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Each year, the Board of Directors of the Northeast Conference chooses a gift for that year's conference chair to thank him or her for the many contributions s/he will have made to the health of the organization, to the success of the conference, and to the profession. In 2007, the consensus among Board members was clear: Conference Chair Marjorie Hall Haley would be most gratified by a gift that benefited a graduate student. For years, she had facilitated attendance at the Northeast Conference by "her teachers," whether by arranging transportation for a group, helping them with the registration process, or, most famously, allowing them to sleep in their sleeping bags on her hotel room floor! The Board was thus thrilled to be able to create a scholarship named for her and even more thrilled by the commitment of Annenberg Media to fund that scholarship. It was a unique event in the organization's history, reflective of the uniqueness that makes Marjorie Hall Haley such an apt recipient of the Brooks Award for Leadership.
Dr. Haley has honored the profession in general, and NECTFL and its constituents in particular, with gifts of her time, creativity, expertise, patience, generosity, intelligence, thoughtfulness and hard work. She has done so with unfailing discretion and with no expectation of reward. Her influence on and contributions to the myriad branches of our profession, second language acquisition research (notably integrating Gardner's theories of multiple intelligences), teacher licensure programming, professional development activities, bilingual education, reflective practice, and work with diverse learners, are seemingly limitless. Furthermore, she has facilitated conversation with those outside our field through her presentations at international meetings such as AERA and through her willingness to bring the perspectives of such meetings to her work in foreign and second language learning. That she can engage in that degree of professional activity, and yet also win teaching awards at George Mason University (where she is a tenured full professor, Coordinator of Foreign Language and Latin [PK-12] and Co-Coordinator of Multilingual/ Multicultural Education) and still participate so centrally in complex endeavors such as Mason's Freeman Foundation grant for Chinese language licensure, speaks potently to the appropriateness of presenting her with the Brooks Award.
Dr. Haley excels in a broad range of pursuits, all the while sustaining a scholarly investigative agenda notable for its depth. She embraces and embodies the notion that one most fully enhances one's own work by sharing it. Her work in all areas reflects her understanding that research findings must shape practice, and that the practice of research is a sine qua non of good teaching. She is able to set extremely high standards, partly through careful and caring attention to students' challenges and even failures. She has made it her mission to ensure that less experienced writers are encouraged and empowered to publish. Just as she provides feedback on her students' written work, so she also mentors fledgling authors, whether new or veteran teachers, across the country.
Dr. Haley conducted workshops and sessions at our annual meeting for a number of years prior to her election to the Board of Directors and, four years later, to the position of Conference Chair. In spring 2007, Dr. Haley thus presided over an innovative and outstanding meeting, the highlight of which was distribution of a DVD resource kit on teaching diverse student populations to all conference attendees. The value of this kit was enhanced by a multimedia, readers' theater-style performance presented during the conference. Both the DVD and the performance owe not just their success but their existence to Dr. Haley's close, meaningful interactions with teachers at all levels of instruction. Through her dedicated outreach to urban school district teachers and administrators, as well as through her many invitations to keynote meetings and present papers, Dr. Haley is ensuring that the DVD continues to have an impact on teaching and learning where it is needed most.
Dr. Haley has also brought her talents and commitment to some of the most significant endeavors undertaken in our profession over the past decade. As with the Freeman Foundation grant, Dr. Haley's choices reflect both an unwavering idealism as to what can be done and a pragmatic understanding of what must be done. Her work with the WGBH/ Annenberg video series, the National Network for Early Language Learning, the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS), the Interstate New Teacher Assessment and Support Consortium (INTASC), the Academic Exchange Quarterly, and the New York City Department of Education's Office of English Language Learners are but a few examples of her leadership.
The Northeast Conference Board invites attendees at its 56th annual meeting to join with them in celebrating the achievements of Dr. Marjorie Hall Haley and in thanking her warmly for dedicating her professional life to teachers.
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