Notes from Robert V. Hoskins, New Executive Director of CEA

Thanks to editor Julia Gergits for offering me space in which to introduce myself and to send a sincere welcome to all CEAers from the association's new headquarters at James Madison University in the beautiful Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. For the record, JMU, located in Harrisonburg, was founded in 1908 as a state normal school for women; it is now a regional university of the Commonwealth, with an enrollment of about 14,500. The Department of English has 30 full-time faculty and over 500 majors. As a member of that department since 1971, I teach 19th and 20th century British literature, film studies, and the novel; for the past several years my research and writing have centered around the fiction of Graham Greene.

James Madison University has a long history of involvement with CEA: Treasurer Ron Nelson and I have the longest record of membership in the organization, but over a dozen of our colleagues have been members of CEA. Four members of the English Department have served as president of the North Carolina-Virginia regional affiliate of CEA (I held that office in 1984), and we have hosted the regional conference on four occasions, bringing to campus such distinguished writers as William Styron, Andrew Lytle, and William Hoffman for NC-VA CEA programs.

My own involvement with the national CEA began with the 1979 conference in Savannah—a memorable introduction. I arrived at the convention hotel with the predictable feeling of complete anonymity, but I had hardly finished registering when program chair Elizabeth Huberman saw my name tag, recognized me as a new member (she even recalled my paper), and offered a warm greeting and welcome to CEA.

The impression I formed in Savannah—that the association is friendly, lively, and of enormous practical usefulness for the ideas one can carry from the convention back to the classroom—has been confirmed again and again by experience. To be chosen as an officer of an organization that has offered me many pleasures and professional opportunities over the years is indeed an honor.

 In looking forward to the coming year, which must be a period of "learning on the job," I am aware of needs that deserve the attention of all of our members. CEA needs to grow: we need a larger membership base to support our publications, sustain the richness and variety of our annual conference programs, and bring new talents and ideas into our offices and committees. We need, moreover, to grow in order to increase multi-ethnic membership and activity in our organization. We need to recognize, too, that rising travel costs, reduced library budgets, and increased demands upon faculty at many institutions all mean that we must actively compete for members.

But needs can also be opportunities—opportunities to represent the good work of CEA to a wider population; to preserve the best qualities of the organization while remaining adaptable to the scholarly interests and professional concerns of our members; and to recruit new colleagues who share our belief that the best opportunity of all is to carry on CEA's purpose of providing opportunities for discussion of the preparation and professional improvement of college teachers of English, encouraging both the humane and the immediately practical study of language and literature, and promoting English studies as a major element in American higher education.

If you need information or have suggestions about how the national headquarters can best serve your interests and needs, please do not hesitate to get in touch with me (hoskinrv@jmu.edu). I pledge to be a good listener and to do all that I can to live up to the high standards of dedication, efficiency, and courtesy set by distinguished predecessors Earl Wilcox, Jack Joyce, Don Morse, Elizabeth Cooper, and Robert Hacke. To Earl, for his encouragement, wisdom, good humor and patience, I am especially grateful.