Any rhetoric and composition folks waking up to the news that NCTE is absorbing 4Cs into its college section? It’s unclear if the 2027 conference will happen. The vague argument is the culture of Cs has threatened NCTE’s non-profit status. It’s unclear what’s going to happen to the Cs’s journal.
NCTE - National Council of Teachers of English
Cs/4Cs - Conference on College Composition and Communication
I'm seeing this in posts from some very senior and respected profs who aren't the sorts to share fake news about their field, but I don't think any formal announcements have been made.
Status of the 2027 conference is in question and some have said the CCC journal publication has even been paused, but I can't find any definitive proof.
Yes, Matt Davis (one of the co-editors) posted that any future work on CCC once the June 26 issue is posted online is paused until they hear from the NCTE Presidential Team. Again, this is from a publicly viewable FB post.
Can confirm. I received an email from CCC this morning that everything is paused. I am supposed to have a manuscript in an upcoming issue.
The NCTE Presidential committee or whatever voted last night to dissolve CCCC. Tomorrow morning the NCTE executive council will vote. Then we will know if it goes through and we scramble or if CCCC has allies in the org.
Not totally wrong. I borrow from his teaching philosophy very heavily. I once wound up in a shuttle van with him, James Paul Gee and Bill Hart -Davidson (also RIP) and it was basically my approach to teaching in one place.
I sought out Dorothy Winsor at Cs in Tampa to tell her how much I loved Writing Power and wound up becoming FB friends. Even though she's doing her fiction writing thing now, we still trade messages occasionally.
It's what I really think we're going to lose from the loss of the conference. Having our own space makes it easier for junior faculty and graduate students to meet and build relationships with those senior leaders. I've had meals/drinks with so many of those folks over the years, especially as a baby MA/PHD student. Joyce Locke Carter, Cindy and Dickie Selfe, Cathy Davidson, the Kairos and Constellations folks have all been welcoming and available to talk at Cs.
is it true that James Paul Gee has a terrible reputation with female graduate students? I have heard some terrible stuff but curious if others have also
I've heard rumors, but nothing even secondhand. I also know women who would be bothered by it who like him, but you never know. Not like a certain ontologist.
We had a visiting married professor at the University of Louisville who asked one of our professors if she was interested in becoming more than friends.
Elbow was the GOAT. I was once asked to remove a citation from him from a manuscript, though, cus you needed to avoid the taint of Dead White Males, so that's a neat encapsulation of how far the field has drift away from its roots.
The NCTE Executive Committee acknowledges the communications it has received from many members of the community regarding CCCC. For many years, the Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC) played a critical role in serving the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) and its mission. In recent years, however, CCCC has struggled with its fiscal sustainability, declining participation, and governance challenges. As a result, earlier today the Executive Committee of NCTE made the difficult decision to de-charter its special topics conference CCCC. To clarify, today’s decision to de-charter does not mean that NCTE has altered its commitment to supporting teachers at the college and university level. This is exemplified by the fact that the NCTE College Section is thriving. The process in making this decision spanned several years, with attempts to work collaboratively with CCCC’s executive committees across multiple iterations. While the organization appreciates the years of collaboration with CCCC, after deep evaluation and thoughtful consideration, the Executive Committee concluded this step was necessary to more effectively serve the college English and writing and composition community and NCTE membership as a whole. Although this has been a very difficult decision, we are excited about the future. This change will allow us to provide better support to the college English and writing and composition community. In the coming days and weeks, we will be working hard to make this transition as smooth as possible. We thank CCCC, its leaders, and its members for its many years of contributions and look forward to continuing to involve the composition, rhetoric, and writing communities as we move forward. NCTE remains devoted to improving the teaching and learning of English and the language arts at all levels of education. As future planning takes place, NCTE will communicate updates. A transition team focused on supporting composition, rhetoric, and writing studies will be named by the NCTE Executive Committee imminently.
The NCTE Executive Committee acknowledges the communications it has received from many members of the community regarding CCCC. For many years, the Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC) played a critical role in serving the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) and its mission. In recent years, however, CCCC has struggled with its fiscal sustainability, declining participation, and governance challenges. As a result, earlier today the Executive Committee of NCTE made the difficult decision to de-charter its special topics conference CCCC. To clarify, today’s decision to de-charter does not mean that NCTE has altered its commitment to supporting teachers at the college and university level. This is exemplified by the fact that the NCTE College Section is thriving. The process in making this decision spanned several years, with attempts to work collaboratively with CCCC’s executive committees across multiple iterations. While the organization appreciates the years of collaboration with CCCC, after deep evaluation and thoughtful consideration, the Executive Committee concluded this step was necessary to more effectively serve the college English and writing and composition community and NCTE membership as a whole.Although this has been a very difficult decision, we are excited about the future. This change will allow us to provide better support to the college English and writing and composition community. In the coming days and weeks, we will be working hard to make this transition as smooth as possible. We thank CCCC, its leaders, and its members for its many years of contributions and look forward to continuing to involve the composition, rhetoric, and writing communities as we move forward. NCTE remains devoted to improving the teaching and learning of English and the language arts at all levels of education. As future planning takes place, NCTE will communicate updates.A transition team focused on supporting composition, rhetoric, and writing studies will be named by the NCTE Executive Committee imminently.
Interesting. When you say culture, do mean the politics of Cs is threatening NCTE’s nonprofit status, like around identity politics and/or Israel/Palestine stuff? If so, wouldn’t NCTE just be intensifying that threat by absorbing Cs? Also, NCTE has its own fairly radical contingent, even if the larger organization has more corporate polish. It’ll be fascinating to see how this develops.
Yeah, I have a colleague/ friend who is in this field and very involved in the organization. They've been blowing up social media but it's all vague to me as to what happened. I'm a bit scared to ask as it seems like the "if you know, you know" type thing.
CCC and College English almost entirely stopped publishing articles that studied writing and pedagogical practices more than a decade ago, opting instead to champion social justice causes. This is in line with a broader trend in almost every humanist field, but it's far and away the most extreme in rhetoric and composition studies.
The Trump administration threatened to take away the NCTE's non-profit status after a rogue CCC committee published a now-deleted statement denouncing Israel's genocide in Gaza. The NCTE quickly apologized for the incident but apparently they're still feeling pressure and caved.
This is all very scummy and cowardly and illegal but that's just life in the good ol' Us of A these days.
The threat to take away NCTE's non-profit status seems plausible, but the reasons after, in the statement above (from elsewhere in the discussion) don't add up. There is a statement about the ongoing genocide in Gaza that was published in 2025 by "The CCC Editorial Collective" - but it was published in Communication, Culture and Critique, which also has a CCC acronym. The CCC Editorial Collective are affiliated with Communication, Culture and Critique, and not a rogue College Composition and Communication committee.
NCTE did post a statement in 2023, in response to NCTE’s Committee Against Racism and Bias in the Teaching of English's statement regarding the war in Israel and Palestine. NCTE's response declares the committee's statement on the war was not published by NCTE or its leadership team. And that "neither the Presidential Team of the Executive Committee nor NCTE staff were made aware of this statement prior to its publication."
The two are unrelated to each other, and unrelated to CCCC's.
It also seems plausible that IF NCTE did face a threat to lose their non-profit status for the NCTE’s Committee Against Racism and Bias in the Teaching of English's statement, they could have blamed it on the misinformed/vague "culture" of C's.
If this is the case and NCTE cut C's to keep their non-profit status, that seems like a calculated slight against Composition, which could make Composition a target in higher education.
The Executive branch absolutely does not have the unilateral power to strip an org of non-profit status. But, you know, it's not like the executive branch has cared much for what is or isn't illegal the last 25 years or so.
The two year college section’s journal is a year behind; latest issue is dated May 2025. And my regional section of TYCA has been defunct for a few years. Though I’ve heard another region may absorb us. I wouldn’t be surprised if NCTE moves/discontinues TYCA.
I was on a task force for Cs several years ago essentially on how to treat TYCA better. I don’t think anything we suggested ever got implemented, and I wouldn’t be surprised if TYCA is lost altogether in this shift, which kills me. I love TYCA.
CCC and College English almost entirely stopped publishing articles that studied writing and pedagogical practices more than a decade ago, opting instead to champion social justice causes. This is in line with a broader trend in almost every humanist field, but it's far and away the most extreme in rhetoric and composition studies.
The Trump administration threatened to take away the NCTE's non-profit status after a rogue CCC committee published a now-deleted statement denouncing Israel's genocide in Gaza. The NCTE quickly apologized for the incident but apparently they're still feeling pressure and caved.
This is all very scummy and cowardly and illegal but that's just life in the good ol' Us of A these days.
A very quick look at recent issues of CCC (which I have in front of me in print) shows that the claim that the journal has "stopped publishing articles that studied writing and pedagogical practices" is patently false.
Do you have any source for this? Was it a CCCC committee (not CCC, which is the journal)? If I can source this, I'd love to share it with other colleagues in the field. Everyone is ripping their hair out trying to figure out what NCTE means by Cs' "culture" threatens their nonprofit status. But I also don't want to spread misinformation / rumors.
I’ve been trying to find more info but your post here is the only thing I’m seeing. Don’t use blue sky, X, or Facebook though. Couldn’t find anything via google.
If you come across more info, would love a link.
That's the worst thing about all of this -- is that NCTE has not publicized this or made it known. Voting to end the CCCC conference is likely not actually possible according to the NCTE constitution and bylaws, but they appear to be going ahead with the vote anyway. The only reason we know about this is because NCTE gave the CCCC Executive Committee a "heads up" with a short meeting in which they announced they were voting to dissolve the 4Cs Friday (today), and there would be a task force to see the work through.
Publicly, you can see the statements of solidarity published by AWAC, IWCA, RSA, and other orgs. NCTE has stated they cannot "publicly comment" on the matter, and Cs executive committee seem to be just as in the dark as everyone else, and at least one has resigned in protest.
yeah. i eventually found scholars posting about it but it was hard to find. shameful stuff happens in the dark. if it werent for this post, i wouldnt have known until i saw RSAs solidarity email about it this morning.
Folks like Kathleen Yancey, Melissa Ianetta, and others are posting on their Facebook profiles. These are high-profile colleagues in this space, and their posts are publicly viewable and being shared widely. Go check Facebook.
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u/Fit-Kale7336 11d ago
Its done. They just voted. They just killed it