Q & A with Callie Dickson, RFL Academy 2024 alum

Callie Dickson never thought she’d end up learning American Sign Language (ASL) when she enrolled in RFL Academy 2024. The program manager for Challenge Aspen, with a background in therapeutic recreation, Dickson wanted to expand her leadership perspective to better serve the individuals with disabilities that she serves. When the opportunity to learn ASL came up through her civic project group’s sponsor, the Aspen Camp for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, Dickson jumped at the opportunity.  

We chatted with Dickson recently about what learning ASL taught her and the importance of looking inward as a leader.  

Roaring Fork Leadership: To start, what drew you to RFL? 

Callie Dickson: I’ve been in the valley working as Program Manager for Challenge Aspen for almost five years and just wanted to evolve my leadership within adaptive recreation and at Challenge Aspen. I was feeling like in the winter especially I’m pretty siloed within the adaptive world, SkiCo and Challenge Aspen. I wanted a broader perspective on the valley and more collaboration with other adaptive nonprofits. 

RFL: How did the opportunity to learn American Sign Language (ASL) during the Academy come about? 

CD: We have some participants [at Challenge Aspen] who are often deaf or hard of hearing, but we don’t really have anyone full time on our staff that knows ASL. In the winter, we only have a couple ski instructors who are proficient in ASL. So it was something I’ve always been interested in learning — to help fill that need and serve more people. Even just knowing a few signs is so beneficial, so I wanted to use this opportunity as a kind of a stepping stone into the ASL world.

RFL: What was that learning experience like?

CD: I could tell that ASL was something Karen [Immerso] was super passionate about so it’s always fun to learn from a teacher that has a passion for the language. She uses it a lot and is a huge advocate for learning the language and was open to teaching not only my civic project group, but my colleagues at Challenge Aspen ad well. I got some of my team at Challenge involved, so we would just hop on an hour-long zoom class with Karen and then she gave us additional external resources, like YouTube videos and online teachers, to explore on our own. Many of the signs were easy to grasp because they’re intuitive, so I’m hopeful I’ll be able to remember them.

RFL: How did you end up incorporating ASL into your civic project for the Aspen Camp? 

CDL: Our initial vision was to create a social media campaign for the Camp with 365 words — one for each day of the year — which we broke down into the four seasons and found words that applied to each season. For instance, in the fall, we used words like Halloween. We had people at the ASL club in Glenwood act out 20 signs each, which we filmed, so the Aspen Camp could put the videos on their social media channels. 

We went to a couple of ASL club meetings before we did the filming just so we could get to know them and that was really fun. It forced us to practice the language and introduce ourselves, which was a really positive way to learn. Actually speaking ASL in front of people was so helpful and interacting with the deaf and hard of hearing community was super cool.  

RFL: How do you think this experience has shaped you as a leader and as a person? 

CD: I think RFL challenged my beliefs of what it means to be a leader in a bunch of different realms — internally, and then also, within my professional work, and with my friends and family.  I was able to apply everything I was learning at RFL to all these different aspects of my life. From the very beginning of the course, it became so clear to me that leadership is within every person. It’s about how you’re looking at yourself. And how can you change to be a better leader for this situation. Looking inward before others was probably the most important thing I took away from RFL.