Convention Program Chair Welcome

Nicholas A. Emmanuele Planning our Convention in community with the Conference on English Leadership Executive Committee, our NCTE colleagues, and each presenter has been a joy. I think back to when I was a child and followed my grandfather around Cheektowaga Town Park outside of Buffalo, NY. My grandfather (“Dziadz,” in Polish) was on the committee for our Polish American Heritage Festival and would go to the park each morning to check in with vendors, the food providers, and maintenance staff to make sure everyone was taken care of. We would grab some placek and sit with his friends on the committee who would camp in their trailer near the stage. I learned from Dziadz that events meant community, in so many ways. While he planned for an event featuring our Polish American heritage, he also worked with people so they knew they were seen and appreciated. He wanted others to feel the same way when they arrived that evening to eat pierogi and dance the polka.

It is my hope that you each feel welcomed to our space here in Anaheim to explore, learn, and grow together. I was first introduced to CEL in 2016 when I happened to sit next to our current Associate Chair Emily Meixner at the ALAN Breakfast to hear S.E. Hinton’s address. Emily invited me to CEL, and here I am, six years later. Matt Morone and Heather Rocco separately asked me to co-present with them in 2018, and their gracious invitations have gotten me hooked on conference presentations ever since. More importantly, they supported me as a fledgling department chair and let me know I had experiences that were worth sharing. As a mentee in our Emerging Leader Fellowship program built my capacity as well. Those of you who have joined us at a CEL Convention before have similar stories; for those who are here for your first time, I hope each of you here will find new professional and personal connections that will carry you into your futures. I have found my professional home here at CEL, and I hope many of you do—or will—as well. I know smaller gatherings can feel cliquish, but we have built our CEL22 event to be invigorating, welcoming, and inclusive.

Our theme this year, “Leading Literacy Coalitions: From Classrooms to Community,” represents, to me, the power of this organization: community. Communities cannot stay stagnant, and we cannot ask others to assimilate into existing structures; we must always grow, adapt, shift, and become something new. How do we honor and mobilize communities for the betterment of students? In what ways can we build collaborative teams? What are strategies to effectively facilitate joyful gatherings? What happens when communities are divided? The offerings throughout our Convention work to help us explore these questions and challenges. As you listen to our featured speakers and learn from one another in concurrent sessions, problem-of-practice discussions, our social hours, or facilitated dinners, I hope we continually transform CEL into an organization that works for you so that we can lead literacy efforts among each of our teams and communities.

Thank you (Dziękuję!) for journeying here and for choosing to be with us. Community is an active process, and I am so excited to see what we construct together.

Mr. Nicholas A. Emmanuele (he/him/his) 2022 Conference on English Leadership Annual Convention Program Chair English Teacher and Department Chair, McDowell Intermediate High School, Erie, PA