ELLENSBURG — A dispute between Central Washington University and its transcribers for deaf and hard of hearing students has been resolved.

Transcribers attend class with deaf and hard of hearing students and key the instructors’ words into a computer so students know what is said.

Five of the transcribers had quit Feb. 12 over what they said were unreasonable working conditions that required them to work too long without a break. Two Labor and Industries claims had been turned in because of repetitive motion injuries.

CWU administrators said it was a matter of budget and they couldn’t afford to have transcribers teaming up, with two people transcribing for one 50-minute class.

The dispute was resolved after mediation.

“They started back Monday,” said Charlotte Tullos, vice president for student affairs and enrollment management, the office that oversees the Disability Support Services.

Tullos said team transcribing would continue and transcribers would report to her and Keith Champagne, associate vice president of student affairs. Previously they reported to Rob Harden, director of disability services.

Five transcribers, including Glenna Bain, the former coordinator for deaf and hard of hearing services for CWU, quit Feb. 12. The labor dispute left the seven deaf and hard of hearing students at CWU without the transcribers’ services from Feb. 12-25.

“We were not being listened to by the administration,” said Bain, who said she quit the coordinator job in December after more than seven months working under Harden’s supervision. She had worked as coordinator for five years.

After leaving the coordinator position, she came back to help out as a transcriber, a part-time position without benefits that pays between $20-40 an hour. She quit with the other transcribers Feb. 12.

During most of her tenure as coordinator, Bain said she set the schedules in a way that allowed two transcribers to attend class with a student, so that they wouldn’t have to type more than 40 minutes without a break.

She tried to keep the same transcribers in the same classes so they would have some sense of the subject. A 24-hour cancellation notice was honored, where transcribers would be paid if they received less than a 24-hour notice they weren’t needed.

That changed when Harden became director of disability support services. She said he was focused on the budget more than on transcribers’ well being.

“I observed him to be committed to keeping budgetary concerns at the forefront of his scheduling considerations,” Bain wrote in a statement.

When contacted for his side of the story, Harden referred the reporter to Champagne.

Champagne said the program had been over budget and changes were needed.

“We were looking at budget overruns,” said Champagne. He said the university had exceeded its budget two or three times. “If you are being held to standard of being a good steward of taxpayer money, any good administrator seeing overruns has to look at costs.”

He said the university attempted to see what schools in similar situations were doing. The school that provided information first was Whatcom Community College, he said.

Whatcom spent $26,989 for transcribing services while CWU paid $46,222 during spring quarter 2007. University administrators figured sending two people to a 50-minute class was one reason for the overruns.

Bain said the comparison was unfair.

“It’s not (comparing) apples to apples,” she said. Students don’t live on a community college campus and don’t need the services of a transcriber at night the way students who live on a university campus do. Whatcom had support personnel to help with the program who weren’t counted in their figures, she said.

Champagne said he thought it was a fair comparison. Both institutions used the same TypeWell system and had a similar number of deaf and hard of hearing students.

During the time the transcribers didn’t work, CWU used note takers and sign language interpreters to translate instructors’ lectures, said Tullos.

CWU is also trying out a CART system, which uses software and a microphone to translate instructor’s words that then appear on a student’s laptop computer. The CART system wouldn’t require transcribers, she said. But Tullos said CART is not a perfect solution. It hasn’t been able to translate completely and doesn’t pick up anybody’s words other than the instructor’s, whereas transcribers can.

Tullos said she has a better understanding of what transcribers do, which is more than attend class and transcribe. They also prepare notes for the student and occasionally accompany a student to an evening event to transcribe.

“I learned a lot,” she said. “It’s a specialized skill.”

Bain took another job and didn’t return to CWU. She said transcribers were unfairly criticized when they quit, because they gave only 24 hours notice.

“It was portrayed in the media as though the transcribers just walked out,” she said. She said the transcribers tried to resolve the conflict but felt the CWU administration was uncooperative until they quit. “We didn’t want to do this,” she said.