Professional Organizations

The American Communication Association (ACA) is a not-for-profit virtual professional association with actual presence in the world of communication scholars and practitioners. ACA is committed to enabling the effective use of new and evolving technologies to facilitate communication instruction, research and criticism, and to offer a technologically supportive venue for all who study the ways in which humans communicate. While the Association is based in the United States, it is a virtual organization that welcomes participation from academics and professionals throughout the world. Membership is free.

The Association of Teachers of Technical Writing (ATTW) is an active organization of teachers, researchers, and teacher/practitioners of technical communication across a range of academic and professional institutions. Members of ATTW work in graduate and undergraduate programs in technical communication, media, engineering, rhetoric, writing studies, and English, among other complimentary research programs. The organization includes members from both U.S. and internationally based institutions. Membership is free.

The Association of Writers & Writing Programs (AWP) provides community, opportunities, ideas, news, and advocacy for writers and teachers. AWP supports over 34,000 writers, 500 college and university creative writing programs, and 100 writers’ conferences and centers. The mission of The Association of Writers & Writing Programs is to foster literary achievement, to advance the art of writing as essential to a good education, and to serve the makers, teachers, students, and readers of contemporary writing.

College English Association (CEA) has, since 1938, been a vibrant, growing professional organization of scholar-teachers who regard teaching college students, undergraduate and graduate, as the proper focus of the profession. Members represent a broad range of interests traditionally gathered under English studies, including literature, composition, popular culture, women’s studies, minority studies, creative writing, film studies, technical communication, speech, and multilingual writers.

Council of Writing Program Administrators (CWPA) is a national association of writing professionals with interests in developing and directing writing programs. CWPA believes in writing and writers. They advocate and help members advocate for effective writing programs.

The Linguistic Society of America (LSA) is the largest linguistic society in the world and welcomes linguists of all kinds. It is the only umbrella professional linguistics organization in the U.S., with over 5,000 individual and library members. Language, the official journal of the LSA, continues to publish across the subfields, and LSA’s annual and summer meetings, biennial summer institutes, and other activities promote the study of language from many different perspectives. LSA works on behalf of linguists and the discipline of linguistics, often cooperating with other scholarly societies and alerting members to issues that may concern them in their own universities or other workplaces. At the same time, LSA also addresses a wider public, offering news on linguistic findings, answering queries about language, and supporting different efforts to disseminate linguistic perspectives on language issues. An interest in linguistics remains the only requirement for membership.

Modern Language Association of America (MLA) was founded in 1883 and provides opportunities for its members to share their scholarly findings and teaching experiences with colleagues and to discuss trends in the academy. MLA members host an annual convention and other meetings, work with related organizations, and sustain one of the finest publishing programs in the humanities. For over a hundred years, members have worked to strengthen the study and teaching of language and literature.

The National Communication Association (NCA) advances communication as the discipline that studies all forms, modes, media, and consequences of communication through humanistic, social scientific, and aesthetic inquiry. The NCA serves the scholars, teachers, and practitioners who are its members by enabling and supporting their professional interests in research and teaching. Dedicated to fostering and promoting free and ethical communication, the NCA promotes the widespread appreciation of the importance of communication in public and private life, the application of competent communication to improve the quality of human life and relationships, and the use of knowledge about communication to solve human problems.

The National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) is devoted to improving the teaching and learning of English and the language arts at all levels of education. This mission statement was adopted in 1990: “The Council promotes the development of literacy, the use of language to construct personal and public worlds and to achieve full participation in society, through the learning and teaching of English and the related arts and sciences of language.”

NCTE also runs the The Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC), known as the “Four Cs,” which is the main national organization and annual conference for college-level composition teachers and scholars; it is essentially the college arm of the NCTE.

The Rhetoric Society of America (RSA) aims to gather from all relevant fields of study, and to disseminate among its members, current knowledge of rhetoric, broadly construed; to identify new areas within the subject of rhetoric in which research is especially needed, and to stimulate such research; to encourage experimentation in the teaching of rhetoric; to facilitate professional cooperation among its members, to organize meetings at which members may exchange findings and ideas; and to sponsor the publication of such materials dealing with rhetoric.

Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) operates major conventions every year; their mission is to advance professional expertise in English language teaching and learning for speakers of other languages worldwide.

Boston Rhetoric and Writing Network (BRAWN) connects Boston-area college writing and rhetoric instructors for professional development and intellectual community by sponsoring free and local workshops, symposia, research collaborations, and other events. Membership is free.

New England Association of Teachers of English is a regional affiliate of NCTE. Online membership is free.

MA TESOL (MATSOL) is a regional affiliate of TESOL that holds an annual conference in Framingham, with many talks of interest to college-level instructors of multilingual students.

The Northeast Writing Center Association (NEWCA) is a regional affiliate of the International Writing Center Association (IWCA). This annual conference is a two-day event providing writing center tutors, staff, faculty, administrators, and scholars with opportunities to interact with colleagues from other writing centers in the Northeast.

The Northeast Modern Language Association (NeMLA) is a scholarly organization for professionals in English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, and other modern languages. Most members are professors and students at colleges and universities from New England, New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, and eastern Canada. The group was founded as the New York-Pennsylvania MLA in 1967 by William Wehmeyer of St. Bonaventure University and other MLA members interested in continuing scholarly discourse at annual conventions smaller than that hosted by the Modern Language Association.