Hello!

My name is Sammie Sheppard.  I live in Texas.  I was born and raised a small town Texas girl, which I love.  Though I love to travel, Texas will always be home.  I love our very hot summers because I am always cold no matter what the weather. :)

 I remember as a very little girl being fascinated by the “lady in the bubble” on television, and in my junior year of high school met my first Deaf friend.  When I went to college, I not only took all the ASL classes I could take, but also had a Deaf roommate who is still one of my dearest friends.  I first began interpreting in lat 1984, so I am 30 years into this profession this year. I began teaching in the interpreting program at Tarrant County College in 1992, and have also taught high school ASL for several years.  I absolutely love what I do, both interpreting and teaching.  And I am very passionate about passing on that love for the Deaf community, the language, and interpreting to my students. I am now the Sign Language Interpreting Program Coordinator for Tarrant County College, though I do still actively interpret (mostly legal and VRS), as my schedule allows. I strongly believe that to be an effective interpreting instructor, you need to keep active in the profession of interpreting to stay current.

I am looking forward to this course and the topic of assessment.  Part of my responsibilities right now at the college is updating the assessment tools for our program, so I am interested to see what I can take from this course and apply to the assessments of our students and our program overall.

The loves of my life are my family -my husband of (almost) 28 years Fred, my children - Kaity, 22 (studying at Boston University this fall to work on her Masters in Deaf Ed), Hanah 20 (Anthropology major/marketing minor at Oklahoma Baptist University), and Ben 18 (freshman at Texas A&M history major/political science minor), and our two dogs Hershey, 12 1/2 year old chocolate lab and Amos, 1 year old labradoodle.  I enjoy being outside in the garden, anything on the water, and reading.