An Invitation from Marina Favila, Immediate Past President

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It's our birthday! Initiated in 1938, the College English Association officially organized the following year as a professional society of scholar-teachers, dedicated to the study of language, literature, and the art of the classroom. For 70 years, CEA has sought to celebrate and illuminate the ever-widening discipline of English Studies: from the traditional canon of British and American Literature to the more varied and alternative literatures of our present day, from new critical readings and genre studies to multiple and diverse literary theories, from composition and rhetoric to technical writing and long distance learning. Always our focus has been to encourage a dialogue that measures the currency of ideas in the profession, both the well-tried and the trendy, and to find innovative ways to share these ideas with our students. We are particularly proud of our regional affiliates (Caribbean CEA, Florida CEA, Georgia-Carolinas CEA, Indiana CEA, Michigan CEA, Middle-Atlantic CEA, New Jersey CEA, New York CEA, Ohio CEA, Pennsylvania CEA, South Central CEA, Texas CEA, MELUS, and Tennessee Philological Association), whose own meetings and conferences carry this dialogue across the country. Our journals, The CEA Critic and The CEA Forum, solidify this goal by publishing up-to-date scholarly articles and pedagogical essays.

This fall we are busy working with our Pennsylvania affiliate to prepare a birthday celebration, not only for the organization, but also for our 40th national conference. Join us in Pittsburgh on March 26-28, 2009. Submit a paper on your current scholarship, favorite teaching technique, or perhaps something new to address this year's conference theme: Design. We'll provide an intelligent audience for your work, a host of panels on a broad range of topics, four prominent lecturers (including those for the Women's Reception and Diversity Luncheon), dramatic entertainment, and a field trip. Don't forget to stop by the Presidential Reception on your first night. I'll be waiting there—with cake!

Marina Favila