NCTE LGBTQIA+ Advocacy & Leadership Award
2024 Recipient: Saurabh Anand
University of Georgia
सौरभ आनंद / ਸੌਰਭ ਆਨੰਦ / Saurabh Anand is a Rhetoric and Composition Studies doctoral student and an assistant director of the Willis Center of Writing housed in the Department of English at the University of Georgia. He grew up in Delhi, India and worked as an educational counselor and digital marketer before embarking on an international student journey in the United States as a master’s student Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) at Minnesota State University, Mankato (MNSU). At MNSU, he also taught English composition to multilingual writers.
His instructional resources and writing pedagogy scholarship, inspired by his being a writer in three languages and a speaker of five, led him to be awarded the prestigious 2024 Champion of Equity Award by the American Consortium for Equity in Education. His work, a blend of creative and scholarly, centers on the experiences of writers from Anglophone and German countries, transnational feminism perspectives on language education, and writing center work. The German Academic Exchange Program, also known as Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst, supported his study on multilingualism and writing center research, inspired by queering tutoring approaches emphasizing intersectionality in the writing center spaces.
He is committed to expanding the reach of his work across languages and academia as he writes for newspapers and popular media outlets on international students’ experiences and other educational affairs and policies. NCTE’s Forum, English Journal, and Writing Center Journal have published him.
Professional literacy educators are the first front-line workers laying the foundations for human rights in one’s life. Reading and writing diverse writers to cultivate critical thinking are great starts but cannot be a full stop. Educators gotta go and take their pupils to ground realities across national and international borders and languages to communities different than them – at times, similar too – to acknowledge the need for an equitable future.
Professional literacy educators, with their notable position across cultures, are essential bridge builders. They have the capacity to convey positive societal changes every day in small and not-so-small ways. They can evolve educational landscapes by uplifting diverse learners. This, at times, may require fighting the status quo, marching and knocking on doors of institutions and government offices to create space and argue policy-level changes favoring their learners’ needs and fostering a culture of understanding and empathy.
So far, I could do my bit for my students because of the teachers I mentioned, even though being gay was a punishable offense as per the Indian Penal Court under Section 377. Neither one has to be necessarily a teacher from the LGBTQ community to support LGBTQ students, nor do students need to be LGBTQ students to learn about the LGBTQ community. A professional literacy educator encourages everyone to engage in the honest act of learning the complexity of power relations in the society in which one breathes.
Award Details
Members of the LGBTQIA+ community have always been active in literacy teaching and learning; they also have been active members of NCTE. 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 member of the LGBTQIA+ community 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 member of the LGBTQIA+ community can nominate themselves or be nominated for this award. By LGBTQIA+ we mean lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer/questioning, intersex, and asexual; the plus indicates the inclusiveness of others who don’t identify as L, G, B, T, Q, I, or A, such as two spirit, pansexual, or others. Nominations will be sent to the Award Selection Committee, with the selected candidate forwarded to the Executive Committee. (Given the problematic history of labeling members of the LGBTQIA+ community, NCTE wishes to clarify that specific titles 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 of this award are not eligible to receive any other Executive Committee approved awards in the same year, nor in the following year.
Application/Submission/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.)
- Write for/present 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
- Professional development
- Design and/or deliver profession learning engagements for community members
Advancing members of the LGBTQIA+ community
- Activities/work/processes that promote and support the advancement of the LGBTQIA+ community 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
Application Deadline: May 1
Please contact NCTEawards@ncte.org with any questions.
LGBTQIA+ Advocacy & Leadership Award Previous Recipients
2023 shea wesley martin, The Ohio State University
2022 Henry “Cody” Miller, SUNY Brockport
2021 Stephanie Anne Shelton, The University of Alabama
2020 Roxanne Henkin, The University of Texas at San Antonio
2019 Mollie Blackburn, The Ohio State University