About the English Articulation Conference

The English Articulation Conference, sponsored by the Department of English at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, began as an occasion at which two- and four-year college English teachers could discuss the diverse curricular and pedagogical practices they bring to their common project: preparing college students to feel at home with words as critical readers and effective writers. This remains the conference's mission.

Although the Illinois Articulation Initiative has formalized content standards for the various English courses that students may transfer from one Illinois college or university to another, there remains a strong need to maintain the face-to-face ties that make institutional articulation possible.

The business of articulation aside, we have much to learn from one another about what works and what doesn't in the English classroom.  In recent years some 10,500 students annually have transferred from Illinois community colleges to public universities , and nearly another 6,000 annually have made the move from two-year to independent four-year colleges . At the same time, roughly 5,000 students have moved every year from public and private four-year schools to two-year institutions, not to mention the countless thousands who have shifted among the state's many community colleges. It is the desire to serve these students—and serve them well—that keeps Illinois college and university teachers of English returning to the Articulation conference year after year.

Links to previous years' conference websites (those still available):
2007 :: 2006 :: 2005 :: 2004 :: 2003 :: 2001

Conference Coordinator:
Jessica L. Bannon
Assistant to the Director of Freshman Rhetoric
Department of English
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
608 S. Wright St.
Urbana, IL 61801
phone: (217) 333-1006 fax: (217) 333-4321
email: jbannon@uiuc.edu

Conference Director:
Paul Prior
Director of Freshman Rhetoric
Associate Professor of English
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
phone: (217) 333-1006
email: pprior@uiuc.edu