Professor anticipating greater interest, enrollment in court reporting through Take Note campaign

With the National Court Reporters Association (NCRA) launching its new Take Note campaign to promote court reporting education, professors such as Melissa Blake are hoping to see more interest and enrollment in court reporting programs in colleges nationwide.

“It is definitely the hope of Alfred State and the National Court Reporters Association that the new Take Note campaign will result in increased interest in court reporting careers and, in turn, increased enrollment in our programs, not just at Alfred State, but at all court reporting schools around the country,” said Blake, Alfred State’s court reporting and captioning program curriculum coordinator. “I think that just about all schools have seen decreased enrollment in court reporting programs in the last five to seven years; the hope is to get more students into these programs so that we’ll have enough court reporters to meet the demand in the coming years.”

The campaign’s website, http://www.crtakenote.com, contains links with information on court reporting careers, finding a school, and requesting information. The NCRA filters requests and forwards them to colleges that are appropriate to what the person is asking for, whether it’s schools in a geographic area, online or on-campus programs, judicial or captioning programs, etc.

In the last couple of weeks alone, 39 requests for information have been forwarded to Blake. Each request receives an email response with general information about Alfred State and an attached brochure with specific information on the college’s court reporting and captioning certificate program and its court and realtime associate degree program.

“We have no way of knowing if any of those requests will result in students applying to our programs, but we are very hopeful that they will,” Blake said. “I will send information to all of those who request it in hopes that we can get some court reporters or captioners trained to fill the need now and in the future when today’s reporters retire.”

Those interested in learning more about court reporting and captioning careers can email Blake at blakemj@alfredstate.edu or visit the CRTakeNote website for more information.