JNCL Language Advocacy Day 2022 February 2-4, 2022 Virtual/Washington D.C. The Language Advocacy Day is organized by the Joint National Committee for Languages (JNCL). Language Advocacy Day (or LAD for short) is part advocacy and part full-day policy forum that brings together national representatives of the Language Enterprise concerned about the state of language learning in this country. JNCL schedules the meetings on Capitol Hill with attendee’s representatives and provides the information and essential talking points to let their representatives know that “multilingualism is not the future; it is right now” and that languages are critical for job growth, national security and social justice. The LAD 2022 was a virtual event and we were all impressed at how organized the whole event was and impactful the virtual visits went. There were 244 advocates from all 50 states and the District of Columbia! NC LAD22 Delegation - Familiar SCOLT Faces!
As the event was virtual, the expense to send a representative to LAD was much lower than in other years. This allowed SCOLT to support multiple representatives. Dr. Leslie Baldwin, Executive Director, Dr. Bobby Hobgood, Past President, Dr. Krista Chambless, President, Bonnie Wang, Program Co-Director, and Mark Linsky, past Co-Director represented the organization well! Wednesday February 3 started with an overview of the 2 days, hints and tips from Capitol Hill staff on meetings and the review of the asks for our delegations. The keynote speaker was the US Secretary of Education, Miguel Cardona. It was heartening to hear him express the need for a multilingual workforce and for high quality language programs.
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