The Michigan College English Association

Category: Summary of CEA Conference

  • Report on the College English Association Conference 2025 by Cheryl Caesar and Ed Demerly

    This year’s conference in Philadelphia on March 27-29, 2025, was widely attended by 265 presenters organized into 73 sessions. Schools from every part of the United States and nine foreign countries were represented, including universities in Nepal, Canada, Lebanon, China, Saudi Arabia, and Italy.

    Featured Speakers

    The plenary speaker, Dr Daniel Ernst of Texas Women’s University, spoke about the impact of artificial intelligence on higher education and assessment.

    Ahmed Badr, an Iraqi-American author, poet, and social engineer, was the featured speaker at the Diversity Luncheon.

    Poet, essayist, and literary critic Artress Bethany White of East Stroudsburg University spoke at the Women’s Connection Reception.

    Playwright and poet Lorene Cary of the University of Pennsylvania spoke at the All-Conference Luncheon.

    Michigan Presenters 

    Cheryl Caesar, Michigan State University

    Aaron Bush, University of Michigan

    Lynne Johnson, Northern Michigan University

    Susanna Engbers, Ferris State University

    John Staunton, Eastern Michigan University

    Roundtable Topics

    This CEA innovation included three sessions. Roundtable discussions are less formal than panels. Presenters offer “flash essays” of about 500 to 700 words, and the audience is invited to engage in open discussion. Three sessions were offered this year:

    English Education Programmatic Assessment: Navigating the Accreditation Process

    Freedom to Get Fat: A Discussion about Fatness and Fatphobia in Fiction

    Bringing Arts, the Outside, Rituals to the Classroom

    Emphasis at this Conference

    Over the years as trends change, we have seen an emphasis on new topics. Once women in literature headlined the conference, then use of the internet, indigenous work, comic novels, LGBTQ, etc. This year, AI seemed to dominate with sessions such as

    • AI in the Writing Classroom: Friend, Foe, or Facilitator
    • Reimagining Writing Pedagogy: Harnessing AI for Educational Success
    • Freeing the Writer Within: Empowering Student Writers through Effective and Ethical Use of AI
    • Surveying the Landscape: Student and Faculty Experiences with Generative AI

    Affiliates’ Breakfast

    At the breakfast, there was some discussion of conference modalities post-COVID: in-person, Zoom, or hybrid.

    Peter Elliott of Anderson University in Indiana would be interested in talking with MCEA about how we manage a Zoom conference. He has also launched a new journal, Indiana English, which is accepting submissions. 

    The Florida CEA is “reaching out for partners,” and our MCEA’s Board member RaSheeda Brown has reached out to this group by email. The Florida CEA also has a journal, the Florida Scholarly Review.

    Gloria Lessman and Heather Ann Johnson from the University of Nebraska attended the breakfast. They are not yet Affiliates, but Jeri Kraver has reached out to them from the Rocky Mountain group.

    Conference Proceedings

    The CEA Critic will publish its usual conference proceedings issue in the fall that will feature a selection of representative essays from those chosen “Best of Section,” award-winning essays, and more news from the conference.

    Save the Date

    At the conference President’s Reception, we announced that the 55th conference will take place March 26-28, 2026, in Charlotte, North Carolina. Our theme will be “Declarations,” fitting for the first state to declare independence from Great Britain. The submission site will open August 15, 2025.

  • Report from the 49th Annual College English Association Conference 2018 by Ed Demerly

    Over 400 papers were presented at this year’s College English Association conference in St. Petersburg, Florida, April 5-7. Among them were the following Michigan scholars:

    Rebecca Conklin – Michigan State University

    Philip Egan – Western Michigan University

    David Marquard – Ferris State University

    Bernie Miller – Eastern Michigan University

    Jean Kearns Miller – Washtenaw Community College

    As usual, the range of topics included literary theory, creative writing, graphic novels, learning outcomes and assessment, multicultural and world literature, popular culture, religion and literature, composition and rhetoric, and so much more from the traditional canon.

    Presenters came from over 30 states and 7 countries including France, Turkey, Sweden, Canada, Belarus, United Kingdom, and Qatar.

    Featured speakers were

    Patricia Spears Jones, City University of New York, award-winning poet – plenary speaker

    Kimberly Wilmont Voss, University of Central Florida – Women’s Connection Luncheon

    Charles A.S. Ernst, Hilbert College – Diversity Reception

    Julienne Empric, Eckerd University – All-Conference Luncheon

    Next year, CEA will celebrate its 50th annual conference in New Orleans, March 28-30. Proposals may be submitted until November 1, 2018. Remember that any paper presented at MCEA may also be submitted without revision for acceptance at the national conference.

    The 2019 conference will also celebrate the 80th anniversary of the founding of CEA.

    For submission details and general information, please see the CEA website at

    www.cea-web.org

  • Report from the CEA Conference at Hilton Head Island, South Carolina on March 30 – April 1, 2017

    Nearly 500 papers were presented at this year’s College English Association conference on a wide variety of matters primarily focused on the conference theme, Islands, but including traditional areas of pedagogy, theory, rhetoric, technical writing, creative writing, and literature in the canon. Presenters came from nearly every state and foreign countries including the United Arab Emirates, Canada, Australia, and Spain. There were other less conventional panels as well:

    Graduate and Adjunct Faculty Concerns

    Slavery and Abolition Literature

    Alexander Hamilton

    Caribbean Literature

    Bob Dylan

    19th-Century American Women

    Gaming

    Immigration Literature

     

    Featured speakers included:

    All-Conference Luncheon:  Veronica Davis Gerald,

    Director of  The Charles Joyner Institute for Gullah and African Diaspora Studies

    Plenary:  Elizabeth Nunez, award-winning novelist, immigrant from Trinidad

    Diversity Luncheon:  Stephen Spencer, University of Southern Indiana

    Women’s Connection Reception: Natalie Hefter,

    Vice President of Programs at the Coastal Discovery Museum

     

    Michiganders on the program included:

    Angela Dow, Ferris State University

    Susanna Engbers, Ferris State University

    Kelsey McLendon, Eastern Michigan University

    Amy Masko, Grand Valley State University

    Lynne Johnson, Northern Michigan University

    Phillip Arrington, Eastern Michigan University

    David Marquard, Ferris State University

     

    Next year’s conference will be held in St Petersburg, Florida, April 5-7, 2018. The conference theme, Bridges, encourages a variety of applications in all areas of English. The CEA welcomes papers given at the conferences of its regional affiliate organizations, so if members present at Eastern Michigan University in October, they may submit that same proposal by the November 1st deadline for consideration by the CEA. For further information, contact the Program Chair, Carolyn Kyler, at cea.english@gmail.com (put “Program Chair” in the subject line) or see the CEA web site at  www.cea-web.org

     

    Michigan CEA’s sponsorship of a beverage break was prominently posted at the conference and inside the program.

     

    The annual CEA conference is more than the typical conference.  It includes book giveaways from over forty publishers, tours of the host city, lots of casual networking with congenial colleagues, a wide variety of papers focused on every aspect of English instruction, and the president’s reception with appetizers and a free drink. It’s clearly “user friendly”! After attending one conference, most attendees continue to present at future conferences

     

    As other CEA affiliates do, Michigan CEA might consider presenting a panel at next year’s conference.

     

    Ed Demerly

    MCEA Liaison and CEA Past President