Warm June greetings to all in the NWATE community.

May this find you well as summer slips into play. A note on behalf of our small leadership team to share some updates.

First, some background. Since our last annual meeting in 2015 (WSU Pullman), we began a process of restructuring NWATE. We started with a dedicated focus on the organization’s associated journal–the Northwest Journal of Teacher Education. We have accomplished this goal in amazing ways with the leadership of the editorial board; thanks to their commitment, the journal now holds more readership than ever before. To build on this success, this year, we turned our attention back relaunching our annual conference and gathering again. The hope to regather has been expressed by many of you over the last couple of years–thank you for reaching out to express such a hope! Acknowledging that many of us in higher education are moving differently in COVID19 recovery, we are taking this restructuring step slowly and thoughtfully. In other words, many of us are exploring ways to share our work through academic conferences in diverse and flexible ways. Exactly how to host an annual (or semi-annual) conference is our new inquiry project.

With that slow step, we have chosen to co-sponsor the International Globalization, Diversity, and Education (GDE), now in its 17th year. Hosted by Washington State University’s College of Education (Pullman Campus), and also coming back from a necessary COVID19 pause, the Globalization Conference brings together incredible, engaged scholars from institutions regionally, nationally, and internationally. The conference centers community, relationship, and holds spaces for well-respected thought leaders share research, dialogue, and often in authentic networking fashion, strategize deeper ways of working together for greater justice in schools and communities, refusing the status quo. Especially in this way, we see an alignment with the vision and mission of NWATE.

This year’s GDE conference theme is “Kinship-in-Action: Relationality and the Spaces We Occupy in Time of Ecological Precarity.” For full description, please see the Call for Presentations. The submission deadline is June 12th, 11:59pm PST. The conference will feature speakers Drs. Michelle Jacob (Yakama), Professor of Indigenous Studies at University of Oregon, and Paula Groves Price, Dean of the College of Education at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, the nation’s largest Historically Black University (HBCU). The conference will be held at the Northern Quest Casino in Airway Heights (Spokane) Washington, September 14-16th, 2023. Please consider submitting a proposal and/or plan to join us in the fall at this event!!

In closing, we are looking to reinvigorate and expand the leadership of NWATE. We will hold a Zoom meeting mid-August to reconnect and share ideas for reigniting the organization and more broadly, get to know one another/again. From that August virtual meeting, we will plan to host a more formal business meeting mid-September (hybrid/ Zoom interface session at the conference venue). Please email Francene Watson at fwatson@wsu.edu if you are interested in being an active part of this work, or have any questions. We will send updates through this page future-forward.

Be well and look forward to connecting with you soon.

Dr. Francene Watson (President), on behalf of the NWATE board.