Liveblogging ELA

Well, the sessions have started, so let the blogging begin. I'll call it liveblogging, but it is sort of contemporaneous-blogging when I steal away a few minutes here and there. In this post, I want to sort of set the scene, report on the Rose session last night and give some initial thoughts.

Setting the Scene:
We are at the Brown Hotel in Louisville, which is a lovely old hotel. This is very much ELA's tradition and I like it. We get to stay in some of the best hotels in the country at low conference rates - which is just a good deal. There seems to be lots of bars and restaurants close, so that's good also. I think attendance is down a little because of the economy, but there are still a lot of people here and a very full slate of presentations. In fact, the conference extended a little this year into Wednesday night and until late Saturday evening.

Report on Rose at 20:
It went really well, and, again, thanks to everyone that helped. Governor Beshear came and spoke about education reforms in Kentucky and the impact of the Rose case. I think meshing the national scholarly audience and the local practitioner audience went as well as could have been expected. I think the practitioners were a little confused by the scholars and the scholars a little confused by the practitioners, but that seems to be the nature of the beast. Either way, I am getting very positive comments, so I am going to take it as a victory and move on. Really, I am just glad its over - it took a lot of my time and energy lately.

Initial Thoughts:
I think the thing I am excited about the most so far is the new make-up of the leadership of ELA. I really like Cate Smith as the new director. Brad Colwell will be a good President and I like the new incoming Board members. I am especially happy for Susan Bon from GMU and Tom Hutton who just left NSBA. I think they both bring a lot of good ideas to the table. I am excited to see what comes of that new energy.