Robyn Hennigan, Clark State Community College assistant professor and program coordinator for the Realtime Court Reporting program, has been awarded the Council on Approved Student Education (CASE) Award of Excellence.
The CASE award is conferred upon an outstanding educator who exemplifies dedication to students and extraordinary contributions to reporter education.
“Receiving the CASE Award of Excellence sincerely touches my heart and brings me great joy because it means that my work has positively enriched the lives of others, helping them to succeed; and for that, I am eternally grateful,” said Hennigan. “Professionally, I feel this award certainly reaches the pinnacle; and I hope to remain at this peak for quite some time, always striving for excellence to help others achieve greatness.”
Hennigan has worked in the field of court reporting since 1989 as a freelance reporter, both for a firm and freelance business; official court reporter in the Clark County Juvenile Court; providing captioning services; and owns and operates a scoping and proofreading business.
She has been with Clark State since June of 2002 as a full-time faculty member. “I taught at Clark State as an adjunct prior to that and also served Clark State in a consulting role prior to my full-time position.”
Hennigan’s continued goals for the Judicial Court Reporting program include: recruitment, continuous improvement through assessment of student learning and solidifying additional professional relationships to aid in student job shadowing and internship opportunities.
“The skill required for court reporting and captioning entails learning to write a realtime theory on a stenographic writing machine at a minimum speed of 225 words per minute at a minimum of 95 percent accuracy to provide instantaneous translation of the spoken word,” Hennigan said. “Jobs are abundant throughout the country for graduates who have acquired the requisite skills.”
The Judicial Court Reporting program is offered online and at Clark State's campus in Springfield. The online program is a “shared program” between Clark State and Stark State College, offering a unique opportunity for providing excellence in teaching and learning.
Judicial court reporting provides opportunities in multiple realtime career paths. Judicial court reporters provide a verbatim record of the proceedings of a courtroom, deposition, hearing, arbitration or meeting and produces an accurate transcript of the proceedings, using state-of-the-art technology
Students work toward obtaining the National Court Reporters Association's (NCRA) Registered Professional Reporter (RPR) certification upon graduation with encouragement of obtaining NCRA's Certified Realtime Reporter certification after obtaining their RPR.
“Robyn is truly a dedicated educator and being recognized at a national level is very fitting,” said Aimee Belanger-Haas, dean of business and applied technologies at Clark State.