MALEA POWELL

Portrait of a Volunteer

Malea Powell is associate professor of writing, rhetoric, and American cultures in the American Indian Studies Program at Michigan State University. She also is editor of SAIL: Studies in American Indian Literatures. In the following interview, she explains that her service to NCTE and CCCC is part of a commitment to contribute to her communities.     

What is your volunteer involvement with NCTE?

I spent several years working on the Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC) Scholars for the Dream Award selection committee, chaired that committee for a year, and helped coordinate the related Scholars for the Dream Network during the years that Gail Okawa chaired that committee. I served on the NCTE College Section nominating committee two years ago, and was just elected to the CCCC Executive Committee.

What keeps you motivated to volunteer?

Two things. First, when I started attending CCCC and NCTE conferences as an undergraduate, I received a lot of encouragement from people at the conferences, including people who were “officially” representing the organization. Folks like Jackie Royster and Victor Villanueva, Duane Roen and Rob Perrin really reached out to encourage and support me as a member of the NCTE/CCCC community even at that early stage in my career. So I see the willingness to serve the organization as a way to “pay back” the folks who took the time to help me. Second, community service is important to who I am, how I see myself as a human in the world. While I do lots of “local” service with Native groups in the area where I live, I also think that service to the larger NCTE/CCCC community is important. After all, I am a member of this community and, as such, I have a responsibility to it—to help it continue to be a community, and to help it remain a welcoming and functional space for others.

Can you describe a current volunteer role you have with the Council; what does it entail?

Although I didn’t serve on the CCCC Scholars for the Dream committee this year, I carry the sense of responsibility from my years of affiliation with that committee with me. Identifying “new” scholars of color who are trying to make contributions to our discipline and helping both to make those contributions more visible and to support those scholars are some of the most significant things that I do. And while this does include many conference activities—going to panels, socializing, and networking with folks—it also includes maintaining long-term personal relationships with those scholars—talking on the phone or on e-mail, giving advice about career-planning and job searches, reading and responding to manuscript submissions, and just being real with folks when they need
a sounding board.

What satisfactions do you derive from volunteering?

It keeps me humble and honest. I was taught that all people are important—volunteering reminds me how many ways we have to make contributions to the places where we live and work.

How has your affiliation with NCTE and volunteering improved your professional development and your career?

It’s given me a clearer sense of the breadth of English Studies, a finer awareness of how the strands of rhetoric, composition, literature, and linguistics work to inform “the discipline,” a more balanced sense of how to arrange my teaching, writing, and researching work within this discipline. I also have a much better idea of what it will take to change the things I don't like about the discipline, and the organization.

Why would you recommend volunteering to another NCTE member?

If you want to learn how the organization really works, and if you want to make the organization a welcoming and supportive space for others, this is the way to have an impact.