[CBW_Exec] Welcome to the CBW executive board listserv!

[Susan Bernstein]

Hello everyone,

Thanks to Shannon for setting up our CBW executive board listserv.
Below please find 2 recent emails from Barbara Gleason that include at
least 2 issues that we need to address.

1st issue: Proposing to a resolution to CCCC that Wednesday workshop
fees be discounted for ALL graduate students.  Right now the discount
applies only. to "full-time" graduate students.

2nd issue:  Changing our all-day workshop to 2 1/2 day workshops @$20
each.  This will allow participants to choose to attend for either the
full day or a half day and would save funds for people interested
in/able to attend only part of the day.

The emails are copied below-- and many thanks to Barbara for beginning
this discussion.  Please note that we need to decide on the 2nd issue
ASAP.  The deadline for next year's workshop proposals is April 27.

Thanks and best,

Susan Naomi

1st email:

Yes Susan. For us $40 might not mean much for for grad students and
part-time instructors, $40 is a lot of extra $$ on top of the
conference free. And the $30 fee for "full-time students" is totally
confusing. Who is a full-time graduate student? At our college, to be
full-time as a grad student means to be taking 12 hours (for financial
aid purposes) but almost no grad student actually takes 12 hours of
course work in one semester.
And I have another proposal: That the CBW all-day Wednesday workshop
be divided into two  half-day workshops which cost $20 each.
Here's the reason:
Many people find they can only attend the morning or the afternoon
(I'm one of them) part of the CBW workshop but they have to pay $40
for the entire day.
Also, some people will be only interested in the TOPIC presented in
the morning or the TOPIC presented in the afternoon. This year, for
example, there were several people who wanted to attend the afternoon
session of the CBW workshop in particular but they were prevented from
attending because the CBW all-day workshop was booked solid. The
workshop only allowed 50 people and there were 50 registrants. But in
the afternoon, several people did not stay probably in part because
they were not interested in the topic of adult literacy. There was
plenty of space for the people who did want to attend but did not
attend. And one or two people came  anyway for the afternoon session
even though they were not registered.
The other point is that due to the high cost of hotels, some people
will fly in on Wednesday morning and attend an afternoon
pre-convention workshop. For these people, it would be advantageous to
be able to attend just the afternoon part of the CBW workshop.
I really think CBW might get better attendance in both sessions by
offering two separate workshops--one in morning and one in afternoon.
--Barbara

2nd email:
I agree with Karen that the CCCC is so valuable that I often pay my
own expenses because I value the experience so much. And I agree as
well that the costs are prohibitive for many people, even fulltime
professors -- and especially for part-time instructors and graduate
students. And like Karen, I have often wondered if it would be
possible for the Cs to meet in less expensive cities. I'm going to
suggest a couple of topics that we might want to discuss and make
recommendations on (re: conference fees) but first I want to comment
on the NYC location.

As  New York resident, I'm aware that while people coming from out of
town were clearly at a disadvantage & I regret the high NYC costs very
much--the hotel costs especially.  Despite the high costs for people
coming in from out of town, the 2007 CCCC proved to be advantangeous
to many people who live in and near NYC. I'm especially aware of all
the graduate students,  contingent faculty, & fulltime faculty who
were able to attend CCCC this year as a result of the NYC location. In
NYC alone, there are seventeen CUNY colleges, the CUNY  Graduate
Center, Fordhman U, Columbia U, NYU, St. John's, College of New
Rochelle, Empire State (SUNY), St. Joseph's College, Bard College, and
many more and there are SUNY colleges nearby and many New Jersey
colleges that are only a short commute away. I know that many local
grad students and contingent faculty did attend this year and I've
learned that the number of CCCC registrants was higher this year than
when CCCC was in NYC in 2003.

I am pretty sure that the CCCC Exec. Com. has kept conference fee and
preconvention workshop fees down (our fees are lower than the fees for
many other conferences) and I appreciate that very much. However, I
think CBW might  want to look at two areas and consider making a
recommendation to the CCCC Executive Board.

1. The graduate student rate is $30 for "full-time students"; however,
many graduate students work at low-paying jobs to support themselves
and attend graduate school part-time. Technically, they don't qualify
for the $30 CCCC conference fee because they are not "full-time
students." Also, I'm not sure what counts as a "full-time student."
I am wondering if anyone among the CBW membership might want to
discuss this issue and consider a proposal from CBW to CCCC Exec.
Board for the $30 rate apply to all graduate students,  no matter
whether they are full-time or part-time students. With Lynn Troyka, I
addressed this issue in particular recently and I found the NCTE
employees and CCCC managers very sympathetic and easy to work with but
the rules are still in place and the CCCC Exec. Com. is the governance
body that approves changes in fees.

2. Secondly, the preconvention workshop fees are $40 for the all-day
workshops and $20 for a half-day workshop. There is no reduced rate
for contingent faculty or graduate students. For the CBW all-day
workshop, the $40 fee is prohibitive for many graduate students and
contingent faculty.
Even so,  the recent NYC CBW workshop was booked solid.  However,
since so many BW teachers are part-time teachers and grad students, we
might  want to propose reduced preconvention workshop fees for gad
students and contingent faculty. I don't know if anyone in the
membership

3. Someone pointed out to me that "Basic Writing" used to be one of
the topics for CCCC proposals and that it has now appears as a
sub-topic under :Practices of Teaching Writing." And others mentioned
to me that there seem to be fewer and fewer panels and workshops on BW
topics. I didn't make a count and i don't know if that's actually true
or not but I did check the program announcement for 2007 and Basic
Writing does appear as a subtopic under "Practices of Teaching
Writing." Maybe if Basic Writing reappears as a topic for proposals,
there will be a stronger representation of BW panels and workshops at
future conventions.

--Barbara Gleason
City College of New York
Director, MA in Language & Literacy