Some 1000 people from around the world are expected at the JOFA Conference this weekend. Will you be there?
I’ve never been to a JOFA conference before. For four years, all through college, I heard from friends living in the NYC area about the amazing, paradigm-shifting discussions they’d gotten into there. I’d ask how friends of mine had met and the answer was “we had an amazing discussion at the JOFA conference.” It was apparently a huge part of the world for exactly my demographic. Unfortunately, Ithaca, NY, where I was in school, is not particularly close by, and I never had the chance to take off from school to head down just to have some conversations and meet some people.
When I served as a JOFA fellow on Cornell’s campus in 2010-2011, I felt like I was representing an organization of which I’d only seen a tiny little bit. The people I met through the fellowship, including the staff at JOFA, the speakers who came for the training session, and the scholars whose work I read on the JOFA website, kept referring to the personalities and works of other people, many of whom they’d heard from or met at the JOFA conference. Other fellows had become inspired by attending the conference in past years and that was what drove them to participate on their own campuses as leaders. I loved being isolated away at Cornell and I loved being Jewish and feminist there, (which you can hear more about by attending the college campus networking group during lunch at this year’s conference!) but now that I’ve graduated I’m excited to be part of a larger conversation. I’m finally going to make it to a JOFA conference!
So if you see me at the conference, come say hi! Let’s talk about the topics we’re hearing about at the conference, or let’s talk about other things! I’m so excited for all the things we’ll learn together!
Approximately 1000 people from around the world are expected to be at the 8th International JOFA Conference, Dec 7-8 at John Jay College, NYC. Will you be there?
