40th Annual CRLA Conference - Portland, Oregon - Oct. 31-Nov. 3, 2007

A Brief History of CRLA
adapted by Karen Agee from Karen G. Smith’s more thorough chronology & additions by CRLA members

The College Reading and Learning Association was born in the 1960's, when colleges and universities were struggling with equal access, open doors, and the realization that the institution had a responsibility beyond imparting facts. This new responsibility included providing assistance so that capable students who had been admitted to college could actually reach their goals.

Our founders, who were reading specialists from colleges in the western part of the United States, felt the need for an organization that would focus on the needs of reading specialists, reading centers, and reading programs for college students. These programs, which had been operating in a few colleges and universities for many years, were now developing in many more institutions of higher learning as part of the "new" services initiated to serve this population in a new era of higher education. To meet this need, our founders created the Western College Reading Association. An expanded focus on learning assistance, developmental math and writing, and new-student programs soon led to a change in name: Western College Reading and Learning Association. Membership across the United States and Canada and overseas is acknowledged in the current name: College Reading and Learning Association. CRLA is a group of student-oriented professionals active in the fields of reading, learning assistance, developmental education, and tutorial services at the college/adult level.

1960's
The 1960's. Gene Kerstiens describes the beginning: "At one-thirty A.M., the Saturday before Thanksgiving, 1966, in room 202 of the then Holiday Inn, San Bernardino, California, about 20 of those remaining at a five-and-one-half-hour meeting signed the blood oath, a document that has not survived. At the end of this assembly, the first president was appointed by himself (not elected) with the tacit approval of the group. It may not have been an auspicious inception, but it was colorful and collegially contentious." (Email message to LRNASST 7/30/98)

The active and dedicated group accomplished much in its first three years. At an early organizational meeting at the College of the Desert in March 1967, the decision was made to set annual dues at $5.00, and during an Executive Board meeting just three months later a quarterly newsletter was born. Then in 1968, WCRA established a placement clearinghouse that listed positions for reading teachers. At this time, WCRA also determined that guidelines for planning future conferences would be established. In 1969, the treasurer was bonded, associate memberships were offered to administrators and librarians, and state directors – a new position – were appointed by the president. Finally, a directory project was initiated to identify college reading teachers, their backgrounds, and their job descriptions to determine a potential standard for the field.

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1970's
The 1970's. WCRA developed greatly in the 1970's, a period of enormous change in the mission and practice of colleges and universities. Affirmative action, equal rights, and the "new student" rallied professionals in our field, and – in response to these new imperatives – learning centers, reading programs, and developmental studies blossomed across the country.

The young WCRA organization incorporated in 1972 and filed its constitution and bylaws with the Corporation Commission of New Mexico. In 1975 the Executive Board established as WCRA’s unofficial motto, "the Blue Chip organization for college reading professionals."

The president-elect was made conference program chair, and on-site chairs handled local site arrangements. Student memberships were initiated at half the price of regular membership ($2.50). Conference proceedings were edited by Frank Christ and published, with the first issue featuring papers from the first three conferences. The position of archivist was established in 1976, and a scholarship fund of $1,000 was set up in 1977 to award a yearly scholarship to a graduate student pursuing a degree relevant to the interests of members of WCRA. In 1979 the Board created an annual service award, too.

In 1977 a formal vote determined that all WCRA conferences would be held in the western region of the United States, but eventually the W in the name was expanded to mean the Western Hemisphere, and Canadians were formally invited into the organization. WCRA voted in 1978 to hold no conference in a state where the ERA had not been ratified, and although that decision eventually became moot, some tentative conference proposals were thwarted for a few years. Nevertheless, conferences were stimulating, collegial, and energizing.

Liaisons with other professional organizations were formally introduced in 1977, and the dues took a big leap to $15 in 1978, but in 1979 the organization suffered a great financial strain following the conference in Hawaii. After many years of deliberation and discussion, the membership finally voted to expand its name to Western College Reading and Learning Association to welcome the many professionals in writing, learning assistance, tutorial programs, mathematics, developmental studies, counseling, and other fields, all of whom were finding our conferences beneficial to their professional development.

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The 1980's. During the 1980's, WCRLA refined its services, including bigger and more diverse conferences, a juried journal, the establishment of Special Interest Groups, and elections by mail ballot. In order to facilitate management, the offices of treasurer and secretary became two-year positions, to be elected on alternate years. A formal relationship was established with the young sister organization of NARDSPE, which would later come to be called NADE. A new service, developed over several years, became the well-recognized International Tutor Certification Program, recently retitled International Tutor Program Certification (ITPC).

The conference changed, too. Friday Night Literary Society was inaugurated, a renaming of the traditional hospitality room. A wedding ring was found in the bedroom of the hospitality suite at the San Diego conference, and to this day no one has claimed it! New conference features included dinner-on-the-town night, newcomers' welcome sessions, and the first designated computer room.

At long last, the organization's name was changed in 1989 to CRLA. Although there was sentimental angst about dropping "Western" from the name, the membership finally recognized the increasing number of members from the Midwest and the East who joined the conference and the organization each year.

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1990's

The 1990's. The organization truly came into its own in the ’90’s, creating an election process that allows new officers, especially the president-elect, adequate time to prepare for new duties; a new position of membership chair on the Board; contracts with commercial mailing services; more scholarships and awards; a strategic plan; removal of the conference from spring to fall; an International Symposium on Teaching and Learning; and creation of a Professional Association Liaison Committee. In addition, a Communications Task Force identified new means for the elected officers to communicate with the general membership; a Past Officers Council was created; the Tutor Certification Board developed a new process for training and certifying peer mentors. In addition, the Board voted to raise CRLA's dues from $25 to $40, obviously still the best bargain in professional development in the ’90’s.

The semiannual Journal of College Reading and Learning continued to improve as more professionals submitted quality research and descriptive articles. The Newsletter was eagerly read by all members for news of the organization and our colleagues. Annual conferences continued to attract the best of our peers as presenters and speakers.

The biannual Journal of College Reading and Learning continues to improve as more professionals submit quality research and descriptive articles. The quarterly Newsletter is eagerly read by all members as we seek to keep abreast of the organization and news of our colleagues. The conferences continue to attract the best of our peers as presenters and speakers.

Becky Johnen has a disturbing memory, however, of the period when she was planning the 25th Annual Conference. As she tells the story, "Alex Haley had agreed to keynote the conference, presenting on the theme of 'Celebrating the Diversity in Teaching and Learning.' Two months before the conference, he passed away. The day his death was announced, my phone rang off the hook with people all over the country expressing their condolences to me. I felt as if Haley was a part of my family, and in a way he was -- a part of my CRLA family."

Those who organize and plan and work many long hours to arrange for and put on a conference can never be appreciated enough by the rest of us. Pat Jonason, who was the Conference Manager in 1993 for the Overland Park, Kansas conference, writes of the experience quite eloquently. "What does it mean to be the 'site chair' of a national conference...? The analogy that comes to mind is that of an amorphous mound of wet clay waiting on the potters wheel to be formed into one of those hardened, imperfect pieces that my daughter used to tote home from her ceramics class. When I said 'yes' to submitting a proposal to host the national conference, I had no idea what shapes that answer would mold me into. A blur of images comes to mind as I think back, occasionally one becomes clear, followed by more blurring. Clear images include...

Karen Lim, too, remembers some unique events surrounding the San Diego conference, where she was Conference Manager. "We had an earthquake the day before the pre-conference institute that really shook up some of us, especially Tom Gier and Karan Hancock. We witnessed a birth of a baby oryx during our San Diego Zoo bus tour during twilight. Mexican presidential candidate, Colossio, was assassinated in Tijuana the night before our scheduled Tijuana Excursion Trio. And, on the last day of the conference, a woman sprained her ankle getting off the bus on a Greyline tour of the city." But, most of us who were there in San Diego remember a super conference.

In 1995, CRLA comes to Tempe, AZ, a suburb of Phoenix. Rick Sheets had helped host 10 years of the AZ Developmental Education Day with Maricopa Community Colleges and the state/regional chapters of NADE & CRLA. As CRLA on-site chair, he found the experience to be truly a invigorating, taxing, and very rewarding learning experience. It was the first CRLA conference to have a web page which is still active at "Time for Transformations" at http://www.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/events/crla/index.html. It was Valerie Smith-Stevens first CRLA national conference.

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2000's

The 2000’s. CRLA continues to mature in the new millennium. Despite funding cuts and campus travel restrictions, attendance at CRLA conferences has not declined. The Call to Conference arrives in members’ electronic mailboxes. The Association continues to meet professional development needs of its members by means of conferences and the Journal of College Reading and Learning and also through the now-electronic (and even timelier) NewsNotes newsletter and an expanding website.

The Board and membership have adopted a Position Statement on the Rights of Adult Readers and Learners and also a statement of Guidelines for Professional Ethics. The number of scholarship awards has been increased, and projects initiated by Special Interest Groups and state/region/chapter groups are generously funded. A joint Peer Tutoring SIG/regional conference was held in Colorado. CRLA tutor program certification and a revised edition of the Tutor Training Handbook are sought by more and more programs, which now can issue ITPC pins to trained tutors.

Collaborations with the American Council of Developmental Education Associations continue to develop, and CRLA continues to nominate worthy ACDEA Fellows. In addition, CRLA and College Academic Support Programs planned this joint conference at Austin in 2006 to mark the 25th anniversary of CASP and the 40th anniversary of CRLA. The 40th CRLA conference will be celebrated next year in Portland. What a celebration that will be for the oldest organization in the profession of learning assistance, developmental education, and student success!

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