14 June 2009

Rouge Forum Steering Committee Meeting minutes from RF Conference, 2009

The following is an excerpt of our steering committee meeting minutes:

Rouge Forum Steering Committee
May 2009, Conference
“Gettin’ ready to be ready”


Reflections on the conference
What went well?
  • Well-organized, ran smoothly, program was great
  • Coordinator was on top of every detail
  • Retained sense of collective within the group
  • Institutional support
  • More people took responsibility to add to this conference than ever before; leadership is spreading out
  • New people attended
  • High school students
  • Inclusion of art (a plus at every RF conference)
  • Meeting with others and exchanging ideas about what we can do in the classroom

What didn’t go so well?

  • would have liked to see more people here
  • evaluations should have been distributed at registration (necessary for CEU credits)
  • lack of attendance by college of ed faculty from universities at locations where conferences are held (historic problem)
  • not many dissenting opinions at conference (should we invite in future?)
  • media blackout
  • labor folks did not show up for Staughton Lynd despite invitations
  • need plenary sessions at end of each day

Recommendations:

  • scholarly debates (inviting more opposition)
  • continue to invite local educators
  • consider a webcast of the conference (live streaming)
  • consider one day conferences / evening events at the local level –perhaps coordinated across the country so that similar events are happening on the same day in multiple locations
  • consider conference within conference – attend other conferences and plug RF; ex. NCSS, we have had several sessions by RF members and have put together fliers highlighting the sessions at the conference by those RF folks. (note upcoming conferences in Pittsburgh—AESA, and Atlanta—NCSS)
  • offer one day freedom schools for high school students
  • daily plenary at the end of each day
  • attract more community college folks
  • create an art installation

Next year’s conference

Where? Seems like we have a good lead on Aurora University. More information to follow.

Steering Committee Retreat

Where? Seems like Antioch, Chicago, or San Diego are possibilities. More information to follow.

Down the road:

  • Create a 15th anniversary mega-conference in 2013 in Vancouver? AERA will be in Vancouver in 2011—one day preconference before AERA for a preview of our 2013 conference (topic: Academic Capitalism, The Corporate University, Academic Freedom...)
  • LA in 2012?
  • local or regional conferences as well


Other discussions:

Online programming
Teacher education
Conflict resolution

Where do we go from here?

  • Getting the word out
  • The RF News (next issue will feature keynote speeches and other papers from the conference; maybe turn it into an edited text?)
  • Suggestion for creating a scholarly journal for the purpose of publishing work of RF folks, etc.
  • The blog – more of a repository at this point, not much discussion at this point
  • Facebook
  • Textbook on curriculum
  • Coordinated talks across the country (regional meetings that we might have with similar topics – same topic held on same day. This means that we will have to formalize regional chapters that could coordinate this type of event.)
  • Stay tuned for updates on the 2009-2010 steering committee

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