her skills emulating and imitating the speakers she interprets every day. She tries to go beyond words to convey inflections, visual representations of tone, and even body language to connote overall mood. When Kim graduated from high school, she set out for Johnson County Community College to become an interpreter.

Introduction | The mimic and the freelancer | The advocate | The student and the believer

— Edited by Melissa Johnson