Student-Run Group Helps Local Residents Who Lack English Fluency

For more than a quarter-century, Cornell’s Translator Interpreter Program has offered language services free of charge

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By Melissa Newcomb

It may be a Spanish speaker who needs help navigating a doctor’s appointment, a Korean-born couple attending a parent-teacher conference, or an immigrant from Ukraine aiming to access local food resources. Whatever the scenario, Cornell’s Translator Interpreter Program is ready to help.

Known as TIP, the student-led social justice organization trains and coordinates multilingual volunteers who provide translation and interpretation services throughout the local community, free of charge.

“I’m an immigrant myself, and trying to navigate something that’s not in the language you normally speak can be very vulnerable and isolating,” says Amy Kim ’28, a global and public health science major in CALS who’s both a co-president and a Korean-speaking volunteer for the group.

“What we do is beyond simply translating; it’s offering reassurance and comfort that they can advocate for what they need.”

When a request comes in, one of the group’s student coordinators quickly assigns a volunteer who speaks the needed language. Assignments vary widely—from aiding a police agency that needs an interpreter late at night to enabling visitors to fully enjoy the Botanic Gardens by translating tour information.

Trying to navigate something that’s not in the language you normally speak can be very vulnerable and isolating.

Co-president Amy Kim ’28

Launched in 2000, TIP is the first and largest faculty-approved, student-run program of its kind in the country.

It was originally part of the Cornell Public Service Center (which became the Einhorn Center for Community Engagement) and is now under the aegis of the Language Resource Center.

With about 60 volunteers in 2025–26, it currently offers services in a dozen languages including Thai, Vietnamese, Mandarin, Korean, Spanish, Russian, Portuguese, and French.

The volunteers work with local agencies and departments—not individuals or businesses—including refugee resettlement groups, medical providers, immigration asylum programs, school districts, farm worker assistance organizations, and law enforcement.

(As TIP points out on its website, it’s not approved to provided legal translation, a specialized service for official documents like contracts, licenses, and transcripts.)

The volunteers work with local agencies and departments including refugee resettlement groups, medical providers, immigration asylum programs, school districts, and law enforcement.

Each new volunteer undergoes training and an exam to ensure they’re equipped to be an interpreter—a term that generally refers to oral communication—or translator, the term applied to written materials.

“When we provide these services, we’re also building relationships with the community,” says ILR student Grace Ling ’26, another co-president. “The organizations we work with might not be able to afford translation services or would have a hard time finding certain languages, so our goal is to bridge that gap.”

When Fatema Gunja Sumar ’01 founded TIP as an undergrad, fostering closer ties between Cornell and the local community was one of her goals.

“It was a real mom-and-pop thing—we did everything manually. We’d get a call at 10 p.m. and I’d go to my list of students who were certified in that language and start calling to see who was available,” Sumar recalls of the program’s early days. “After I graduated, I didn’t know what was going to happen to TIP; I’m amazed that students have not only run with it, but systematized it.”

Sumar—who’s now executive director of the Harvard Center for International Development and an adjunct lecturer in public policy—returned to the Hill for a symposium marking TIP’s 25th anniversary in fall 2025.

When we provide these services, we’re also building relations with the community.

Co-president Grace Ling ’26

The group has garnered numerous honors over the years, including the City of Ithaca’s Town-Gown Award and a humanitarian award from the Tompkins County Human Rights Commission.

In 2023, TIP won Cornell’s Perkins Prize for Interracial and Intercultural Peace and Harmony, given annually to the student, faculty member, staffer, or program “making the most significant contribution to furthering the ideal of university community while respecting the values of racial diversity.”

For TIP members—many of whom are themselves immigrants, the children of immigrants, or new to the U.S. as international students—volunteering with the group can have strong personal meaning.

“My parents immigrated from Mexico, and I witnessed firsthand how they struggled, especially in the healthcare setting,” says co-president Angelica Ochoa ’27, an information science major in Arts & Sciences. “To be a part of an organization that helps people like them is inspiring.”

Top: Students at a TIP meeting in spring 2026 (Sreang Hok / Cornell University; all other images provided).

Published March 23, 2026

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