Conflct at the CCCCs

I attended the National Council of Teachers of English CCCC’s conference this past March. Held in San Francisco, the event spanned three days and included, literally, hundreds of sessions, workshops and panel discussions. Before going, I made use of NCTE’s wonderful new online searchable conference program database. I spent about 40 minutes looking for events which addressed the employment of part-time faculty, or provided professional development opportunities tailored to the needs of part-time faculty. The online searchable database is a tremendously helpful tool is zeroing in on conference offerings, and I hope other professional associations follow NCTE’s lead.

After 40 minutes of searching, I came up with four sessions and one SIG (Special Interest Group). To my great amazement, the four sessions had been scheduled so as to conflict with each other. Two sessions had been scheduled for the same time on Thursday, and two sessions had been scheduled for the same time on Friday. The SIG, on the other hand, had been scheduled for Thursday evening. This was a welcome change from past CCCC’s conferences, where the Part-time Faculty SIGs have been scheduled for late on Friday.

I phoned the staff member at NCTE responsible for management of the group’s annual CCCC’s meeting. In response to my observation that the sessions about part-time faculty had been scheduled so as to conflict, she suggested I send along an e-mail and promised to forward it to the 2005 CCCC’s Program Chair, Jay Wooten. I e-mailed the NCTE staff member, and copied the message to NCTE’s Executive Director Kent Williamson.

Then, I went back to the searchable database and looked up the sessions related to the teaching of creative writing. There were 12 sessions scheduled, only two of which conflicted. Jay Wooten responded to my e-mail the next day and wrote that, “I could identify only four adjunct sessions as I went through the proposals, but it’s more than likely that I missed some. I tried to be careful about not scheduling them at the same times….If I couldn’t identify the sessions as involving part-time faculty issues, I couldn’t avoid scheduling them at the same times.

This explanation was odd as three of the four sessions she identified had been scheduled at conflicting times.

On the other hand, the NCTE/Wadsworth Professional Equity Program (PEP)–aimed at adjunct and part-time faculty CCCC’s conference attendees–is an unique and welcome program. The $250 grants include $150 cash to offset the expenses associated with attending the conference, a paid registration for the conference and a coupon good for one membership in CCCC’s. At the conference, I talked to at least a dozen PEP winners. Many were first-time CCCC’s conference attendees who would not have otherwise come.

I came away from CCCC’s with one final observation. It’s time for part-time faculty sessions at CCCC’s to move away from the documentation of adjunct exploitation. Part-time faculty presenters need to come forward with session proposals that address professional development issues, and that help part-time faculty connect with a wider spectrum of colleagues in attendance. Part-time faculty who belong to NCTE and attend CCCC’s have a responsibility to themselves and their students to participate actively.

The number of part-time and temporary faculty who attend needs to be reflected in the content of the sessions offered.