By Rollie Cox, Madison Area Technical College
Three years ago, Madison Area Technical College's judicial reporting/broadcast captioning program initiated a series of get together events for reporting students and area working reporters called "Connecting to the Profession."
The purpose of the once-a-semester event is to bring working and student reporters together for networking, workshops, and speakers during a meal event.
The event, held on campus, has featured a hands-on workshop on speech recognition, a speaker on care and repair of the stenowriter, a panel of freelance reporters, programs on broadcast captioning, and a presentation by the past president of the Wisconsin Association of the Deaf complete with sign language interpretation and CART services.
The most recent event hosted past NCRA president Bruce A. Matthews and a live online walk-through of NCRA's website resources such as the Student Community of Interest, virtual mentor service, and more.
The event is well attended and supported by members of the Wisconsin Court Reporters Association, whose members have made involving reporting students in professional activities a high association priority. WCRA invites a student from each program to sit on the WCRA board of directors as a student liaison. WCRA has also developed programs for students to earn free memberships or convention registrations by attending meetings, for participating in WCRA fundraising activities, and for transcribing tapes for the veterans' history project. WCRA earmarks considerable resources for student opportunities.
"Students can easily complete a two-year reporting program without hardly any contact with those actually working in reporting professions" says Rollie Cox, program instructor, "unless the school and state association integrate classroom studies and outside experiences. The sooner the connection to the profession is made - which serves as a strong motivator to continue through the difficult reporting curriculum - the easier it will be for reporting students to clearly see and reach their end-of-school goal: their first job."
Rollie attributes his convictions about professional involvement for a student to his graduate school major professor who encouraged membership in and attendance at local, state, and national professional organizations.
To further solidify the connection with the profession, students in MATC's reporting programs are automatically enrolled as members of NCRA and WCRA through the collection of a program fee component in their tuition much like students in other programs are assessed for lab supplies, tools, etc.
As a result, every reporting student receives their own copy of the Journal of Court Reporting which can then be used like a textbook with assignments without worrying about student access to the magazine. For each issue a general professional reading list is prepared by one of the faculty members in the program and distributed to all program students to encourage developing a regular habit of professional reading.
To respond to the changing reporting field, membership on MATC's reporting program advisory committee includes, in addition to the official and freelance reporters, a broadcast captioner, a CART provider, a freelance firm owner, an executive of a regional television broadcast station, a member of the state reporting association, a member of the deaf community, and a student member. Members of the committee meet twice a year with college faculty to discuss program curriculum and other issues in reporting and captioning. Committee members also attend the regular get-togethers and are available to students in an online discussion forum called Ask the Advisory Committee.