The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley is planning to expand its program that trains trilingual interpreters. The university says the expansion would help deaf people communicate better with the wider Valley community. The program is part of the College of Liberal Arts. It offers a master's of arts in Spanish translation and interpreting, five graduate certificates and one undergraduate certificate, a minor, and a bachelor of arts in Spanish translation.
The program started in 2020, when American Sign Language interpreters were a common sight at public information meetings during the COVID-19 pandemic. Eric Cardenas, a lecturer in the program, said the Valley's need for certified ASL interpreters has grown since then. He spoke through Convo 5650, a deaf-owned company that provides video translation.
The university wants interpreters to be present in public settings as they were during the pandemic, and it wants that to be the norm, including at local news events. "There's a whole community of people, deaf people, who don't get to know all of this stuff, and that's what we're trying to change," Cardenas said.