It’s already been a few weeks since ACPA 2013 and lots has already happened, but before I left for the conference I thought a little bit about what I wanted to accomplish in terms of my own learning, networking, and involvement.
One of the main things that I wanted to do was to get more involved with ACPA’s standing committees and commissions. Which I was able to accomplish to a limited extent thanks to volunteering at the Commission for Social Justice Educator’s table during the involvement showcase. I also was able to connect with some new colleagues who work with the Standing Committee for Men and Masculinities thanks to a colleague I met at ISJ. It was great seeing some awesome colleagues and meeting new ones! I just wish I was able to reconnect with more people who I didn’t have time to catch up with.
As for planning what educational sessions that I wanted to go to I tried to think about the gaps that I feel that I have in my professional knowledge and practice to get more information in those areas. Instead I focused a lot on gender programs to apply some new knowledge directly to an LLC proposal that I was working on at the time, facilitation training, and stress involved with students.
Looking back on the conference after a few weeks, the educational sessions were mostly great and gave me access to new knowledge. My focus on critical masculinity studies based in feminism really helped me think about some of the men and masculinity programming that I’ve been doing at Mason and how I can expand them to do more and be more effective. The social justice programs that I went to were focused on facilitation and I’m looking forward to getting the Art of Facilitation to help me expand my own skill set.
All in all it was a good conference with some great speakers, networking, and sessions. But Las Vegas was not the best location for a conference. They’re going to need to work on their network connectivity and the expensive wifi. Both were ridiculous! It’s also weird walking around casinos and streets where people are consistently drinking and in a haze. All in all, ACPA was great and I’m looking forward to Indianapolis in 2014!