Mary Jo Porter is pleased to announce she graduated in August 2005 from
SUNY Empire State College with an AS and BS degree in Deaf
Studies/Educational Interpreting.
Along with these new degrees, her
responsibilities, for
the Technical Assistance Center (TAC), has increased. She has assumed
the
coordinating duties for the Western Regional Site, from her esteemed
colleague, Sam Infantino. Sam has returned to educational interpreting
full-time.
Mary Jo's experience with Deaf Education began
about 30 years ago when she worked with deaf students at the South
Carolina School for the Deaf and Blind, as a teacher's aide in the
first through third grades. Along with being an aide in the
classroom, part of her job consisted of working on speech training with
deaf children as part of a grant that used tactile feedback during
speech training. Mary Jo didn't use
tactile feedback. Instead, she endorsed children's vocalization with
positive
reinforcement in the form of lots of M & M's!
After moving to
Rochester from South Carolina in 1980, Mary Jo enrolled in the 1981
National Technical Institute for the Deaf (NTID) 10 week summer Basic
Interpreter Training
Program. Ironically, that program happened to have her distinguished
colleague
Sam Infantino enrolled! Little did they know that 20 years later
they
would work together on the interpreter training grant!
After training at
NTID, she entered the educational interpreting field and worked in a
variety of settings; wearing a hard hat on construction sites, Advanced
Placement Calculus, and sitting on the floor during story-time in
Kindergarten.
Having interpreted in almost every grade from K-12, Mary Jo brings rich
experiences to the TAC project.
In January 2000, Mary
Jo assumed the role of Assistant Coordinator for the Western Regional
site. In
2003, she became the Interim Coordinator for the Central/North/Hudson
Valley
Regional site, co-coordinator for the Western Site in 2004, and in
2005,
coordinator. Her job responsibilities range from balancing the budget
(which
in this time of fiscal constraint requires training in Tai Chi) to
balancing
videotapes. She welcomes her job as a support for the Western Regional
Site
educational interpreters. She is experiencing everyday the honor of
getting
to know and learn from all the talented people we have in New York
State!
Just keep her in M & M's and she will vocalize
Handel's
Messiah!
Send all M&M's to:
Mary Jo Porter
Monroe #1 BOCES
Deaf/ASL Education Department
40 O'Connor Road; Bldg #9
Fairport, NY 14450
(585) 249-7017
maryjo_porter@boces.monroe.edu
Page last updated on 11/06/07