In August 1989, at the workshop for new graduate teaching assistants and writing faculty at Texas Christian University, Gary Tate said, "Everything we do as writing teachers—and everything we have our students do—is an enactment of belief. To teach writing, then, is to enact theory. You don't need to go out and get a theory to base your teaching on, because you already have a theory, whether you realize it or not.
At the 2001 CCCC, a special interest group met for the first time. Jonathan Bush and Janet Alsup were the co-founders of this SIG, and members were primarily English educators who had completed graduate studies in rhetoric and composition; why else would they be attending the C’s? Five years later, the group—currently known as Composition/English Education Connections—has plans to meet at both CCCC and NCTE, and it is still evolving; however, “professional profile” patterns of participants have begun to emerge.