Understanding Diversity: Building Trust, Culture and Reflective Practice
Dear NYSEC Membership,
We hope that you and your families are well. As we’ve spent the winter working on the conference, newsletter, and journal, we had no idea that at this time we’d be at home trying to figure out teaching virtually, social distancing, and feeling anxiety about a world that seems to be changing everyday and at times every hour. We didn’t know that phrases like “abundance of caution” and “flatten the curve” would become a regular part of our vocabulary.
As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, the NYSEC board has discussed how we can best serve our membership moving forward. After careful consideration of our members, keynotes, vendors, and executive board, we have decided to postpone our annual conference until October 2021. Please save the date for our 70th conference, Understanding Diversity: Building Trust, Culture, and Reflective Practice, which will now be held on October 20-22, 2021. For those members that have already submitted workshop proposals or awards applications, please note that we will hold all that information for 2021. While we all hope that life will go back to something that resembles normal well before this fall, we also understand that people may still have reservations about large group gatherings in the near future.
In the meantime, we are going to spend the upcoming months planning new ways to provide resources and professional development for our members. If you have any ideas, please contact us through our website at www.nysecteach.org. In addition, I think we can all agree that during these difficult times the work/home line is either very blurry or completely gone as we’re all trying to support our students in an environment that is new to everyone. Therefore, we hope that you are finding ways to support and care for yourself. Take the time to read some of the titles listed in my President’s message, write about your quarantine or virtual teaching adventures and share it on our blog, or finally take the time to write an article for our journal the English Record. On behalf of the NYSEC Executive Board I hope that you and your families are safe and healthy.
Be well,
Michelle Peterson-Davis NYSEC President
Keep up to date on what’s happening and the latest NYSEC news on our social media pages.
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