Laker Nation News

Lake Land College will host a court reporting First Steps class on July 19 from 6-9 p.m. in Webb Hall, room 081. The class is a free three-hour introductory course and is open to anyone interested in learning about the court reporting profession.

Attendees will learn about the career opportunities available to court reporters, as well as have the opportunity to gain experience on the industry-standard steno machine.

The class will also allow attendees to ask questions and explore the possibility of pursuing a career in court reporting.

“One-third of our court reporters are already eligible for retirement, which means we will likely have to replace more than 400 employees in the next 10-15 years,” Tammy Bumgarner, the director of court reporting services in Springfield, said.

Those interested in attending the First Steps class are asked to register at ilcrs.com/firststeps/register.

This class will also help to prepare students for the new Court Reporting and Captioning Degree special admission program at Lake Land College. The introduction of the program follows the increased high demand for court reporting and closed-captioning professionals throughout the nation.

The program will train students for careers in the judicial setting as either official or freelance court reporters, or as captioners. Captioning prepares students for careers providing captioning for broadcast television and internet programs and working with the deaf or hard-of-hearing population by providing an accurate word-for-word text translation in education, civic and corporate settings.

Requirements for application to the program include admission to Lake Land College and completion of an interest survey, English and grammar exam and a timed typing exam. Those interested must complete a Laker Profile at lakelandcollege.edu/enroll/ and submit an intent to enroll at Lake Land College indicating the Academic Program (major) as AAS.CRT.TRK. Special admission testing for the spring 2023 semester will be from October 1-15, 2022.

The program is designed to train students on a specialized 24-key shorthand keyboard used by court reporters and captioners called a steno machine. Rather than typing out each word, letter for letter, as on a traditional keyboard, stenographers keep up with the pace of regular speech and spell out syllables phonetically on a steno machine. This form of specialized shorthand allows court reporters and captioners to capture speech with near complete accuracy.

Students will purchase a rent-to-own steno machine.

Upon graduation, students will be prepared to sit for the Illinois Certified Shorthand Reporter (CSR) or the National Court Reporters Association (NCRA) Registered Skilled Reporter (RSR) and Registered Professional Reporter (RPR) certification exams.

For more information about the special admission Court Reporting and Captioning Degree program, contact Lisa Earp, business instructor/director of court reporting/program coordinator office professionals, at learp@lakelandcollege.edu.

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