Annual Meeting Highlights

Dear Colleague:

One hundred and twenty-five years have passed since members and friends of the New England Association of Schools and Colleges first gathered to discuss the state of education across the six state region. Now these many years later, the Association will gather for its 125th Meeting and Conference at the Fairmont Copley Plaza Hotel in Boston on December 1-3, 2010. The theme of the meeting is “Demanding Excellence, Honoring Difference” and it will allow many of our speakers and presenters to blend the history of our profession with the current themes, demands and needs. Conference registration materials are online.

The Fairmont Copley Plaza Hotel cooperated with NEASC to allow us to reduce the price for rooms and meals. We hope this lower cost is helpful to you.

Some commissions will hold pre-conference sessions on Wednesday, December 1. These pre-conference sessions are part of the Annual Meeting format so attendance requires that you register for the Annual Meeting.

The plenary address on Thursday, December 2 at 1:00 p.m. will be delivered by Diane Ravitch, Author and  Research Professor of Education at New York University. Keith Lockhart, Masestro, The Boston Pops Orchestra will be our banquet speaker on Thursday evening, December 2 at 6:00 p.m. amd Doris Kearns Goodwin, Historian and Author, will speak at luncheon on Friday, December 3.

The Annual Business Meeting of the Association will be held on Friday morning, December 3 at 8:00 a.m. A continental breakfast will be available to attendees of this meeting. The Annual Business Meeting is where the membership is informed of and takes action on issues pertinent to the welfare of the Association. If your school or college is a member institution, please be sure to properly identify two voting delegates and return the delegate credentials to the NEASC office. At this year’s business meeting, the Board of Trustees plans to recommend the merging of the three public school commissions into one entity, resulting in the new Commission on Public Schools. This merger is the result of over two years of discussion, planning and presentations. Your presence at the Annual Business Meeting will assist in bringing this to reality.

Throughout the days of the conference, many workshops and sessions will focus on topics germane to each of the NEASC commissions as well as all members of the region’s education community. In additionn, we will take time to celebrate our longevity and examine the role of the New England Association of Schools and College in the future.

 We encourage you to attend and participate in this Annual Meeting and Conference. We are a unique organization in that we embrace all sectors of public and private education from the pre-school level through higher education. Attendance at last year’s meeting was the highest ever. With this year’s program and speakers, we should surpass last year’s attendance.  Please join your colleagues from throughout New England. We look forward to seeing you at the Fairmont Copley Plaza Hotel on December 1-3, 2010.

Sincerely,

Jacob Ludes, III