Honored to be Recognized By The Coalition of Community Writing For @CWPFairfield's Ubuntu Academy @FairfieldU

Last night, I had the pleasure of representing CWP-Fairfield on behalf of Fairfield University and the incredible educators, William King and Jessica Baldizon, who have helped carry Ubuntu Academy forward for the past six years. The work, as well as Fairfield University's refugee mentoring program and several service-learning courses were named with an outstanding college-community partnership award. A collaborative project of 23 years with several Universities to promote the writing of girls and women received the top prize.

It's all good - CWP-Fairfield's Ubuntu Academy, was recognized on the national stage amongst rhet/comp scholars and journalist scholars, so that is a tremendous thing to be proud of. I am awaiting the words that were read about CWP-Fairfield on the stage, because the feedback on our work from the review community was stellar. Actually, I would even call it phenomenal and I stood in the crowd with much happiness as the reviewers comments were read.

I was also lucky to have Dr. Betsy Bowen from the English Department with me in her role as Faculty Chair of Service Learning. She's been a tremendous champion for me at Fairfield University and a wonderful supporter of the CWP work. On Saturday, she and I, along with Dr. Michelle Farrell of the Spanish Department, will be giving a paper on accompaniment, writing, community service and the Jesuit tradition. It will be our first time presenting together on our individual, yet collaborative work.

They took several pictures of the two of us with the award but 50% of them were with my eyes closed and the other 50% of them were with her eyes closed. This is the only one that has our eyes open, but the working of the award is blurred out. That is Crandall luck right there.

This is my first time spending extensive time in Philly and I enjoyed walking around the city and getting the big-city feel. I guess I didn't anticipate that so much of it would have the NYC vibe, but it definitely is a location that doesn't quiet down for long.

This morning, I'm going to meet NWP people who live in the area for breakfast, and then I will move into a day of conference sessions.

The recognition, of course, belongs to the beautiful young people who participate in our summer programs, the incredible teachers who give their life energy to their success, and to everyone and all who helps us fund summer literacy programs for immigrant- and refugee-background youth. This is true for all the young people served by CWP-Fairfield each summer, too.

I am thankful for this conference and for the invitation to present and attend. We believe in writing and definitely the power of putting pens in the hands of young writers.

I am, because we are. #Ubuntu. I feel blessed.