The following post is a message from the SIGDOC Executive Committee (EC).
Dear Members of the SIGDOC Community,
The SIGDOC Executive Committee (EC) is deeply saddened by the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE)’s decision to de-charter the Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC). Our scholarly community overlaps significantly with CCCC, and many of our members are trained and publish in rhetoric and composition alongside technical communication and user experience. CCCC has long been part of the shared research and teaching infrastructure that our field depends on.
We recognize that NCTE has cited fiscal sustainability, declining participation, and governance challenges for the basis of this decision, and that these are real pressures facing the field. But there are also reports that CCCC leadership proposed solutions that went unheeded and that they only learned of the closure days before it happened. Ultimately, a decision of this magnitude deserves transparency and a genuine chance for those it affects to help solve the problem.
As the leading association for researching and teaching composition since 1949, CCCC has been far more than an annual conference and flagship journal. Its scale has offered the field a capacity that no other organization or conference in writing studies currently matches. It is a professional home large enough for scholars to build careers, sustain networks across institutions, and organize on their own terms, turning individual presence into collective power. That scale has helped the field to speak together on behalf of the students and communities it serves. It is a capacity that cannot be easily replaced or relocated.
Like many professional associations, SIGDOC has been coping with challenges similar to those faced by CCCC, including changing membership patterns, rising operational costs, and technological disruption. But these challenges must be met through open communication and participatory decision making. The SIGDOC EC stands in solidarity with CCCC’s members and leadership, and with other scholarly organizations who have voiced similar concerns in recent days, such as the Rhetoric Society of America, The Association for Writing Across the Curriculum, and The WAC Clearinghouse. This decision was made too quickly and without the voices of the people who will live with its consequences. Therefore, we will continue to advocate, through every venue open to us, for the transparency and shared governance that CCCC deserves.
Luke Thominet
Chair, ACM SIGDOC
Kathie Gossett
Vice-Chair, ACM SIGDOC
Andrew Mara
Secretary-Treasurer, ACM SIGDOC
Huiling Ding
Past Chair, ACM SIGDOC