Career Links Vol 4 No 1 November 2004

The Signs of a New Career:

stacey.jpg (667 KB) Stacey Storme

An Interview with Stacey Storme, Career Program Facilitator and Assistant Professor, Interpreter Training Program

Interviewed by Kit Gorrell Frankenfield,
Employment Systems Technician,
Career Services Center

JCCC's Interpreter Training Program is the beginning of a lifelong learning process. The two - year sequence of courses provides instruction and experience needed to interpret between visual American Sign Language (ASL) and auditory English. Initially, students learn new language skills, especially American Sign Language (ASL) and fingerspelling. Comparisons are drawn between English and ASL, with emphasis on the development of interpretation skills. Laboratory time involves the performance of the varied components of interpretation. Students are required to participate in practica on and off campus. For more information, call Stacey Storme at (913) 469-8500 Ext. 4103 or by email at sstorme@jccc.edu.

Career Services Center: What is your current job at JCCC?

Stacey Storme: Currently I teach full-time (18 credit hours) and I am the career program facilitator of the Interpreter Training program. My teaching duties include teaching the hands-on skills classes for interpreting and some of the foundational classes about the interpreting field. As far as being the program facilitator, right now we are doing a lot of curriculum revision and looking at the program as a whole, revising our Sign Language Communication Certificate program and talking to perspective students.

CSC: How many people work with you in Interpreter Training?

SS: There are three full-time faculty and seven adjunct faculty members.

CSC: How did you get started in your career?

SS: I am a native signer and a native speaker of English, so I acquired ASL and English simultaneously. My oldest sister is deaf, and when my parents found out, they started going to sign language classes. When I was born, they were still going to classes and were very involved with other parents of deaf children, so I would go as a little one and play with the deaf kids. I learned sign language naturally from them, and I acquired the language very easily, at the same time I learned English. This is the language base I’ve had all my life.

When I was fourteen I started taking workshops about interpreting. I was in a relatively small town, and I knew that I was interested in working with deaf people, and it was such a big part of my life. I have bits of me that are “deaf”--not physically, but culturally. Parts of me are very comfortable in deaf culture, around deaf people, with deaf norms and values. Even at a young age I would just go to those activities, because that was where people were who knew sign language and talked about things that affected deaf people. By the age of 18 I began doing some interpreting work.

The interpreting field is very young. Our national organization was founded in 1964; and before 1964, there was no professional role of interpreter. It took us a while to establish interpreting as a profession. There might even still be people today who think that interpreters do so out of the kindness of their heart, that it’s a volunteer job. Even when I was starting to become a practitioner in this work, we were such a young profession that there weren’t a lot of people who had the appropriate training and educational background. Hence, people like me starting to interpret at a young age.

Then I interpreted to get through college. It didn’t take me very long to realize that I really liked it. I had to work hard at it, but I had some inclinations and some natural skills related to the work of interpreting, which is very different than just knowing both languages. Being native in both languages absolutely helps, because it gives you those foundations. But then I also had some natural tendencies and cognitive skills that it takes to interpret, and the processes it requires.

CSC: What were you going to pursue in college before you realized that you wanted to be an interpreter?

SS: I actually wanted to teach deaf kids, so I wanted to go into deaf education. And then when I realized that it was not a good fit for me, I decided to pursue interpreting as a profession.

CSC: What training did you go through?

SS: I unfortunately went through the school of hard knocks. Most of my training was through continuing education: workshops and conferences that were specifically geared towards interpreters. Some of those courses were offered for credit as continuing ed courses, others were just offered for professional development, so that is the bulk of my training. I have a Bachelor’s degree in Communication and a minor in Women’s Studies. I am investigating a Master’s in Interpreter Education, which is a new degree. There’s finally going to be something offered that is a Master’s degree in how to teach interpretation; or I’m looking at pursuing a Master’s degree in Adult Education.

CSC: Where would you go for that?

SS: The new Masters in Interpreter Education will be offered as a distance program at Northeastern University in Boston. It’s projected to begin in the fall of 2005.

CSC: What happened after you completed your education?

SS: Well, I was interpreting long before completing my Bachelor’s degree. I have interpreted in a number of settings: K-12, legal settings, mental health, medical, community-based such as the work place and civic settings, performing arts, and conferences. I’ve interpreted for the whole gamut. I started to do more community-based interpreting, and then when I moved from a smaller town to Denver, Colorado and started interpreting in the community, the Interpreter Training program there recruited me to teach. I began teaching as an adjunct at Front Range Community College. Then I started to interpret more at the University of Colorado. I worked as a core member of the interpreting team at the University for about 5 years. Then, I was hired as the full-time Interpreting Services Administrator at Coors Brewing Company. They had several deaf employees and I was responsible for providing interpretation for anything the company sponsored—trainings, staff meetings or celebrations. After working at Coors for approximately 5 years, I moved to Kansas and began working here at JCCC.

CSC: Did you continue doing freelance interpreting while you worked at Coors?

SS: A little bit. I still do and will continue. One of the strongest philosophies that I have is that I will continue to be a practitioner. The day I stop being a practitioner is the day I should stop teaching about this work. I feel very strongly about this. Interpreting is a practice profession, and if I lose touch with what it’s like to be a professional in this field, then I come from a theoretical standpoint, and I don’t think that that’s beneficial for the students who I teach.

CSC: What brought you here to JCCC?

SS: A couple of things. I was ready, had been doing freelance for a while, and then after working full-time at Coors and teaching adjunct for 10 years; I was ready to begin teaching more. The full-time position opened up here and grabbed my attention. Also my partner’s family is from here; we wanted to be close to family.

CSC: How long have you been at JCCC?

SS: This is my third year teaching and my second as program facilitator.

CSC: What are the programs available in Interpreter Training?

SS: There are two programs: the Interpreter Training Program (ITP), which is a two-year Associates of Applied Science degree. The ITP will prepare students to be entry-level interpreters. This is a full-time day program. The other program is the SLC, or Sign Language Communication Certificate program, which is a post-secondary certificate program, an add-on to whatever degree a student has. It’s not a degree that will necessarily help someone get a job. It could be for a professional who has clients who are deaf and would like to provide direct services to them, such as a vocational rehabilitation counselor or a nurse, or for people who would like to learn more about Deaf people and ASL such as parents of deaf children, neighbors, etc. These classes are held part-time in the evening. These include four ASL classes, a deaf culture class, fingerspelling and a course which covers the linguistics of ASL.

CSC: I understand that students who want to be accepted into the ITP have to go through an interview process and selection. Can you tell me how that works?

SS: We have prerequisite courses that students must take and there’s an interview process after their application file is completed. The application includes a transcript or program plan showing necessary prerequisite classes, a 100-word essay on why he or she wants to be an interpreter, and ACT scores. After their file is complete, they go through an initial screening and a set of interviews. In the interviews, we basically make selections for students who we feel have the competencies and attitudes necessary to be successful in our program.

CSC: What kind of attitude is important?

SS: Attitude is so hard to define…students need to be able to think critically and openly about people who are different from them—in cultures, ways of life, and perspectives. They must demonstrate good interpersonal communication skills because that is such a critical part of what we do as interpreters. The ability to synthesize information, be assertive (to some extent), and be able to work in front of and with people are also important.

CSC: How important is prior experience with the Deaf culture?

SS: It’s not something that we are necessarily looking for, but I think it would make someone more suited or prepared.

CSC: How many students are currently enrolled in the program?

SS: We have 42 students total.

CSC: Do you have a maximum number of people you admit to the program every fall?

SS: Yes, we take up to 30 students a year.

CSC: Is the program organized so that someone would first become fluent in sign language and then they would learn to interpret?

SS: Unfortunately, no. Historically, we were viewed as a trade, and to some point that perception still exists--that Interpreting is a vocation or an occupation versus a profession. We are still making strides toward training students in a way that prepares them to be professionals. In the medical field, you have different patients and different clientele every day, and how you work with those patients, depending on their symptoms, are different. The same goes for an interpreter. It’s not like training someone in a hard science, like computer technology for instance, where absolutely things will change, but pretty much you have these skill sets that you teach students, and if they have these skill sets, then they’re going to be able to do work in a number of settings. Whereas with interpreting students, it’s not as black and white as that. Interpreters can be faced with a number of demands at any given assignment. It depends on who you’re working with, the setting that you’re working in, and several other factors. You’re going to work very differently interpreting in an elementary classroom with one deaf student and fifteen hearing students than you’re going to work with a deaf student going back to college to get her Ph.D. in a classroom with five other Ph.D. students who are hearing.

CSC: What tips do you have for students who are considering entering the Interpreter Training field?

SS: Investigate the field. Learn what it is that an interpreter does. A lot of times people who are interested in this field really are interested in learning sign language. I think people don’t realize learning sign language is very different than learning how to interpret. The job of an interpreter is much more complex and complicated than most people understand. Most of the students that I work with, especially by the time they get to the second year, say, “We had no clue what we were getting into.” Just because they had the idea that they wanted to learn sign language—“it’s such a pretty language, it’s so cool…I know some deaf people; I want to work with deaf people…” They don’t really understand that interpretation is a complex process.

Talk with interpreters. Get on the web and do investigation about sign language interpretation, look at the website of our national organization, RID (at Registered Interpreters of the Deaf ). Also, meet deaf people if possible, if you don’t have connections with the Deaf community. Learn about deafness, and the different perspectives that deaf people have (Deaf people who come from the identity of being a cultural linguistic minority versus deaf people who come from a disability perspective). Know what the difference is, and how people feel about Deaf culture and the Deaf experience. Students need to recognize that the deaf community is a very diverse group of people. The issue of deaf people identifying as a cultural linguistic minority is a big part of our program. One of our foundational philosophies is that we respect and recognize that deaf people are a cultural linguistic minority in this society.

CSC: What are the characteristics of an excellent interpreter?

SS: Exceptional competence in both English and American Sign Language, excellent interpersonal skills, a very strong foundation in ethical decision-making. Being very self-aware is also important. Being culturally aware, knowing about different people and different cultures, and ways of doing things. Having a commitment to continuous learning and growth is also something that a person who is exceptional at interpretation has. Also, respect for deaf people is important, to see them as individuals who contribute to society and have a high quality of life, just as they are. We don’t see deaf people needing to be “saved” or “fixed.” They have their own cultural identity. We recognize that there is diversity within the deaf community, but there are many deaf people who do not see themselves as “disabled.”

CSC: What is a typical day like for an interpreter?

SS: It can vary, even by locations. There are interpreters who work in educational settings, K through 12, and their typical workday looks very different than someone who works for an interpreter referral agency that does freelance work. A day in the life of someone who works in the community might look like this: she/he would be up at 5:00 a.m. to be at a 6:00 a.m. meeting for construction workers, which might last an hour, then by 9:00 a.m. she/he has to be downtown for a doctor’s appointment to interpret for someone’s post-op appointment on how their surgery went and how their stitches are healing. Maybe by noon she/he is out in Olathe interpreting for a business meeting at one of the local corporations where all the employees are getting together to discuss this quarter’s earnings. That’s a freelance interpreter. But an educational interpreter in K-12 might start at 7:00 or 7:30 in the morning with first hour and follow a more consistent schedule.

CSC: Is interpreting a stressful job?

SS: It can be. Team interpreting is something that’s fairly common in our field. As a guideline, any job that requires two hours or more of consistent, on-going communication, would call for two interpreters. The research has shown that the accuracy of one’s interpreting work diminishes after about 20 minutes, because it involves consistent cognitive processing. There’s the physical fatigue, which is one part of it, but there’s also the cognitive fatigue of attending and listening, mental processing and interpretation. It can be very taxing, both mentally and physically.

CSC: How much money can an interpreter make?

SS: There is a range—the salaries are very different (depending on the type of work you do and where you live), with educational interpreting being toward the low end of the scale. A freelance interpreter could make anywhere from $20-55,000 per year. If you have the qualifications, a freelance interpreter can make a very good living. People who graduate from an interpreter training program have very “entry-level” skills. To expect to graduate from a program and start working immediately in the freelance arena is not necessarily realistic. Some people might be able to do that, depending on their background and skills, most students graduate with entry-level skills. Nationwide we are experiencing huge growing pains, looking at how we teach interpreting, more effective ways to teach, how to teach language fluency, and have language fluency prior to teaching interpretation skills, which makes sense for any language. I would never try to learn to interpret between English and Spanish at the same time I was learning Spanish! Because of the field of interpreting being so young, and because of the high demand for interpreters with the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act, there’s a huge demand. With the IDEA Law for K-12 mainstream schools, there is a real need also.

CSC: Are there many companies who hire full-time interpreters?

SS: It’s rare that companies have in-house positions. Sprint has a full-time interpreter. It’s usually companies that have a good number of deaf employees.

CSC: What determines your employability as an interpreter?

SS: The key is that if you have the qualifications, if you are able to do the work, fluent enough in Sign Language and English both, if you have the interpretation qualifications, and if your attitude is one that’s respectful (because I think that attitude, the way you approach the work, interpersonal skills, all very much effect your employability).

CSC: Are the skills needed to succeed as an interpreter different from just knowing sign language?

SS: Absolutely. It’s just like any spoken language, simply knowing Spanish and knowing English doesn’t necessarily mean I would be able to interpret in any setting between people who knew those languages. The same goes for ASL and English.

Having skills such as the ability to extract main points from what someone is saying [is important.] Especially when you get into simultaneous interpreting (versus consecutive interpreting), which is what happens in classes here at JCCC most of the time. Someone who is interpreting simultaneously has to be able to take in information auditorily or visually at the same time as they produce information into the other language, and do that process constantly. It’s really a misnomer. I need to be listening/attending to one chunk of information while I’m signing/speaking the chunk that was just said. You’re signing/speaking what you received two seconds ago and still receiving what’s currently being stated. That cognitive multi-tasking is a big part of interpreting. Back in the 1970’s, several professionals got together and did a task analysis of the job of interpreting and actually identified 30 tasks that we have to be doing fairly simultaneously. Things like audience assessment, learning, and cultural mediation are only three of these tasks. So there are a number of things that we need to be aware of as interpreters; as “signers,” or people who know sign language (at varied levels of fluency), don’t have to consider.

CSC: Are bachelor’s degrees in Interpreter Training offered anywhere?

SS: There are more and more programs that offer 4-year bachelor’s degrees in Interpretation. William Woods University in Fulton, Missouri is one and the National Technical Institute of the Deaf in Rochester, New York is another. Historically, most of the Interpreter Education programs are at Associate’s levels. Our national organization and certifying body just passed a motion from membership that by 2012, all candidates who sit for the National Certification Test must have a Bachelor’s degree, so that is going to impact the programs in a very big way.

CSC: Do you think salaries will increase as well?

SS: They need to, especially in the educational areas. I think that’s the biggest area that interpreters still are not recognized as professionals. Many interpreter positions that are in K-12 schools are seen as paraprofessional positions. There are more and more laws being passed in states requiring interpreters who work in educational settings to have certain credentials and knowledge related to working with kids: child development, language development, that sort of thing. It really is a different setting that requires specialized skills. As for salaries increasing in other arenas, yes, it will have to happen.

CSC: Is it a company’s responsibility to provide services for deaf employees and clients?

SS: Yes. The Americans with Disabilities Act dictates that those companies or entities that are providing the service to the public are required to be accessible to people with disabilities, and deaf people fall in a certain area related to communication access. The companies provide it unless there is an undue financial hardship. Doctors’ offices provide a public service, and so it’s their responsibility to be accessible. Just like they need to be accessible for a person who’s in a wheelchair who needs to get into their office, they need to be accessible for a deaf person to come in and receive services.

CSC: Do professionals have a group of people they can call when they need an interpreter?

SS: Most of the time they call an interpreter referral agency. There are a few in the Kansas City area. For example, a doctor’s office would call them. They function somewhat like a clearing house. The referral agency takes down the information of location, what time, and what kind of interpreting needs to be done, and what they know about the deaf client, their language use, etc. The agency then makes a placement with an interpreter.

CSC: What do you like about what you do?

SS: I love the interaction with students and being in the classroom. They teach me so much! I learn a lot from being a teacher. The kinds of conversations I have with students in my classes just keep me on my toes. I constantly learn about my own work as an interpreter. The kinds of questions they ask about the field and what we do keeps me questioning also. It keeps a spark alive inside of me. I also like seeing the “lights go on” in the students’ learning. When I see the struggles that they’ve had and I see them produce work, it’s really exciting. As for interpreting, I love the challenge —the cognitive, mental challenge. That really feeds me. There is always something new to focus on in my professional development. I’ve been doing international conferences lately. The diversity of working with such a variety of people and topics is invigorating.