Dates: July 31, 2026 & August 1, 2026
Location: UNC Greensboro
Sullivan Science Building
301 McIver St
Greensboro, NC 27412
Registration for this event is now closed.
Parking for event attendees is free.
Attendees must park in the McIver Street Parking Deck for free parking access.
Parking Deck Address:
McIver Street Parking Deck, 110 McIver St, Greensboro, NC 27412
NOTE: There will be heavy Fall move-in traffic on both Friday, July 31 and Saturday, August 1, 2026 in the deck. We do not anticipate capacity constraints, however, you may experience delays with navigating traffic inside the deck.
Agenda:
Friday, July 31, 2026
| Time | Event/Presentation | Location |
| Beginning at 9:30 am | NCITLB Board Meeting | Sullivan Science Building – Room 201 |
| Beginning at 2:30 pm | NCITLB Annual Board Forum | Sullivan Science Building – Room 201 |
| 4:30 – 6:30 pm | Educational Session 1: “NCITLB: NC Licensure Law Updates, Outlooks, and Discussion” – Presenters: Mark Lineberger & Caitlin Schwab (0.20 PS pending approval) | Sullivan Science Building – Room 201 |
Saturday, August 1, 2026
| Time | Event/Presentation | Location |
| 8:00 am | Registration Opens | Sullivan Science Building – Outside Room 101 |
| 8:30 – 11:30 am | Educational Session 2: “ASL Literature as a Foundation for Fluency” Presenter – Frank Griffin (0.30 PS pending approval) | Sullivan Science Building – Room 101 |
| 11:30 am – 1:00 pm | Lunch on your own | N/A |
| 1:00 – 4:00 pm | Educational Session 3: “Between Human and Machine: AI’s Role in the Interpreting Profession” Presenter – Frank Griffin (0.30 PS pending approval) | Sullivan Science Building – Room 101 |
| 4:00 pm | Adjourn | N/A |
NCITLB has applied for 0.80 PS CEUs.
Exact number available is subject to approval.
Educational Session Descriptions
Educational Session 1: “All things NCITLB: Statute, Rules, and Everything in Between” – Presenters: Mark Lineberger & Caitlin Schwab
This session will go over all rules and statutes that a currently in place with the Board. The licensure process, complaint process, and renewal process will all be discussed during the session. There will be time at the end of the session for Q&A to clarify anything that was discussed during the session.
Educational Session 2: “ASL Literature as a Foundation for Fluency”
Presenter – Frank Griffin
ASL and Deaf literature represent the fullest expression of a visual-spatial language, yet most interpreters complete their training without systematic exposure to it, and most Deaf children move through educational settings without instruction in it at all. This session addresses both realities, arguing that literary competence is not an academic add-on but a professional and linguistic foundation with consequences that extend across every interpreting context.
The published body of ASL literature is small but substantive. Benjamin Bahan and Ben Jarashow’s A to Z: ABC Stories, the selected poetry of Clayton Valli, and the Journal of ASL and Literature represent the field’s primary institutional anchors. Beyond these, the tradition is largely decentralized, dispersed across social media platforms, community performance spaces, and individual Deaf content creators whose work is rarely archived or made systematically accessible. This reflects the nature of a language that has always lived in bodies and community rather than on pages, but it creates a real navigational challenge for interpreters and educators who want to engage seriously with the tradition.
This three-hour session surveys ASL and Deaf literary genres, including poetry, narrative, oral tradition, ABC stories, visual vernacular, and contemporary digital forms, treating them not as artistic curiosities but as advanced models of the features that define high-level ASL production: spatial cohesion, prosodic control, role shift integrity, classifier precision, narrative structure, and cultural grounding. Participants engage in guided viewing, structured analysis, and brief production activities using works by Clayton Valli, Ben Jarashow, Byron Bridges, Bernard Bragg, and Mari Klassen, developing observational tools and beginning to apply what they notice directly in their own signing.
The session also addresses a dimension of this work that professional development conversations rarely reach: the relationship between literary access and language development in Deaf children. Children who grow up without exposure to and instruction in signed literature miss not only a cultural inheritance but a critical mechanism for language acquisition, identity formation, and linguistic confidence. Interpreters working in educational settings are often positioned to bridge this gap, not by replacing Deaf educators and cultural mentors, but by understanding what the literature is, why it matters, and how to advocate for its presence in the spaces where they work.
Participants leave with a curated resource map for navigating the decentralized landscape of ASL literary content, a set of observational tools for ongoing literary study, and a framework for connecting their own fluency development to a broader commitment to language access for Deaf children and the Deaf community.
Educational Session 3: “Between Human and Machine: AI’s Role in the Interpreting Profession”
Presenter – Frank Griffin
Artificial intelligence has moved rapidly from novelty to a practical presence in interpreters’ daily preparation. Not every tool deserves a place in that workflow, and not every task belongs to a machine. This three-hour workshop offers community and educational interpreters a grounded, accessible examination of where AI genuinely supports interpreting work and where it does not.
The workshop opens with a brief history of AI, tracing its evolution from early rule-based translation to the sophisticated tools available today, and considering why that trajectory matters for informed, discerning use. From there, participants will explore the tools interpreters can use to strengthen preparation across settings, including building terminology glossaries, researching unfamiliar topics and speakers, drafting practice material, and preparing for assignments that range from an IEP meeting to a community health fair. One segment introduces the vocabulary of modern AI systems, such as agents, subagents, MCPs, and MD files, offered with a measure of humor and the assurance that these terms are far less intimidating than they sound.
Equally important, the workshop names the gaps and the necessary guardrails. AI generates errors, holds no understanding of confidentiality, and cannot replace a qualified human in the room. Participants will examine FERPA and HIPAA obligations, client privacy, bias, over-reliance, and the distinction between a tool that supports professional judgment and one that quietly erodes it. Participants will leave prepared to apply AI to the routine elements of preparation while keeping the human elements firmly human.
No technical background is required. Curiosity and healthy skepticism are strongly encouraged.
To request reasonable accommodations:
ASL Interpreters will be provided during all sessions.
CART will be provided during the Forum and Board Meeting.
If additional access to communication is needed please contact Caitlin at the Board office (NCITLB@caphill.com) by July 15, 2026.