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Press Release: CIT News: January 2008
The National Consortium Renews Its Dedication to Diversity
By the National Consortium Linguistic and Cultural Diversity workteam
As the National Consortium of Interpreter Education Centers (NCIEC) enters its third year, it continues to aggressively address the shortage of qualified interpreters through investigation of effective practices in interpreter recruitment, education, and mentorship. Fundamental to these efforts is our commitment to include diverse perspectives and make our work fully accessible; we have begun this by looking inward at our internal communication and approach to work. The consortium represents the diverse communities that we work with, both geographically and culturally. While our geographic distribution allows us to consider the needs of interpreters and interpreter students from all parts of the country and US territories, the need to communicate at a distance challenges us to make our communications within the consortium clear, timely, and above all accessible to our members. Although email and phone conferences are standard practice for organizations with members working at a distance, heavy reliance on English print and auditory communication limits the freedom of communicating in a native language for our members who are Deaf.

To ensure that the NCIEC proactively addresses these and other related issues, we have incorporated multiple opportunities for reflection and accountability in our work. First, the NCIEC Linguistic and Cultural Diversity team drafted a list of questions for cross-center workteams to regularly consider when approaching their work:

• Diversity of team/ group
• Has the work-team discussed the diversity of members?
• Has the work-team included perspectives from diverse representatives of the population served?
• Is the work-team information, meetings, work, etc. accessible to its members?
• What is the best way to hold meetings for the team?
• Phone conference?
• Live interpreters vs. VRS
• Video conferencing?
• Face-to-face meetings
• Combination, etc.
• How do you ensure that the meetings are accessible?
• Have you ensured that all written documents are accessible/ understood by all?
• For face-to-face meetings, is information in English accessible/ interpreted in ASL? (Ex. using LCD projector)
• For phone conference, is using web meeting accessible?
• Recruitment of diverse members/ advisors/ consultants:
• How has the work-team planned to include diverse perspectives?
• Plans for translations: large print, ASL, Spanish, Braille
• Have you considered any specific communication modes that would make this more accessible to the above groups?
• Is it appropriate to provide information in Braille, large print, ASL and/or Spanish?
• Soliciting comment/ feedback from diverse communities.
• Have you considered any specific communication modes that would make this more accessible to the above groups?
• How will you inform these groups about the material/program/project?

Second, the NCIEC has rewritten our values and mission statement, viewable at www.asl.neu.edu/nciec/mission.html to reflect our commitment to accessibility and the diverse perspectives in our work.

Third, this spring the NCIEC will convene a first meeting of representatives from diverse communities and organizations to discuss NCIEC products and services and how to include diverse perspectives and improve accessibility of all products and services.  

Regardless of the challenges ahead, the consortium remains committed to striving toward our goals and to sharing NCIEC products and services with the our stakeholders in a manner truly respectful and accessible. For more information about the NCIEC and their goals, please visit the website at www.asl.neu.edu/nciec/. 

The National Consortium of Interpreter Education Centers is funded from 2005 – 2010 by the U.S. Department of Education RSA CFDA #84.160A and B, Training of Interpreters for Individuals Who Are Deaf and Individuals Who Are Deaf-Blind.

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