Event: Let’s Talk About It: Coalitional Conversations We Need to Have (4/9/25 6-8pm at Cs)

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Let’s Talk About It: Coalitional Conversations We Need to Have (April 9, 2025 6-8pm)

Dear CFSHRC friends and colleagues,

As you make your plans for attending CCCC 2025 in Baltimore, make sure you arrive in time to attend the annual CFSHRC Wednesday Night Event (April 9) from 6-8pm in the Baltimore Convention Center Meeting Room 308.

We invite all conference-goers—(bring your friends!)—to make the most of this occasion to be together and attend small-group roundtable discussions about issues that help build our coalition during our Wednesday night event, "Let’s Talk About It: Coalitional Conversations We Need To Have." In the past four years, many of you have expressed feeling isolated as one of a few, or maybe even the only composition and rhetoric scholar on their campuses. After the COVID closures and cancellations of 2020-2021, we sought out opportunities to gather in new ways, and we have learned to treasure the times that we are together. To that end, our Wednesday evening of Cs event provides an opportunity for us to get together and talk about the urgent topics of our lives.

In recent years, we have seen school and program closures, the banning of books and DEI initiatives, racism, homophobia, climate change catastrophes, white supremacy, global violence, campus protests, and transphobia. While some pursue “business as usual” or a “return to (a new) normal,” the Coalition leadership will structure 45-minutes for members to talk and write about “It.”

First, we hope you’ll attend. But additionally, we’re asking for your input and expertise to make our Wednesday evening event engaging, meaningful, and coalitional. Below, fill out the survey to suggest topics and/or volunteer to serve as discussion leader. Discussion leaders will guide groups of 4-8 in documenting feminist coalitional thinking about these exigencies.

We will also continue our tradition of hosting mentoring tables for the second hour (7-8pm). If you would like suggest a topic for a mentoring table and/or volunteer to host/organize a mentoring table, please submit your ideas below. In the past. we’ve had mentoring tables on: mid-career life, parenting and the academy, alt-ac, the job market, writing a book, publishing in journals, career changes, approaching retirement, archival research, queer pedagogies, feminist historiography, community-engaged teaching, etc. You don’t have to do any prep work for table mentoring; just come and share your hard-earned lived experiences with others.

Here’s the link to the survey: https://forms.gle/5v9D3btDowBCiF4a8

Please submit your survey responses by February 15, 2025, so we have plenty of time to plan the event. Thanks, in advance, for your guidance and attention. We hope to see you in Baltimore!

Best,
Becca Richards, President