[This past week,
after many
years of planning and many
posts in this space, I helped host the 2016 Northeast MLA
convention in Hartford. It was an amazing four days, and I could write much
more than a week of recap posts—so here I’ll focus specifically on the new
initiatives I brought to the convention. If you were part of NeMLA 2016 in any
way, please share your own recaps and responses in comments!]
On a small but
significant first step toward a vital connection.
On the first
afternoon of the convention, in an initiative on which I had been working for
more than two years, four conference presenters and attendees visited two
Hartford public schools. Opening night creative reader Monique Truong, her fellow convention
creative reader Leanne
Hinkle, and my Fitchburg State University colleague Joe
Moser visited the Bellizzi
Asian Studies Academy, a middle school (and part of the HPS’ theme-based
academes program); another FSU colleague, Katharine
Covino-Poutasse, visited the Betances
Early Reading Lab, an elementary school. The visitors shared their voices
and ideas with students and classes, worked closely with teachers and staff
(including the wonderful principals, Mario Cruz of Bellizzi and Corinne Barney
of Betances), and engaged in inspiring and powerful ways with the missions and
work of these public schools.
One of my most
central goals for the convention, as I’m sure was evident from my earliest blog
posts about it, has been to connect with communities outside of the academic
and scholarly ones with which NeMLA has always worked so fully and well. Public
schools are only one of many possible such connections, of course, but I think
they offer a particularly strong option: not only because they are fellow
educational institutions, but also and even more importantly because, around
the country but especially in cities like Harford (or Baltimore, site of next
year’s NeMLA convention), they are far too often under-funded and under-supported
and under attack and could use all the partners and communal conections they
can get. As a professor at a public university, as well as a Dad with two sons
in public schools (and the proud product of a
public school education myself), I feel particularly invested in the state
and future of public education. Yet in truth, we are all inextricably linked to
and affected by the work and success of our public schools, and to my mind no
organization or institution can afford to ignore or minimize that connection.
While I have no
doubt that my four colleagues made a significant impact on the schools and
students with whom they worked, and while I’m thus proud that we succeeded in
adding this initiative to the convention’s activities, this 2016 version of
linking NeMLA to public schools represents only a starting point for what that
connection can and should be. As such, I’d very much love to hear your thoughts
and ideas about how we might build on that starting point into next year’s
convention (and beyond), and/or other ways a convention and organization like
NeMLA can build connections to the communities around us. And I’ll go a step
further—if you’re someone who might be at NeMLA 2017 in Baltimore and has any
interest in such an initiative, I’d also love to get you directly involved and
make your voice and work an integral part of those next steps. I hope and
believe that these connections are vital to the future of NeMLA and of higher
ed, and the more folks we can get involved in them, the stronger and more truly
communal they’ll be!
Next recap
tomorrow,
Ben
PS. Thoughts on
this post? Other NeMLA follow ups you’d share? I’d really love to hear them
(and feel free to email them to me
if you prefer)!
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