NAJIT CERTIFICATION ON THE WAY

Mirta Vidal

The following is an edited version of the report given to the NAJIT annual membership meeting in Miami, Florida, on May 20, 2000.

Some of you may think NAJIT's efforts to create a certification program for judiciary interpreters has been a long time coming. Actually, most of you were not even members when the idea began to be seriously considered. I remember sitting with Dagoberto Orrantia and Janis Palma, who was then chair, in a restaurant in San Juan nine years ago having a heated argument about whether or not we should have an exam, what kind of an exam, and how it could be done. And that was only the first of many heated arguments-as Cristina will remember because the importance of the issue makes people very passionate about the subject.

But we persevered because we knew this was needed and wanted by the interpreting community. And when we asked the membership for their opinion, we received a clear and unequivocal response. When, in response to the survey three years ago, we were given a mandate by the membership to create a certification program, we knew it was time to stop debating the issues and get down to work. And once we knew what we had to do, many of the questions we had agonized over began to resolve themselves. But big hurdles had yet to be overcome: first, we needed to create a tax-exempt arm of NAJIT to enable us to raise the needed funds free of tax. This we finally accomplished two years ago, with the creation of SSTI (Society for the Study of Translation and Interpretation) as an entity granted 501c3 status by the IRS. Sandra Morra deserves our thanks for her help with that. Then we had to chose a team of people willing and able to devote a great deal of time and energy to the project, with the necessary expertise to do the required research and evaluate the proposals that would result from a bidding process. So after the San Antonio conference two years ago, the NAJIT Board appointed Alex Rainof, Gladys Segal and myself to constitute the SSTI Board to spearhead this effort.

I can now report to you that after a year and a half of meetings, telephone conferences and e-mail exchanges, having thoroughly considered several proposals submitted in response to our RFP, we have accepted in principle a proposal from a corporation specializing in test development and scoring of educational performance assessments. We are now in the final stages of negotiating a contract mutually agreeable to the parties. Assuming the terms discussed and agreed to at our meeting with their vice-president remain the same, we expect to have the final contract in continued on page 3 a few more days. This means that the actual work of creating the exam will begin in the next few weeks.

The timetable for creation of the exam from start to finish calls for one full year. If all goes according to plan, we would be ready to administer the first exam soon after our annual meeting next year. Now that the actual work is about to begin, we will issue periodic reports of our progress on the website, by mail and in the pages of Proteus to keep you informed.

The NAJIT exam will be different from the federal and state court exams that already exist. Ours is conceived to encompass every aspect of the work performed daily by those involved in judicial interpretation. The exam will cover in and out-of-court work that may occur in criminal and civil cases, with a wide range of medical, commercial or technical terminology, involving subjects as varied as divorce, real estate transactions or bank fraud. Of course, not every imaginable subject that may come up in the course of our work can be covered in a single exam. But our aim is for the content to be sufficiently representative that a person who performs well can be deemed truly competent to work in this field in its myriad variations. Its purpose is to provide us with a valid credential of competency that can become the accepted standard for the profession nationwide and give validation to highly qualified individuals who have not had a way to measure their own performance until now. It will not provide a credential for employment in the state or federal courts, as do the tests currently being administered. Since its inception, the certification exam developed by the University of Arizona's National Center for Interpretation Testing, Research and Policy has set a high standard for the federal courts-indeed, it represents a benchmark for the profession, and we hope it will continue to do so for a long time to come. But NAJIT is striving for something different, broader in scope, embracing the entire interpreting community.

The first exam will necessarily have to be in Spanish. But creating exams in the other language combinations represented by our membership remains a very high priority for us. We know interpreters of languages other than Spanish are among those most anxiously awaiting an exam they can eventually take in their own language combination, and that's understandable, because you are the ones who most desperately need this exam. Because exam development is a very costly proposition, we expect that the revenues generated by the Spanish exam will be able to finance the creation of exams in the other languages. Of course, we will have to approach the question of which languages to test, and how often they are tested, in close consultation with the membership. What's important to keep in mind is that once the Spanish exam has been written, a model will exist on which to base all the others, so it will no longer be necessary to start from scratch. Exams in the other languages could then be developed faster, at reduced expense.

I don't need to tell you that an undertaking of this scope does not come cheap. Nor will this come as a surprise, since we have already been asking you for contributions to this effort and many of you have already responded generously. What we have raised so far is only a fraction of what will be needed to finance the development of the exam from start to finish: between $150,000 and $200,000. The board will naturally seek other means to raise such a large amount, including applying for grants from institutions that fund projects of this nature. But unless we have an incredible stroke of luck, we should assume that a very substantial portion of the money will have to be raised by the membership. By this I mean, among other things, that we will be asking you to contribute as much as you can possibly afford to the fund raising campaign. Just to illustrate what's possible, if everyone were to contribute equally, we could easily raise $200,000 by next year, when the bill is due, if each one of us were to invest approximately $200 in the project. That's less than one day of work for interpreters working in the federal courts, and probably not much more than one day's pay for most of us. I say invest because when we ask you for money, we are not asking for charity. Far from it. This exam is being created because you have been asking for it. It is the will and demand of our membership, and the SSTI and NAJIT boards are simply carrying out that mandate because we understand that is what you expect from us and why you have elected us. But we are simply the vehicle for making it happen. You are the ones who will ultimately benefit from it. If it's a good exam, as we intend it to be, it will set the standard for the entire profession not only in the U.S. but, in these times of globalization, even internationally. And to help in the funding of this effort is the best investment in your careers that you will ever make.

More important than your financial contributions, however, are your input and your help in organizing fund-raising activities wherever you may be. We need ideas from all of you about possible ways to collect funds, and everyone's participation in carrying out those ideas. This is our chance to be very creative. There are many different things we can do to generate funds, and if we all put our heads together, many more practical and realizable ideas will emerge than the SSTI board could ever devise on its own. We can hold parties, raffles, dances; organize speaking tours and traveling workshops. Gladys and Alex, for instance, have agreed to expand the workshop on tape transcription they gave here this weekend and take it on the road so that part of the income will go to SSTI. And incidentally, they are also donating the honoraria they received for the workshop here to SSTI. If any of you are inclined to do the same, please feel free to do so. Janis has agreed to go on the road with her ever-popular consecutive interpretation workshop and split the proceeds with SSTI.

Of course, there are other ways in which we'll need the active participation of our members and, as the work gets underway, many of you will be asked to participate in various phases of the process. These include: an initial survey to review the task description, the writing of test items, the item review, taking the pilot test, rating the exam, and finally, setting the standard. Naturally, these various groups will have to be chosen on the basis of a specific set of criteria, and a great deal of talent-much of which is right here in this room-will have to be tapped to accomplish our goal. All of this will be worked out at the appropriate time, and again, we will do our very best to keep you informed at every stage.

None of this, however, can materialize if we don't have the money to pay for it. And this is why the best way you can become a part of the certification project right now is to join the fund-raising campaign we are launching here today before you leave the conference this weekend. Of course, no project can generate funds if nobody knows about it. Therefore, an equally important aspect of the campaign will be the effort to publicize the exam to others, get them excited about taking it and enlisting their support.

We are proposing the creation of two new committees that we hope many of you will sign up for: a fund-raising committee that will include a sub-division to work on writing grant proposals, and a publicity committee to come up with various ways of advertising what we're doing and mobilize support. Gladys Segal will head up fund-raising for SSTI, so let her know what you would like to organize or do in your local area (segal.ssti@najit.org).

Regardless of how much time and energy you might have to get involved in these activities, however, there is one thing all of us can do, starting now: please think hard about how much you might be in a position to invest in the future of your career and of our profession. The sooner we have the funds, the sooner we'll be able to implement exam administration in Spanish and in the other languages that all of us are so anxious to have.

This is a historic step, one we have worked long and hard to take. The SSTI board is confident that the certification program we are about to put in place will help to create a new and higher standard for the interpreting community. NAJIT's credential will give interpreters an additional incentive to expand their knowledge and develop their skills, and ultimately will contribute to the further professionalization and recognition of our field. We should all feel proud of this accomplishment, which is a measure of our maturity. I can't emphasize enough how important the input of every one of you has been to this project.

I would like to thank NAJIT's board and especially Cristina Helmerichs, who have given us their confidence from the start. Much credit also goes to Arlene Stock, who not only threw herself wholeheartedly into doing the necessary groundwork, but always stood firm in the belief that we could do this, even when the more fainthearted of us wavered. She taught us that all you really need in order to get something done is the conviction that it has to be done, and the will to do it.

As I look back on that first lively debate in San Juan, and realize how close we are to making what was then a mere figment of our imagination a reality, nine years doesn't seem like such a long time. The really hard work, of course, is still ahead of us. But some of the major hurdles have now been overcome and we are on our way. I hope you will all join us in seeing it through.