Featured Alumni

Kristin Beniek

Saint Paul College Sign Language Interpreter Program

Saint Paul College graduate Kristin Beniek has found herself in the right place at the right time. As educational institutions around the country make more and more accommodations for students with disabilities, a big area of importance is making sure that hearing-impaired students have access to the same lectures, presentations, and other events as everyone else.

The University of Minnesota's Disability Services Department has 24 interpreters in its Sign Language Interpreter/Captioning Services center, one of whom is the 31-year-old Beniek. However, she didn't arrive at her job via the usual channels; instead, she took a more circuitous route, the last step of which was helped by Saint Paul College. "I got my bachelor's degree in visual arts from St. Cloud State University," Beniek explains. "I then went into the Peace Corps, and it was there that I became interested in sign language."

She spent three years at the Cape Coast School for the Deaf in the West African country of Ghana. She began as an art teacher, working with staff and students to create a studio in which they could do tie-dyeing and batik, an ancient waxresist dyeing technique used on textiles. "I felt lucky that they placed me in a school for the deaf," she says. "While I was in the Peace Corps, I learned the sign language of Ghana. That caused me to become really interested in what it would be like to do that back here."

Learning on the go

That ambition led her to Saint Paul College and its American Sign Language Studies Certificate program. The program provides students with in-depth knowledge of American Sign Language (ASL), along with deaf culture and deaf history. Beyond that, it also encourages students to become involved in the social and cultural activities of the deaf community. Bienek took advantage of the College's Sign Language Interpreter/Transliterator program, in which she earned her Associate in Applied Science degree. Following that, she got an internship at the U of M that evolved into her current job. "My internship was 10 weeks," Beniek says. "I only wish it could've been a little longer. For this kind of job, there's a lot of learning on the go."

Bienek concentrated solely on ASL-related classes while at Saint Paul College, taking courses such as Interpreting Process and Classifiers, the study of the representative, descriptive, and instrumental classifiers that are the basic building blocks of ASL. "I already had my B.A. so I didn't take any other classes at Saint Paul College that weren't part of the Interpreting program," she says. "When I took my classes, I knew I was going to be getting my Interpreting degree. The program did a good job of preparing me."

Just like services offered at Saint Paul College, Deaf or Hard-of-Hearing students at the University of Minnesota can request a sign language interpreter or captioner to be present in classes or lecture halls. Interpreters are also available for meetings and other university-related events. "We'll go to anything university-related that we get a request for," Beniek says. "That includes anything from classes to events, and sometimes faculty will make a request on behalf of the students. We'll interpret as they're teaching the class."

Kristin's future goals include further education in her field. "I recently got my second certification for interpreting," she says. "That's one thing I'd like to continue doing — work on my professional development." She also loves to travel, and has been to 11 different countries, including four in Africa.

Beniek says ASL evolves at a similar pace as spoken language, so there are always new phrases and usages to keep track of. "It's always different," she says. "There's always something developing, and you're always learning something new."

Dan Heilman is a St. Paul-based freelance writer.