Presented at the Fall 2009 Board Meeting and Biennial Conference
22 October 2009
Hilton Pasadena

CONFERENCE

This year’s conference theme is Pathways to Community. The theme stands as a reminder of the kind of culture we as college educators strive to create on our campuses and in our classes. We see signs of community life in our classrooms every day. When one student’s shared insight about a poem leads to a more complete understanding for all of her peers—this is community at work. When in an online workshop a student’s draft is strengthened by the comments of his classmate—this is community at work. As educators, one of our most important tasks is to create—and improve upon—learning environments that facilitate the camaraderie, helpfulness, and partnership that characterize community. I am confident that as this year’s ECCTYC conference comes to a close, attendees will take with them new and inspired ways of creating this sense of community on campus and in classroom.

I commend our conference chair, Corinna Evett of Santiago Canyon College, whose vision and perseverance have been essential to this year’s event. Thank you, Corinna, for your dedication to ECCTYC and to the planning of this conference. I also applaud all members of the conference committee listed below for their diligence and industriousness as they attended to important conference work.

• Corinna Evett—ECCTYC 2009 Conference Chair
• John Thomas—Treasurer, Conference Badges
• Micah Jendian and Jan Lombardi—Program Committee Co-Chairs
• Corinna Evett, Micah Jendian, Jan Lombardi, and Sterling Warner—Program Layout and Production
• Corinna Evett (Chair) and Sean Stratton—Promotion Logos and Flyers
• Corinna Evett—Local Arrangements
• Susan Yonker and Gary Enns—Photography
• Chella Courington, Corinna Evett, Heidi Ramirez, and Sterling Warner—Speakers Committee
• Corinna Evett, Christopher McCabe, and Susan Yonker—AV Equipment
• Michael Dinielli, Corinna Evett, and Sterling Warner—Hotel Arrangements
• Sravani Banarjee, John Thomas, and Julie LaMay—Registration Committee
• Sean Stratton (Chair), Rosemarie Guglielmino, and Sterling Warner—Best Article, inside english Committee
• Catherine Eagan, Rosemarie Guglielmino, and Sterling Warner—Best Literary Magazine Award
• Sterling Warner (Chair), Michael Dinielli, and Tom Hurley—Nina Theiss Award
• Christopher McCabe (Chair), Corinna Evett, and Heidi Ramirez—Publicity

TYCA REPRESENTATION

Representation at TYCA National is essential to ECCTYC’s status as the Pacific Coast Region of TYCA, and so the board is indebted to Elissa Caruth of Oxnard College for her hard work and dedication as our organization’s representative to TYCA National. Caruth has been to eight nationals since 2005. Her role as representative has taken her to Pittsburgh, Chicago, Nashville, New York, New York again, San Antonio, San Francisco and next month Philadelphia. Caruth has served on several TYCA committees, including the nominations committee and the best article committee. She has shared her innovative ideas as a presenter four times at nationals, has moderated sessions, and has served as a round table facilitator. Her numerous and insightful TYCA Pacific Coast and ECCTYC reports can be read in current and back issues of inside english and TETYC.

Caruth’s term as TYCA rep is up this year, and after several years of service, she has decided to step down. Thank you, Elissa, for your commitment and dedication to The English Council and TYCA. Former ECCTYC board member Jody Millward of Santa Barbara City College has been nominated to replace Carruth as our representative. Millward, for many reasons which our first vice president will delineate in his report, is an excellent choice for the position and will be a wonderful addition to the board.

NEW CO-DIRECTORS

I have appointed two new co-directors—Kate Pluta of Bakersfield College for Region Five South Valley, and Kevin Ferns of Woodland Community College for Region One Northern California.

Regarding the Region Five appointment, nominations were sought from the division and department chairs of the Southern South Valley, and Pluta’s name rose to the top of the list. Bakersfield College’s English Department chairperson, Pam Boyles, states in her nomination of Pluta: “Kate has been a former department chair of the BC English Department, former Senate President, and has served many years on the CCA Executive Board in various leadership positions. … She has my highest recommendation!”

Regarding the Region One appointment, it was Ferns that noticed the vacancy and expressed interest in participating on the board. I interviewed him through email and am confident that he will make a fine addition to the board. At Woodland, Ferns is working to expand English offerings “beyond just the comp offerings and into lit and creative writing courses. He is also working on “expanding the scope” of his school’s literary magazine and on involving more students in the writing and editing of the publication.

VACANT SEATS ON THE BOARD

Currently, we have eleven of twenty-two co-director positions filled on the board. If the board approves my appointments for Regions One and Five, our number will be brought up to thirteen. That leaves nine co-director positions vacant. I urge the board to be proactive in filling these seats so that we can better represent our constituents throughout the state.

In particular, we need to fill the following key vacancies: Region Four North Valley Co-Director, and Adjunct Co-Director At-Large. Currently, we have no members in these positions. ECCTYC is seeking two promising and motivated adjunct instructors—one from Northern and one from Southern California—as well as two faculty members from the following Region Four schools:

American River College, Columbia College, Cosumnes River College, Deep Springs College (private), Humphreys College (private), Lake Tahoe College, Merced College, Modesto Junior College, Sacramento City College, San Joaquin Delta College, Sierra College

Other regions with vacancies include Region Two San Francisco Bay; Region Six Central Coast; Region Seven North Los Angeles; Region Eight South Los Angeles & Orange County; and Region Nine San Bernardino.

ECCTYC ON THE WEB

Our current website and paid web editor James Fitch of Hartnell College have performed admirably through this conference. Now, upon concluding the event, it is time to consider more cost effective and user friendly alternatives. It is my feeling that ECCTYC’s website should be inexpensive, easy for a board member with little coding experience to edit, and easy for co-directors and officers to post reports and reach their constituents. Members of the web committee are currently evaluating alternative interfaces such as Joomla and Drupal, and even free web building interfaces such as WordPress, to see if one of these technologies might help us to build a more intuitive web space. I encourage the web committee to continue this important work and to report back to the board at our next board meeting.

AGENDAS OF THE FUTURE

Finally, as president, it is my goal to create board agendas replete with topics of the utmost importance to our profession and to our constituents. To do this, I rely heavily on the help of the officers and co-directors of this board who bring with them the issues and concerns of ECCTYC constituents throughout California. I encourage board members to contact me with issues throughout the year in order to help shape the future direction of this organization.

Gary Enns
President, ECCTYC
Professor of English, Cerro Coso Community College

Labels: Conferences, ECCTYC_Conference_2009, President