The Red River Graduate Student Conference (RRGSC) is a student organized event that concentrates on the field of English studies. This spring marks the 6th year that North Dakota State University (NDSU) graduate students from the English department have hosted this conference. The RRGSC began as an opportunity for NDSU English graduate students to practice running and participating in a professional conference. The following year, NDSU invited graduate students from neighboring English graduate programs to participate. Over the last four years, the range of participants has expanded to include 10 schools throughout North Dakota, South Dakota, and Minnesota*. Each year the number of participating schools that attend the conference has increased. This growth over such a short period of time represents the exciting interest and commitment area universities have shown in developing a community of practice. The 2009 conference will be held on Friday April 24th and Saturday April 25th. This later date will further accommodate first-year graduate students (allowing more time in preparing new work) as well as giving students completing their degree an opportunity to share their graduate papers and thesis projects.

*Participating schools to date include:

• North Dakota State University
• University of North Dakota
• Minnesota State University Moorhead
• Minnesota State University Mankato
• University of Minnesota
• University of Minnesota-Duluth
• St. Cloud State University
• University of South Dakota
• Winona State University

2008 RRGSC Wrap Up:

RRGSC 2008 enjoyed a wide variety of workshops and presentations that fostered professional development in our participants. On March 28th, we conducted eight different workshops on a number of pedagogical topics in the fields of composition and literature. These workshops explored important issues to the English classroom such as, integrating technology,confronting student apathy, employing new writing genres and incorporating literature in the composition classroom. On March 29th there were a total of thirty-seven presentations conducted by graduate students from seven different universities. There was an immense variety of topics to choose from. For literature, there were panels ranging from Early Modern Authors to 21st Century Graphic Novels. Gender Studies was also a prominent critical choice for many of our attendants as there were a number of presentations and panels dedicated to that subject. Studies in the field of composition were also held; many of them focusing on pedagogical issues in regard to first year English. However, the composition presentations were in no way limited to that subject, as there were also a number of presentations on Cultural studies and Classical Rhetoric. Aside from the presentations, we were fortunate to have Geoffrey Sirc as our key note speaker.Sirc added a certain unmistakable energy to our conference as he presented on issues of implementing technology in the composition classroom. Overall, we feel that RRGSC 2008 was a success, and had much to offer for graduate students in the realms of both pedagogy and scholarship.