Awareness needed to increase enrollment in court reporting schools
While attending the Society for Technological Advancement of Court Reporters’ convention in New Orleans, I attended a seminar given by John Wenclawski of Stenograph Corporation. John informed us that there are presently 7,100 to 7,300 students enrolled in court reporting schools. Stenograph’s Prince Institute of Professional Studies currently has 250 students enrolled in their schools, which are located in Alabama, Denver, and Illinois. Sixty percent are online court reporting students.
According to John, the online students are very committed to their profession. Twenty percent of Prince's court reporting students graduate, compared to 10 percent at other schools in the country. This may seem like a low number, but many of us working reporters can attest to the fact that the graduation numbers were the same when we went to school.
PROBLEM: In the next 10 to 20 years, many working court reporters will be retiring. If we don’t get more reporting students to graduate, our profession is going to die out. Out of necessity, we will be replaced by digital recording systems.
SOLUTION: AWARENESS OF OUR PROFESSION. Many people have never heard of court reporters, do not know what we do, or do not believe it is a viable profession. We need to educate them. In order to get more students graduating, we need more enrollees.
FACT: Statistics show that 58 percent of court reporting students are referred by a working court reporter, whereas only 3 percent come from online advertising. Your role in talking up your profession to high school students and the general public is crucial to the longevity of this great profession, so that we can continue to be guardians of the record.
Jane M. Jones – Certified Realtime Reporter
October 16th, 2012 at 11:39 am
Great article, Jane. It’s very interesting that some of those statistics haven’t changed since we were in school, even with the addition of all the technology. Sounds like exposure is the name of the game.
October 22nd, 2012 at 11:24 am
As I read your article I thought about how many technical colleges that had a very active curriculum for court reporting has dwindled down to just two in Wisconsin, and they reach students throughout Wisconsin via on-line classes. I am sure this is due in part, as you cite, to the low visibility of our profession. Contacting high school guidance counselors and providing career day presentations is, perhaps, the best approach to promoting our profession and giving students another option to plan for their future careers.