After careful consideration, due to the increase of Covid-19 cases, the NJCEA board has decided that the 44th Annual Conference will be virtual this year. We have reduced the conference fee to $10.00 and the NJCEA membership fee remains at $20.00. This means that the total cost of the conference, including membership, is only $30.00.
Pathways to Diverse and Inclusive Curricula: The Way Forward
Many academic institutions have been evaluating their diversity and inclusion statements. At the department level, several faculty members recognize that their curriculum also needs to be evaluated.
We are particularly interested in proposals for full traditional panels including at least four presenters, roundtables of six to eight speakers, workshops, individual papers, posters, and presentations that consider the following questions for the profession, for the discipline, for our areas of specialization, and for the larger society:
“Humanizing Learning through Radical Self-acceptance and Love: A Playful Approach”
RAsheda Young’s research centers on fusing play, linguistic justice and anti-racist pedagogies into her classroom to disrupt traditional composition approaches that unintentionally marginalize our most vulnerable students. Radical self-acceptance and critical self-inquiry, afford both teacher and student the opportunity to develop systems that authenticate and validate seemingly incongruent experiences. “Humanizing Learning through Radical Self-Inquiry and Love: A Playful Approach,” provides research that asks teachers to evaluate their own positionality and teaching philosophy to create a classroom where both student and teacher are transformed by each other.
RAsheda Young is a Teaching instructor for Rutgers University’s Writing Program. She has been an active member of the department’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion committee. In support of Black Lives Matter, in August 2020 she participated in and helped organize an eight part virtual workshop centered on anti-racist pedagogy for the Writing Program at Rutgers University. In addition to teaching for Rutgers University, RAsheda Young teaches writing courses for New York University. Prior to both Rutgers University and New York University, she was also a full-time faculty member for the College Writing program at Fairleigh Dickinson University where she served in various capacities, including Director/Coordinator of the African American Studies minor. During her tenure, she created two new courses: The New Jim Crow and Feminism, Womanism and Beyonce. Also for thirteen years, she tutored at a writing center and was an adjunct instructor for a community college in New Jersey.
She has presented at the internationally esteemed Conference on College Composition and Communication, NYU Literary Review and Two Year College Association. She has been an invited speaker for the graduate Language and Literacy program at The City College of New York and Fairleigh Dickinson University. She is a PhD candidate, studying Composition and Applied Linguistics at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. Currently she is writing a book, We Lit: A Quest into Understanding the Silencing of Black Joy Literacy.
We encourage sessions on literature, pedagogy, composition, and creative writing from graduate students, college/university faculty (full-time and adjunct), high school educators, and independent scholars.
Panel Proposals: Proposals for complete sessions should include the full title of the session, chair, a list of all presenters (at least four besides the Chair), as well as their affiliations, e-mail addresses, paper/presentation titles, individual abstracts (250-300 word each) and brief bios.
Individual Paper Proposals: Proposals for individual papers should include name, affiliation, email address, a 250-300-word abstracts, and brief bio.
All proposals should be submitted by February 9, 2022.
Graduate Student Awards in Literature (literary analysis) or Pedagogy (teaching methodologies and reflections), and Writing (fiction, non-fiction, and poetry)
Graduate students are invited to submit papers or creative pieces for the NJCEA annual Graduate Student Awards. The winners of these two awards will receive Amazon gift cards and have their papers published in The Watchung Review, the official publication of the NJCEA. Complete submissions can be sent as electronic attachments to Rachael Warmington at rkw2111@gmail.com by February 9, 2022.
N.B. In order to be eligible to win the graduate student awards, students must present their work at the conference. Deadline for submission of essays and creative pieces for the conference is February 9, 2022.