NCTE Leadership Award for People with Disabilities
2022 Recipient: Ada Hubrig (they/them)
Sam Houston State University
Ada Hubrig (they/them) is an autistic, nonbinary, disabled caretaker of cats. They live in Huntsville, Texas, where they work as an assistant professor, serving as English education coordinator and co-chair of the composition program at Sam Houston State University. Their research centers disability, drawing on disability justice and queer theory to create anti-ableist and anti-oppressive pedagogies centering multi-marginalized folx and promoting disability community.
Hubrig’s writing appears in College Composition and Communication, Teaching English in the Two-Year College, Pedagogy, Community Literacy Journal, Reflections, Journal of Multimodal Rhetoric, Present Tense, QED: A Journal in GLBTQ Worldmaking, among other journals, and in edited collections including The Routledge Handbook of Queer Rhetorics and the upcoming collection Deep Reading, Deep Learning. Their writing also appears in the Disability Visibility Project. Hubrig served as guest editor of TETYC’s special issue on disability, as well as an upcoming issue of SPARK on disability activism. With Christina Cedillo, Hubrig is editing an upcoming special issue of Community Literacy Journal on issues of access. Hubrig is managing editor of The Journal of Multimodal Rhetorics and is launching a sibling journal to JOMR, The Journal of Disability in Rhetoric and Writing Studies, to promote disabled, multiply marginalized scholars, coming in 2023.
Hubrig is currently co-chair of the CCCC Disability Studies Standing Group, co-chair of the NCTE Task Force to Support Gender Diversity, and a member of the Board of Directors of the Coalition for Community Writing. Previously, they served on the CCCC Nominating Committee and co-directed the Nebraska Writing Project.
“Literacy educators create access to ways of being, to communities, to whole new worlds. Literacy educators help us understand not only how to read written words, but how to read each other, our similarities, our differences. Literacy educators affirm what it means to be human, helping us make our way and find community in a complex, complicated world.”
Award Details
Overview:
This award demonstrates NCTE’s vision to strengthen an increasingly inclusive organization that provides more access to diverse voices. This award also helps promote cross-community connections and values and supports the agency of diverse leaders in the field.
Purpose:
To recognize a person with a disability who has made a significant contribution to NCTE and to the development of our professional community.
Frequency and Number of Awards:
This award will be bestowed only when the Award Selection Committee decides a nomination warrants presentation of the award. This award may not be given each year. This award may be given posthumously. Only one recipient will be selected each year.
Eligibility:
Any person with a disability can nominate themselves or be nominated for this award. NCTE recognizes that “disability” can have complex and sometimes competing meanings. It encompasses mental, physical, sensory, and other disabilities. Nominations will be sent to the Award Selection Committee, with the selected candidate forwarded to the Executive Committee. (Given the problematic history of required verification of disability, NCTE wishes to clarify that specific diagnoses are not required for this award.) The Executive Committee will approve the committee’s selection. All applicants, submitters, and nominees must be NCTE members at the time of submission. We remind nominators, nominees, and selection committee members that members of NCTE Conferences—CCCC, CEL, ELATE, LLA, and TYCA—are members, by definition, of NCTE.
Current NCTE Executive Committee members are not eligible for this award. Recipients for this award are not eligible to receive any other Executive Committee approved awards in the same year, nor in the following year.
Nomination Requirements:
Required materials for submission are a cover letter or letter of nomination and a resume/CV.
Award Criteria:
The bold statements are the award criteria. The remaining statements are intended to describe some of the possibilities suggested in the criteria and are not intended to be rated individually. Please remember that individuals have different levels of access to various opportunities (for example, rural vs. urban instructors). In other words, what is the level of the nominee’s contribution based on the level of opportunity, resources, and support?
Significant contribution to NCTE
- Service to NCTE (national, regional, local, and campus levels as well as conferences, affiliates, assemblies, caucuses, etc.)
- Committees
- Elected roles
- Service “work” (serve at registration table, read proposals, etc.)
- Writing for/presenting at NCTE-affiliated conferences/publication venues
- Publish
- Present
- Edit or review
Development of our professional community
Professional communities focused on literacy learning can be varied (e.g., global, national, regional, and local/campus).
- Teaching
- Innovate classroom curriculum
- Develop district/state/national curriculum
- Scholarship
- Attend conferences
- Produce and share research or other scholarly activities
- Service
- Participate in and/or lead scholarly organizations
- Participate in and/or lead social justice–oriented organizations, especially those oriented around disability-related communities
- Professional development
- Design and/or deliver professional learning engagements for community members
Advancing people with disabilities
- Activities/work/processes that promote and support the advancement of people with disabilities in the profession, in literacy-related activities, and in public engagement
- Creating a culture of change in their school, community, and/or professional organization
Strong candidates tend to show strength in all three areas.
Selection Committee
The NCTE President appoints one Executive Committee member to serve as Chair and four NCTE members-at-large from relevant NCTE groups.
Nature of the Award:
- A plaque is given to the recipient during the NCTE Awards Session.
- The recipient will also receive:
- A complimentary NCTE Annual Convention registration
- Domestic round-trip coach airfare to the NCTE Annual Convention
- One night lodging (Friday) with meals
Deadline May 1
Please contact NCTEAwards@ncte.org with any questions.
The entry period for the the 2023 award is now closed.
NCTE Leadership Award for People with Disabilities Previous Recipients
2021
Christina V. Cedillo, University of Houston-Clear Lake
2020
Lisa Harmon-Martinez, Albuquerque High School
2019
Stephanie L. Kerschbaum, University of Delaware