It’s not too early to get ready for NCA’s 109th Annual Convention in National Harbor, Md., located just minutes from downtown Washington, DC. This year’s event will be held November 16-19, with some business meetings and Preconference sessions scheduled for November 15.
Submissions are now being accepted. Nearly 100 interest groups, affiliate organizations, and special series have issued calls for papers, panel discussions, posters, and other submissions based on the concept of “Freedom,” the convention theme. The deadline for proposal submissions is March 29, 2023, at 11:59 p.m. (PST). Learn how to submit a proposal and more about the convention at NCA Convention Central.
There will be much information to share about the upcoming annual convention in future editions of Spectra.
tours the Gaylord National
In January, Marnel Niles Goins, NCA’s First Vice President and Primary Program Planner for the annual convention, toured many of the meeting and sleeping rooms, entertainment venues, and exhibit spaces thousands of convention goers will use when they gather this fall at the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center. “It’s an absolutely beautiful hotel with welcoming and personable staff, and a variety of food to meet almost every dietary need,” said Goins who made the site visit with NCA’s Kristin Yednock, Director of Convention and Meetings.
On "Freedom"
“Human communication plays a critical role in our understanding of what it means to be free. Through Communication, we determine if we ourselves are free and create our personal and collective journeys to become or remain free,” wrote Marnel Niles Goins NCA’s First Vice President and Primary Program Planner, when she invited Association members and friends to make convention submissions.
“While the idea of freedom has been discussed for centuries and across cultures, central questions remain: What does it mean to be free? Is freedom, simply, the state of not being imprisoned or enslaved? Where do we find freedom and how do we get there? Are we free now? Has freedom been reached in the past? Is freedom a goal of the future? Who is free?” These are the kinds of questions Goins said she hopes convention participants will “interrogate through scholarship that represents the diversity of our discipline.”
Kristen Hayes-Campbell, a Washington, D.C. artist, created the vibrant, abstract artwork Goins chose for the annual convention logo. This piece, titled, “Days Well Spent Series #2,” overlaps space, movement, and color to demonstrate the freedom of giving life. Hayes-Campbell said she used acrylic, hand-painted collage, and oil pastel to create this work during a time of self-restoration and transformation. “Through an array of colors, the artist represents the hope of what freedom can be,” Goins said. “It was important to me to use a piece like this for the annual convention, as it allowed me to really envision, in distinct hues, what the 2023 convention could look like.”