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September 19, 2026

Dear Current and Former CCCC Members:

We are a group of individuals who were elected by CCCC membership to serve as leaders of the organization—or who were appointed to CCCC positions by elected leaders—writing to register our response to the NCTE Executive Committee’s decision to de-charter “its special topics conference” CCCC, per their July 24, 2026 statement. We are highly concerned about misinformation and misrepresentation in NCTE’s statements about the de-chartering of CCCC. Much of what has taken place across the organizations have occurred under the cover of confidentiality agreements as well as governance structures and a culture of leadership within NCTE that actively discourages dissent. We believe it is important that our community has a clear and full picture of how misleading NCTE’s messaging has been and continues to be.

Among the NCTE Executive Committee’s stated rationales for the de-chartering are their views that “CCCC has struggled with its fiscal sustainability, declining participation, and governance challenges.” In an August 13, 2026 email to NCTE membership, NCTE President Antero Garcia added that “CCCC’s efforts over three task forces to enact change since 2019, coupled with other circumstances spanning governance challenges, declining participation, and financial sustainability, eventually created an untenable situation.”

In light of these claims, we wish to share some facts.

Facts about Fiscal Sustainability

According to the CCCC Executive Secretary-Treasurer Emily Kirkpatrick’s 2026 Financial Report delivered at the Annual Business Meeting in March, CCCC had a total of $4,912,315 in reserves, with $345,243 of that amount in future liabilities. It is important to emphasize that this figure does not reflect CCCC’s balance at the end of the fiscal year, which is typically higher than what is reported at the time of the Annual Business Meeting in the Spring. This distinction is especially important to note when making cross-year comparisons and looking at CCCC financials over time.
The last end-of-fiscal-year reporting that NCTE provided CCCC leadership was for 2025. At that time, CCCC reserves reflected an all-time high of $5.11 million. This figure reflects a 10.5% increase compared to the COVID-19 fiscal year of 2021 (“2025 CCCC Chair’s Letter“) and a 40% increase since 2019.
Despite net losses in convention income, CCCC ended 2023, 2024, and 2025 with a profit when including investment income. In contrast, NCTE ended 2023, 2024, and 2025 with net losses when including investment income (ProPublica). During that time (2023–2025), NCTE Executive Director Emily Kirkpatrick’s pay increased $32,676, or 13.86% (ProPublica).
The CCCC Executive Secretary-Treasurer Emily Kirkpatrick stated in her 2026 Financial Report that “CCCC has a budgeted [not actual] operating loss before investment income of ($403,475) in Fiscal Year 2026.” For comparison, NCTE ended the fiscal year with a net operating loss before investment income of ($3.75 million) in 2025, ($4.37 million) in 2024, and ($2.26 million) in 2023 (ProPublica).

CCCC leadership offered numerous ideas (see Appendix A, below; Whitford) to increase revenue and close the operating deficit. These ideas were almost always either dismissed or ignored by NCTE.
CCCC leadership has, on numerous occasions over the years, asked NCTE to provide more specific itemized details for CCCC’s budget. CCCC leadership explained that this information was necessary for a full review of CCCC’s spending to address the financial concerns raised by Kirkpatrick. Most recently, in May 2026, members of the CCCC Executive Committee requested itemized details for the 34% of the proposed operating budget that appeared to go to NCTE. Despite multiple requests, NCTE would not provide itemized numbers, instead sending a qualitative, descriptive list, without any dollar amounts.
In May 2026, NCTE reported that salaries and personnel costs being charged to CCCC had increased 59.2% in the past year. NCTE stated this was a result of CCCC’s complex governance structure as well as the CCCC EC deciding to include limited remote participation options for the 2026 Convention. Again, NCTE would not provide any itemized accounting of these costs.
Annual budgets are drafted and proposed by CCCC Executive Secretary-Treasurer Emily Kirkpatrick. NCTE staff draws up contracts and estimates convention attendance. Overestimations have at times led to CCCC having to pay hefty financial penalties. The CCCC EC votes to approve the operating budget every year, yet CCCC leaders are not involved in the negotiation of contracts and there is little to no opportunity for CCCC leaders to make adjustments to these contracts after they have been signed. When CCCC leaders raised concerns about NCTE’s attendance estimates, they were dismissed.
The CCCC Constitution states, “Regular reports of the financial status of CCCC will be made to the Officers and the Executive Committee by the Executive Secretary-Treasurer.” Kirkpatrick has delivered these reports by proxy over the last several years, making it impossible to ask her direct questions about her reporting. Kirkpatrick’s financial reports delivered at the Annual Business meeting tend to focus on dire future projections based on budgeted numbers and a highly conservative outlook on future investment performance as opposed to actual financial outcomes.
NCTE does not provide clear, transparent, and easy-to-access long-term financial and membership data consistently reflecting the status of the organization at the end of every fiscal year, including longitudinal information about required reserves, contingency fund, and total reserves; membership numbers (individual and institutional); convention data including location/modality, registration numbers, revenue, expenses, and income; annual net operating income. Instead, this information is distributed across multiple documents over several years, and numbers reflect different moments within the fiscal year, making it challenging for EC members—the vast majority of whom have limited experience working with organizational budgets—to have a clear and full picture of CCCC’s financial status.
NCTE President Antero Garcia cited three CCCC Task Forces to enact change since 2019 as contributing to an “untenable problem.” For every one of these Task Forces, NCTE presented barriers that kept them from making meaningful progress:
1. The Committee for Change (2019–2022), which transitioned to the Accountability for Equity and Inclusion Committee (2022–present) repeatedly asked to see detailed budgets and financials for CCCC that NCTE would not provide, arguing that approval of the budget is the purview of the CCCC Executive Committee.
2. The Future of CCCC Task Force (2023–2024) worked on a survey of members that NCTE would not move forward or administer.
3. The Task Force on Operations and Sustainability (2026–present) was convened by CCCC leadership in 2025. NCTE staff had to be reminded multiple times to move this Task Force forward. One month before the de-chartering, NCTE recommended that this Task Force be sunsetted. This was also soon after the Task Force chair asked for background information regarding CCCC operations and finances.

Facts about Declining Participation

According to Kirkpatrick’s 2026 Financial Report, CCCC membership had declined 37.5% since 2019.
In 2025, CCCC individual memberships were reportedly “up 12.6 percent in 2025, with an increase of more than 280 members as compared to the prior fiscal year. This is also a five-year high—our highest numbers since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021.” (“2025 CCCC Chair’s Letter“)
Based on data provided by NCTE, at the time of the “de-chartering,” CCCC individual memberships had increased some 24% since 2023, (post-pandemic low, first time back to an in-person Convention after COVID).
CCCC leadership asked, on numerous occasions, to see post-convention survey results to develop plans to improve the convention experience and thus shore up membership. NCTE would not share this information with CCCC Chairs nor with the CCCC Executive Committee. To reiterate, CCCC’s elected leaders had never seen the post-convention survey responses that convention attendees were asked to complete every year.
CCCC had some 2500 members at the time of the de-chartering.

Facts about Governance Challenges

According to the CCCC Constitution, the CCCC Executive Secretary-Treasurer—a position presently occupied by Emily Kirkpatrick—serves as an ex officio member of the CCCC Officers’ Committee and is responsible for “assisting the other officers and other committees in carrying out their responsibilities.”
CCCC Executive Secretary-Treasurer Emily Kirkpatrick is the one person with a paid leadership role in CCCC (ProPublica). CCCC contributes financially to Kirkpatrick’s salary. She is also the only member of the CCCC Officers’ Committee who has not attended a single CCCC Annual Business Meeting, CCCC Officers’ Retreat, or CCCC Officers’ Committee Meeting in at least the last few years.
The CCCC Constitution states that the Executive Secretary-Treasurer typically prepares a list of siting options for the CCCC Annual Convention at least three years in advance. Kirkpatrick has not provided a list of siting options beyond the 2027 Annual Convention. When CCCC leaders asked about siting for future conferences, clear answers were not provided.
NCTE’s Executive Committee voted in 2025 to remove CCCC’s non-voting member from the NCTE EC. This change created a disparity—all other members of the NCTE Executive Committee would serve for at least two years, while the CCCC’s Chair would serve for only one year. When CCCC leadership asked to allow one representative on the Officers’ Committee to serve as the NCTE representative for two years to make things more equitable, that request was denied.

NCTE has since stated that “the NCTE EC did advise CCCC officers that the CCCC Chair could serve for two years if CCCC changed the term of service for its Chair from one year to two years.” They did not acknowledge that doing so would require upending the entire CCCC Officers’ rotation, nor did they acknowledge that their decision exacerbated the marginalization of composition and rhetoric teacher-scholars in NCTE’s governance structure.
The CCCC EC was given one month during summer 2026 to provide the NCTE Presidential Team with four items: (1) a revised operational budget (2) a prioritization plan for CCCC functions; (3) a “state of the field” and evaluation of CCCC’s impact; (4) an explanation of how “CCCC will prioritize partnership over independence if its conference continues within NCTE in the future.”

The CCCC EC responded with significant budget cuts eliminating the projected budget deficit and presenting a list of priorities for moving forward. The EC explained that given the timing of this request over the summer, the all-volunteer, unpaid EC was not able to provide the third or fourth items, and instead opted to prioritize items that directly pertain to their fiscal responsibilities.

Members of NCTE’s Presidential Team met with the CCCC Chair and Associate Chair informing them that the response was not complete, CCCC was jeopardizing NCTE’s non-profit status, and NCTE would dissolve CCCC and absorb its membership into the college section.
Neither the NCTE Presidential Team nor the NCTE Executive Committee ever met with either the CCCC Officers Committee or the CCCC Executive Committee to investigate or otherwise discuss concerns with regard to CCCC’s budget, membership numbers, or “governance challenges” at any time within at least the last four years.
CCCC leaders made multiple requests to meet with NCTE leadership in the summer of 2026 prior to the de-chartering. CCCC leadership also asked NCTE Executive Director Emily Kirkpatrick to host a Town Hall with the CCCC Executive Committee. All such requests were either ignored or declined.
Among the “governance challenges” mentioned by NCTE leadership was the size of the CCCC Executive Committee, a result of governance revisions that took place in 2022. Yet two members of the committee that led the governance revisions were selected to serve on the “transition team” convened by NCTE leadership after the de-chartering.

Given the facts listed above, we find NCTE’s stated reasons for de-chartering CCCC to be baseless and without merit.

Although we continue to have more questions than answers, we believe there are other, far more plausible reasons that may have led to NCTE’s decision to dismantle CCCC:

CCCC Executive Secretary-Treasurer Emily Kirkpatrick’s failure to serve as an actual leader of CCCC, including her unwillingness to attend Officers, Executive Committee, or Annual Business Meetings over the last few years let alone to get to know CCCC members, our profession, or the concerns that have been impacting us.
CCCC leadership repeatedly pressing NCTE for answers to important and necessary questions about the organization’s finances that NCTE Executive Director Emily Kirkpatrick did not want to have to answer.
NCTE may be seeking to co-opt CCCC’s reserves to address its own budgetary deficit.
NCTE taking Big Tech money via its Google.org AI grant at the same time that CCCC leadership had been taking a much more critical view of generative AI and not long before CCCC passed the 2026 resolution insisting on academic freedom and the right for students and teachers to refuse generative AI by a vote of attendees at the Annual Business Meeting in Cleveland.
CCCC’s culture of democratic deliberation and open dissent being at odds with NCTE and Emily Kirkpatrick’s authoritarian leadership style.
Hurt feelings and a bruised ego since the time Past CCCC Chair Adam Banks presciently resigned in protest of racial discrimination in the hiring process that led to Kirkpatrick being named NCTE Executive Director in 2015.

With that being said, we have no confidence in the leadership of NCTE Executive Director Emily Kirkpatrick, the NCTE Presidential Team Antero Garcia, Detra Price, Jamal A. Cooks, and Tonya B. Perry, and the NCTE Executive Committee.

Not only do they fail to understand the gravity of their votes, but their utter lack of care or concern for the CCCC community demonstrates that they are not able to responsibly lead any effort in support of college composition and writing studies.

Moving forward, we support the creation of a new independent writing studies organization that continues the best parts of CCCC’s 77-year legacy—that foregrounds social justice, equity, and Black linguistic justice in composition, rhetoric, and writing studies teaching, research, and program administration; that understands that all writing is political; that pushes for more livable and equitable working conditions for all members of our profession; that continually strives for access; and that supports the continuation of our caucuses, SGs, and SIGs.

In other words, all things made possible as a result of the long history of dedicated work and advocacy of CCCC’s Black, Indigenous, Latinx, Asian/Asian American, queer, disabled, working class, and other multiply marginalized members and leaders. Independence from NCTE will enable us to create a new organization where leaders are open and honest with members, unhindered by secretive confidentiality agreements; can communicate with members openly and access any member feedback including post-convention survey responses; and are transparent about the financial workings of the organization.

We invite you to stand with us by:

adding your signature in support of this letter by completing the form below;
sharing this letter with other past or current CCCC members;
speaking up about your questions and concerns with regard to the de-chartering:
donating to the GoFundMe for legal representation if you are able to do so; and
standing alongside us as we finish out our respective terms as CCCC leaders, and as we move toward the creation of an independent writing studies organization.

Add your signature in support of this letter.

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Thank you for your response. ✨

Appendix A: Ideas Provided by CCCC Leadership for Increasing Revenue

*Not an exhaustive list.

Implementing an income-based tiered membership fee structure
Fundraising—enabling and inviting donations to the organization; allowing the option to earmark donations to CCCC specifically on NCTE’s donations page
Hiring a grant writer
Adjusting siting policy to rotate among a handful of (4–5) large metropolitan convention sites as a way to possibly negotiate better terms, enable attendees to know what to expect in terms of siting, and get to familiarize themselves with convention locales and the communities that reside in them. (Suggestion made on the basis of past attendance data.)
Adjusting marketing approach, e.g., inviting leadership or members to help brainstorm benefits that will speak to potential members, contacting writing faculty local to the convention site to invite them to submit a proposal to the CFP
Partnering with universities to provide some financial support (e.g., purchase books to give away or merch to sell for a small fee)
Adjusting approach to contracts to intentionally plan for a smaller convention
Announcing hybrid/remote participation options when the CFP is made available, to encourage broader participation.
Alternating or rotating between online and in person Convention years (the Convention is profitable when delivered entirely online).
Moving to a digital or print-on-demand program that convention attendees can purchase
Designing and selling CCCC merch (shirts, mugs, totes, pencils, etc.)
Developing a Summer Publishing Institute
Improving member communications

Appendix B: Questions Past and Present CCCC Members Can Ask NCTE’s Executive Committee

It’s been reported that NCTE leadership stated that “the ‘culture’ of CCCC threatened NCTE’s nonprofit status.” Can you help me understand how so?
NCTE’s announcement about the de-chartering of CCCC states that “CCCC has struggled with its fiscal sustainability, declining participation, and governance challenges.” How is it that an organization that still has some 2500 members and $4.6 million in reserves was in such financial disrepair that it needed to be immediately de-chartered as a result?
Why did CCCC need to be immediately de-chartered even though the CCCC EC submitted a proposed budget that addressed the deficit?
Inside Higher Ed reported that “CCCC leaders suggested a variety of revenue-raising mechanisms, including income-based tiered membership fees, the option to earmark NCTE donations specifically for CCCC and partnering with universities for financial support.” Why were these (and potentially other) suggestions dismissed by NCTE if CCCC was in such a dire financial situation?
Will you be more specific about the “governance challenges” CCCC was facing?
Why was CCCC leadership required to sign confidentiality agreements every year?
What will happen to CCCC’s $4.6 million in reserves?
Will you tell me more about the past “attempts to work collaboratively with CCCC’s executive committees across multiple iterations.” How were these collaborations supposed to work when NCTE leadership was not meeting with the CCCC Executive Committee?
How is it that CCCC’s reserves were increasing substantially at the same time that membership had been declining?
NCTE President Antero Garcia’s letter states that “the history also includes decades of episodic conversations regarding CCCC’s interest in separating from NCTE and to have autonomy to operate outside of our organization.” What do these “episodic conversations” have to do with the decision to de-charter CCCC?
Why did the NCTE Executive Committee not meet with the CCCC EC before voting to de-charter a 77-year-old organization? Why didn’t the NCTE Executive Committee consult CCCC members before voting to de-charter the organization?
Will Emily Kirkpatrick and Antero Garcia be present at CCCC 2027 in Milwaukee? Will NCTE leadership host a town hall to answer questions and hold space for members of the CCCC community who are concerned about the future of the discipline and its place within NCTE?

Appendix C: NCTE Executive Committee Contact Information

If you wish to contact NCTE regarding the de-chartering, we encourage you to email the entire NCTE Executive Committee; the entire EC voted to de-charter CCCC, and any emails that are not sent directly to individual members are unlikely to be forwarded.

Executive Director: Emily Kirkpatrick

Presidential Team: Antero Garcia, Detra Price, Jamal Cooks, Tonya Perry

Representatives-at-Large: Kari Johnston, Vivett Dukes, Juliet Reed

Section Leaders: Laura Ascenzi-Moreno, Alex Corbitt, Rex Ovalle, Jonathan Bush

Conference and Association Leaders: Kofi Adisa, Nicholas Emmanuele, Keisha L. Green, Joanne Giordano, Lenny Sánchez

Full Email List: EKirkpatrick@ncte.org, antero.garcia@stanford.edu, price.151@osu.edu, jcooks@chabotcollege.edu, tperry@miles.edu, kari.johnston@austinisd.org, vivettdukes@gmail.com, julietr.reed@gmail.com, lascenzimoreno@brooklyn.cuny.edu, acorbitt@syr.edu, ROvalle@oprfhs.org, jonathan.bush@wmich.edu, kadisa@towson.edu, emmanuele@mtsd.org, klgreen@educ.umass.edu, joanne.giordano@slcc.edu, sanchezl@sc.edu

CCCC Leadership Response to NCTE’s De-Chartering of CCCC