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A message from CRLA Member and CLADEA Fellow Saundra Yancy McGuire:
I vividly remember the first time I ever sought academic assistance, in the midst of my undergraduate career at Southern University and at the tail end of the Civil Rights Movement. During the 1968-69 academic year I was attending UC Berkeley on a Crown Zellerbach Scholarship that had been established because the company had been found guilty of environmental racism – massively polluting Alsen, Louisiana, the small Black community just north of Baton Rouge in which Crown Zellerbach was operating a huge plant. CLICK HERE to read more.

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Following much deliberation, the Board of the College Reading and Learning Association (CRLA) has decided not to host an annual conference this November. Given the unprecedented situation we currently face with a global pandemic, very difficult choices had to be made now about a future still half a year away. As much as we tried to anticipate a fall semester that would allow for an in-person gathering that would be safe and healthy for the CRLA community—and their families—we had to simultaneously explore the financial implications of canceling at a later date.

Especially with higher education reforms that need to be discussed and evaluated, and a hurried shift to remote learning to be reflected on, this fall is likely to be a time when networking, debriefing, and learning with and from one another are most needed. Thus, the Board would like to assure all involved that we fully acknowledge the magnitude of this decision. However, our reasoning is that the current situation will, no doubt, leave an imprint lasting at least through the end of the calendar year such that even in a virus-free fall, institutional resources, including travel funding, will likely be diminished. In sum, our aim in this decision was to serve as good fiscal stewards for the organization and its members.

We have much continued planning to do, of course, but in the short term please look out for news of additional professional-development opportunities to be unveiled throughout the remainder of 2024. Toward the longer term, please mark your calendars now for CRLA 2021 in Cincinnati (November 17-21) where we will reconvene for some much-overdue, much-needed community time. For those who submitted or were in the process of submitting conference proposals, we hope you will consider updating those and resubmitting for CRLA 2021.

In solidarity,

On behalf of the CRLA Board,
Sonya L. Armstrong, CRLA President-Elect