LTC offers program on certain degrees

From: Manitowoc Herald Times Reporter, WI - Mar 27, 2003

Demand growing for court reporters, closed captioners

CLEVELAND — A free informational session on the judicial reporting and broadcast captioning associate degree programs offered at Lakeshore Technical College has been scheduled for 6 to 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday, in the Manitowoc County Training Room, Lakeshore Building.

LTC received a $500,000 federal grant in 2001, to develop a new degree program in media captioning and expand its educational and job placement services for captioners and court reporters. The degree programs were added to help the growing demand for graduates in the fields.

The broadcast captioning program applies the technology used by court reporters to do live television captioning for the hearing impaired.

Under the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Federal Communications Commission has mandated increased captioning of TV programming each year, with a goal of 100 percent of programming captioned by 2006.

There is a projected need of 1,000 to 1,500 more captioners in the next three to five years. Currently, there are 100 to 150 captioners in the nation; Wisconsin has only eight.

Because some experienced court reporters are opting to leave the field of traditional reporting for jobs in captioning, there is a critical void in the court system as well.

Graduates of the judicial reporting program, formerly court and conference reporting, are hired as court reporters, whose role is to record verbatim the proceedings in the courtroom and in pretrial proceedings. Court reporters can accurately write at speeds in excess of 225 words per minute and differentiate between multiple speakers.

Through shared program agreements, LTC students have the opportunity to attend classes, via interactive television technology, with students from Fox Valley Technical College, Appleton; Gateway Technical College, Kenosha; Milwaukee Area Technical College, West Allis; and Northeast Wisconsin Technical College, Green Bay.

To register for Tuesday’s session or for more information, contact Pat Mayer at 1-888-468-6582, ext. 1100.

Copyright © 2003 Manitowoc Herald Times Reporter