Author: tengrrl

September 8th Updates from the CCCC Transition Team

- by tengrrl

This update from Holly Hassel, chair of the CCCC Transition Team (CTT). was posted the evening of Tuesday, September 8, 2026. Links in the message have been updated to pages on this site, rather than the NCTE/CCCC site, to ensure archival integrity.

Hello colleagues,

I’m writing to in my role as chair of the CCCC Transition Team (CTT). You can read more about the responsibilities of this group at CCCC Transition Team updates (as well as find a copy of this current note). I want to provide some information about the group’s work during the time period for which we are charged (through June 30, 2027) as well as the internal and external (to NCTE) activities we will be engaged in. Having recently held our second meeting, we are working on the following activities this month:

College Composition and Communication and Studies in Writing and Rhetoric Series

The CTT is actively engaging in conversation with the NCTE Presidential Team and the current editors of these publications to identify next steps. We are working on a short-, medium-, and long-term timeline to plan for:

  • Completing publication agreements for authors of those publications in a set timeline
  • Making recommendations to NCTE about a future for the publications (for example, a new publisher for the journal and series)
  • Making recommendations about the back catalog of these publications, including back issues and out-of-print titles, with input from editors

As the publisher of the journal and series, NCTE and its Executive Committee will make final decisions about CCC and SWR.

Position Statements, Awards and Grants, and Other Resources

The CTT and NCTE have prioritized the following short-, medium-, and long-term activities:

  • Securing a home for archived versions of all the position statements and other documents that have been produced by CCCC committees, task forces, or groups
  • Identifying which resources will remain within NCTE as it develops a new and more focused set of programming around the teaching of college writing
  • Investigating the possible transfer of some position statements and names of awards to other organizational homes

This work is ongoing.

NCTE Resources and Programming

The CTT is engaging in activities both internal and external to NCTE. This fall, some members of the CTT will work with NCTE to develop new programming related to two priority issues. A cohort will create resources for teaching digital literacy as a foundation for generative AI literacy in college writing courses, with special attention to students from diverse educational and linguistic backgrounds. Another cohort will develop resources for supporting faculty and administrators who coordinate concurrent enrollment/dual credit programs in colleges and high schools. Future programming will build on this initial work to support high school concurrent enrollment instructors and college teachers who work with dual credit students. The College Section and TYCA have organized additional professional development activities for college writing teachers and other members.

To learn more about the activities that the CTT is engaged in, you can read the originating document, which documents the role the group has in preserving materials and resources from CCCC in archival or transferred forms. Additionally, I am pleased to share the [CCCC 2027 Organizing A]greement cosigned by NCTE President Antero Garcia, CCCC 2027 program chair Donnie Sackey, and me in my role as chair of the CTT. This shared understanding will guide the work as we plan for an event that is collegial, engaging, and inclusive.

The group has created the email address cccc.transition.team@gmail.com to gather and field issues as they emerge. We are addressing these items as we are able over the course of the year to best support CCCC members as they make plans for their professional futures.

On a personal note, I want to say that decisions about professional futures will be made by each individual educator according to their own values, priorities, and needs. Though the de-chartering of CCCC was as much of a surprise to me as it was to anyone, I am serving as chair of the Transition Team to support members of our profession and field as they determine next steps. As a writing educator, my own career has focused on writing classrooms, new teacher preparation, writing programs at access institutions, and pedagogical research. NCTE and whatever new programming and resources are developed remain a good fit for my professional needs. That may not be true for others; those decisions will likely be ongoing as disciplinary organizing work takes place, and as members of the profession weigh their own commitments and needs.

Finally, the goal of CCCC 2027, as the CTT understands it, will be to follow through on the commitments to individual teacher-scholars who have planned their professional funding and career progress this year around the event taking place. In addition, the CTT will plan a stream of events that will:

  • Provide information about new work sponsored by NCTE around the teaching of college writing, including through TYCA and the College Section
  • Host sessions or tables for organizations and groups external to the organization to inform, welcome, and invite engagement from attendees who are looking for new spaces for their professional work
  • Provide space and time for CCCC member groups—SIGS, Caucuses, standing groups, and Committees—to gather and plan for work moving forward either internal or external to NCTE

Sincerely,
Holly Hassel
Chair, NCTE/CCCC Transition Team
Past Chair of CCCC, Past editor of Teaching English in the Two-Year College

Help with the Google Group

- by tengrrl

The Issue

For unknown reasons, the Groups page for CCCC-L (https://groups.google.com/g/cccc-l) is thoughtlessly and evilly showing the error “429 Too many requests” to people trying to read the messages on the web. Even I as the listowner get this error. I have written a post to the support group for help. Here’s what it looks like:

Screenshot showing blank browser with only the error 429 Too Many Requests

Work-Around

Meanwhile, if you log into your google account and then go to https://groups.google.com/, you can find and click on cccc-l in the list, which will take you to the page of conversations. Yes, this is illogical, but it is what it is, as they say.

More Details

I have posted in the Google Groups Community to ask for help. The wisdom there says it is a bug. I don’t have any additional information.

NCTE Announces Details on 2027 CCCC Convention

- by tengrrl

On September 1, NCTE released the following announcement on plans to go forward with the 2027 CCCC Convention:

Greetings,

We are pleased to confirm the 2027 CCCC Annual Convention, scheduled for April 14–17, 2027, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, will take place. Acceptance and decline notifications will be issued shortly after Labor Day. We thank everyone who proposed and reviewed sessions through the deliberate process that took place before the decision to de-charter CCCC. We would also like to share the following important information:

The decision to move forward was made in commitment to the people who have sought the opportunity to present and benefit from the professional learning opportunity known as the CCCC Annual Convention, especially early career faculty for whom the opportunity holds particular significance.

The decision to move forward with the Convention was made in consultation with Donnie Johnson Sackey, whose vision created the Convention theme, created the call for proposals, and guided the proposal review process.
Proposal acceptance and decline decisions were made prior to the decision to de-charter CCCC.

NCTE will not make money on the Convention. In fact, it is more costly to hold the Convention than to cancel it. The CCCC Convention has lost money for the last three Conventions (Cleveland, Baltimore, Spokane). Ultimately, the decision to hold the Convention is guided by our commitment to the people and careers involved.

The registration fee for the Convention will be flat with the 2025 rates.

In addition to the program that has been planned through the proposal process, transitional activities will be organized by the CCCC Transition Team (CTT) over the next several months and space will be provided for constituency groups who wish to meet and organize. A proposal process will be created to accept requests and ideas from individuals and groups.

Sincerely,

Antero Garcia
NCTE President

Donnie Johnson Sackey
2027 CCCC Program Chair

Holly Hassel
CTT Chair

CTT (CCCC Transition Team) Announcement

- by tengrrl

As discussed in the July 24, 2026, communication, NCTE’s Executive Committee authorized a CCCC Transition Team (CTT, previously named as the Transition Team for Writing Studies and Rhetoric) to provide support in the context of de-chartering CCCC. The originating document shared below has been agreed upon by the NCTE Presidential Team, the NCTE Executive Director, and the chair of the CTT. This is the first of ongoing updates regarding the Transition Team’s work. As the Transition Team’s work moves forward, future updates will be provided on this webpage.

Transition Update #1 August 2026

The NCTE Executive Committee voted on July 24 to de-charter the Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC), a conference of the larger organization. This is a challenging point in time for members of the Writing, Rhetoric, and Composition Studies (WRCS) community. Because CCCC does not have independent financial or legal standing, the de-chartering essentially dissolved the conference and its associated governance structures. The work of the CTT is focused on providing a dedicated and time-bound group to support next steps for members of the WRCS community, both external and internal to NCTE. This update provides information about the future activities of the CTT, the scope and timeline of its activities, and goals for the work.

As chair of the CTT, my responsibility is to lead the group in cataloging the resources and materials produced during the long history of CCCC in order to identify what will continue to exist within NCTE and what can find a new, future home, including with other professional organizations and institutions or a new professional group that forms to provide an independent home for writing studies. The CTT’s scope, priorities, and goals can be reviewed in the originating document.

Work will begin immediately and conclude at the end of June 2027, unless further tasks are identified. We acknowledge how CCCC has functioned as our professional home. Our first priority will be to help provide answers and pathways for CCCC members who are feeling the urgency of next steps in their teaching, research, and service. Over the course of the specified period, members of the team will catalog resources and create a proposal process for new organizational homes for those that no longer fall under the scope of continued WRCS programming within NCTE. The CTT will also document outstanding member commitments and identify how to meet those commitments that can be fulfilled and document any that cannot. These are described in more detail in the originating document.

Transition Team members, listed below, have agreed to participate in this demanding and consequential work to help the field make sense of the implications of CCCC’s dissolution for the WRCS community. I am grateful to the colleagues who have agreed to provide leadership in service to the larger community in this moment of disciplinary uncertainty. They will serve as liaisons—with other organizations, with CCCC member groups, and with members of the profession. Some team members will also work to identify which activities or structures within NCTE might support professional programming that serves the majority of college writing teachers, offers pedagogical and career support, and benefits earlier career faculty.

Sincerely,

Holly Hassel, Professor and Director of First-Year Writing, Michigan Tech University (Team Chair)

Transition Team members

  • Joanne Giordano, Assistant Associate Dean/WPA, Salt Lake Community College (TYCA Chair)
  • David Green, Associate Professor and Associate Chair of Writing, Howard University
  • Erin Lehman, Professor of English, Ivy Tech Community College
  • Teresa Lopez, Professor and Career Engagement Coordinator, Pellissippi State Community College
  • Annie Mendenhall, Director of First-Year Composition, Kennesaw State University
  • Emily Suh, Associate Professor, Curriculum and Instruction, Texas State University
  • Shane Wood, Associate Professor and Director of First-Year Composition, Department of Writing and Rhetoric, University of Central Florida
  • Staff Liaison: Kristen Ritchie, NCTE

[Backup: Internet Archive copy of the original post on the NCTE website]

Ask NCTE for a Refund

- by tengrrl

You can request a prorated refund of your CCCC membership dues by sending a message to NCTE. NCTE’s FAQ indicates that membership dues are not refundable; however, refunds are being issued.

One member shared the following reply sent to their request [Emphasis mine]:

Dear Name Withheld,

Thank you for your letter requesting a refund of your CCCC dues. On July 24, 2026, following the Executive Committee’s vote to de-charter CCCC, the group also voted to grant refund requests on a prorated basis. We respect your decision to cancel your membership and have initiated the refund process. Please note that the refund will be issued back to the original payer, whether that is yourself or your institution.

Please do not hesitate to reach out if you need further assistance.

Name Withheld | Customer Service Professional
National Council of Teachers of English

You can use the Contact Us page on the NCTE website, email Member Services (membership@ncte.org) or the customer service address (CustomerService@ncte.org) or call Customer Service at 877-369-6283 or 217-328-3870, Monday – Friday, 8:00 AM – 4:30 PM CT.

Here are some example requests:

Refund request from Timothy Oleksiak

Hello. I’m sure the person who’s reading this had nothing to do with the decision today by the NCTE Exec Committee to de-charter CCCC so I’m not going to rant at you, but I have no interest in being an NCTE member without CCCC.

My member number is XXXXXXX. If you need to prorate it for a month since I just renewed in late June, I can live with that although I’d ask you to consider the optics of that decision. Either way, I don’t want to be a member of NCTE and I don’t want the current leadership team to access to membership dues. Please refund as much as you can as quickly as possible.

Thanks in advance.

Dear Customer Service,

Since the de-chartering of the Conference on College Composition and Communication – CCCC, the National Council of Teachers of English no longer serves my professional needs. I would appreciate it greatly if at this time an exception regarding refunds might be made not only for me but also for the several thousand colleagues from the college and other sections who might feel similarly.

Thank you for logging and considering this request—
Name Withheld

Update on CCCC 2027 Convention, from Donnie Johnson Sackey

- by tengrrl

Assistant CCCC Chair Donnie Johnson Sackey posted an update on the 2027 CCCC Convention (Backup: Google Doc) today on Facebook.

Sackey reports that in a meeting with NCTE Chair Antero Garcia and NCTE Executive Director Emily Kirkpatrick, he disucssed the possibilitiese to move forward with plans for CCCC’s 2027 Convention. The group agreed that no acceptance notifications will be sent for the Convention until a final decision is made about whether the conference can take place.

The conversation focused on NCTE leadership, on concerns about trust, governance, and member dissatisfaction, and on suggestions to lower registration costs and provide space for members to discuss the future of the organization.

NCTE-EC Announces First Transition Details

- by tengrrl

Woman writing on a laptop in a coffeeshopNCTE’s Executive Committee (NCTE-EC) announced details on the transition of CCCC, as necessitated by the de-chartering of the organization. In their “Moving Forward: Updates on CCCC from the NCTE Executive Committee” announcement (Backup: Internet Archive coming), the committee indicates that NCTE has established a “Transition Team for Writing Studies and Rhetoric.”

Chaired by Holly Hassel, the transition committee is charged with developing recommendations for the future of writing studies within the organization. The team will explore new organizational structures, including options that provide greater autonomy for writing studies, as well as new opportunities for conferences, publications, leadership, and collaboration with related organizations. The Transition Team is expected to submit its final recommendations by June 30, 2027.

The announcement also includes updates on the status of the 2027 CCCC Convention, the future of the College Composition and Communication journal, the Studies in Writing and Rhetoric (SWR) book series, and awards and grants during the transition.

Inside Higher Ed: NCTE Dissolves 77-Year-Old Composition Association

- by tengrrl

A black woman student writing on paper in a college classroom. NCTE Dissolves 77-Year-Old Composition Association

Inside Higher Ed reports that “The National Council of Teachers of English’s decision was met with swift backlash from Conference on College Composition and Communication members, who say their organization is vital to advancing composition research and improving teaching.”

IHE’s report includes comments from former CCCC chairs Melissa Ianetta and Doug Hesse as well as CUNY-Baruch’s Daniel Libertz.

De-Chartering CCCC

- by tengrrl

Students collaborate on a writing project in the libraryOn Friday, July 24, 2026, the Executive Committee of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE-EC) voted to “de-charter” the Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC). The NCTE-EC announced this decision in an update to all members on July 24th (Backup: Internet Archive).

Unofficial reports indicate that “Of the 16 voting members, 12 voted yes, 2 no, and 2 abstained in a paper vote.”  CCCC members are seeking confirmation of the proposal’s exact language, status, governing authority, rationale, timeline, and consequences.

The announcement from the NCTE-EC discusses financial concerns that led to the decision. An earlier member report mentioned concerns related to the culture of Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC) and its potential impact on NCTE’s nonprofit status. Later member reports suggested concerns for accessibility at Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC) events and their impact on CCCC’s financial situation.