Safe Haven - Regis College

Found in Translationimmigrants use skills and gain livelihood6REGIS TODAYFatimazahia Bezzat, 42, is fluentin Arabic, French, and English.A Moroccan who lives in Medford,Bezzat is divorced and a singlemother of two young children.She is now one of 21 studentsin a program sponsored by anew nonprofit called Found inTranslation, which is offeringhomeless and low-income womenthe opportunity to earn the professionalcertificate needed to becomemedical interpreters in a hospitalor clinic.Found in Translation is thebrainchild of Medford residentMaria Vertkin MSW, ’12, a25-year-old Russian immigrantwho’s dedicated to helpinghomeless women break thecycle of poverty.Armed with a $40,000 socialjusticefellowship from the foundationof the late Kip Tiernan, thefounder of Rosie’s Place, Vertkinhas developed a free medicalinterpreter certificate programfor women who couldn’t otherwiseafford it.“There’s a lot of untapped talentout there and there’s no reasonlow-income women have to workfor minimum wage when theycan make a good salary with goodbenefits,” Vertkin said. “We lookedfor people who had ambition,motivation, and who knew theirstrengths and weaknesses.”The 21 students, ranging inage from 21 to 57 years old, werechosen from 164 applicants tothe program. Besides personalinterviews, those chosen had topass rigorous testing to determineproficiency in speaking, writing,and translating between theirnative languages and English.Medical interpreters—onsitetranslators who work withpatients and caregivers—arein high demand. The latestBureau of Labor Statisticsestimates find that interpreterand translator jobs will increaseby 42.2 percent from now until2020. The median annual wagein the field is $43,300.The 12-week certification coursenormally costs around $1,000, butFound in Translation offers thetraining and materials for freeand even offers on-site child carefor students.photo: Patrick WhittemoreDean Takes the HelmMalcolm O. Asadoorian, PhD has been named Academic Dean of the School of Liberal Arts,Education and Social Sciences, effective July 1, 2012.Asadoorian comes from Lynn University in Boca Raton, Florida, where he served as a professor ofeconomics in the College of Liberal Education and the College of Business and Management, as wellas associate dean for assessment and faculty development. He also led the College of Business andManagement’s entire re-accreditation process and the Carnegie Project on the Education Doctorate(CPED), serving as an Advisory Board member contributing to the design and implementation ofLynn’s EdD program.Asadoorian earned his PhD in economics from Clark University in Worcester with a dissertationthat integrated GIS spatial data with economic modeling techniques to study environmental awareness,inequities, and justice. He completed his master’s in economics at Clark after having graduatedsumma cum laude from Assumption College with a dual major in economics and computer science.Prior to his appointment at Lynn, Asadoorian served as a postdoctoral research associate professor in the MIT JointProgram on the Science and Policy of Global Change, visiting associate professor and interim dean of Boston ContinuingEducation at Fisher College, and associate professor at Anna Maria College.