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.

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