STENOGRAPH® ANNOUNCES PRINCE INSTITUTE ENDING NEW STUDENT ENROLLMENTS

[Bill Parsons]

ELMHURST, IL May 28, 2014 – Stenograph, the world’s leading manufacturer and marketer of shorthand machines and computer-aided transcription software, announced it will no longer be enrolling new students at Prince Institute. The schools with locations in Schaumburg, IL, and Montgomery, AL will remain open to accommodate current students and provide them with every opportunity to complete their education.

 

“We are extremely disappointed in having to make this decision as we wanted to continue to introduce new students to the challenging and rewarding career of court reporting,” states Stenograph President, John Wenclawski. “We will continue to work in close partnership with our existing students to ensure they have all the resources necessary to complete their courses in order to advance towards their future career as court reporters. Our goal is to graduate as many of our students as possible over the next few years.”

The company wishes to thank everyone associated with Prince Institute, and within the profession, for their many years of dedication and contributions to educating future court reporters. Prince Institute is clearly in a class by itself, with the many graduates serving as good examples of the success of the program. 

Stenograph is dedicated to supporting the court reporting community and its programs. The company is the number one manufacturer and marketer of shorthand writers and computer-aided transcription software, offers online continuing education and provides other industry-related supplies. For more information please contact Stenograph at 1.800.323.4247 or visit them online atwww.stenograph.com.

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[Marge Teilhaber (TILE hobber)]

This can't be good.

[Glen Warner]

I've heard a few comments from Prince students that weren't too positive about how things worked at Prince ....

[Janiece Young]

following

[Karen Perlman]

following

[Janiece Young]

T. S., where are you getting these quotes from?

[T. S. HUBBARD JR]

Karen, this is what I propose Stenograph should say. This is my take on their future as well as ours.

[T. S. HUBBARD JR]

The following is this writer's own comments couched in the belief that if Stenograph were to comment, that this is what it might say.

"The fact that Stenograph is minimizing its losses by shutting down brick and mortar schools tells us all that machine shorthand is a dying art. They make the machines. It was in their best interests to carry on but finally management has somebody who is able to read the tea leaves.

Or the shareholders told management, "Why are we continuing to throw good money after bad, salaries for teachers, benefits, rent per square foot is expensive, time to go full time online and only online."

If Stenograph wants to remain a major player in the verbatim business, they should tell everybody, "Look, times are changing. We will continue to make shorthand machines only on a limited basis and we will continue to fix existing machines either in-house or by qualified service providers. But today we also recognize that voice recognition for voice writers is a ship that we as an international business concern cannot afford not to get on board.

"We therefore will develop the very best voice-to-text technology for voice writers and we will start teaching at our online Prince schools voice writing on our voice writing software. If the NCRA does not like it, they can stuff it up their backside. We are in a global marketplace. We see voice recognition enabling bilingual and multilingual voice writers reporting and transcribing in more than one language.

"Voice writers will some day soon be able to provide real time in both English and Spanish. Court interpreters will be able to read online Spanish and be able to interpret with higher quality as they are able to see the real time output. 85% of all students historically pass the course within six months or less. The military trains its voice writers in six weeks! Why is that?

Stenograph Corporation LLC recognizes that fighting the inevitable of believing that steno will always be around is a folly that our shareholders have seen for sometime now, and we did not pay attention to - until now - so we are biting the bullet and moving on to address the future and stop lingering on a past history that has zero relevance in the 21st century.


The following paragraph is a fact. You can verify this by calling the Administrative Office of the US Courts in Washington, DC or if you have a friend who is a director of USCRA, on its board they should know and if they are not aware then one more reason why we are that much closer to denying our future as stenos or even voice writers.

"We are also aware that the Administrative Office of the Courts in Washington DC for the US District Courts is today and for sometime now been experimenting with multiple independent speech recognition - yes - that means with zero court reporter - producing real time rough draft transcripts synch'd to digital audio just like they do in depositions, sync'd transcript to the video!

"If they are doing this ongoing experimentation now, they are serious, they want the technology, then we at Stenograph have little time to waste. We can no longer hold hands with the NCRA that continues to have a very narrow viewpoint.

"It is totally self-serving. They only see the Big Picture as it applies to steno reporting and steno captioning. It's a Big Picture whose footprint is shrinking every day. We refuse to continue to be a part of this Charles Dickens mentality any longer.

"We are a business and our shareholders are telling us to take the path of success and stop dreaming of past glories."

"It is to the NCRA's credit by and through its board of directors over the past 20 years, it thinks that steno is the only true realistic methodology when in fact everywhere else in the world all the courts and deposition businesses where they take depos and verbatim statements, they went digital or to voice writing long long ago.

"The USA is the last bastion of stenos, like the early settlers defending a fort against thousands of Indians ready to hack us with tomahawks, and within five years, or less, 70% of stenos in both courts and in private practice serving the deposition market, will be retiring and there will be nobody replacing them. If you have not noticed, steno schools are still closing and the numbers of online graduates is still not where the industry as a whole want those numbers to be!

"Voice writing is therefore the logical path to take and Stenograph Corporation will take the lead. Hopefully we did not get into the game too late, otherwise just watch our stock plummet to penny stocks by year 2020 and eventually be delisted off the stock exchange."

[Christina]

Apparently, they aren't the only ones.  Bryan College is closing their brick-and-mortar school for reporting as well.  They do still have their online program, though.  Since Mrs. P sold it, it really wasn't the same school at all.  I wouldn't have recommended it to anyone.  Sad, though.

[Bill Parsons]

Here's a link with TV news story about Bryan College stopping enrolling new students.

http://www.kcra.com/news/local-news/news-sierra/students-fear-onlin...!TSjVF

Bill

[Christina]

Thanks for sharing that, Bill.  It's sad that those students are going to be left with huge loans and no school to go to.  That was why I wouldn't have recommended it because they were charging an enormous amount for one quarter.  The average student would not be able to finish on government loans alone.  They would max out before they were done, but Bryan was pushing private loans on students at that point, I know.  It was just too much investment for a program that has such a high dropout rate.  

I really feel for those students.  I was at Bryan's original school in Los Angeles and had just reached the fast class when the new ownership upped the tuition to over $3,000 a quarter.  I was devastated because I couldn't afford it anymore.  Not exactly the situation you want to be in after getting that far.  I ended up driving 70 miles one way to Downey Adult School to complete the program and get certified.  It sounds like there are no other options for these students other than online.