Professors of Curriculum

The organization known as the Professors of Curriculum (POC) had its beginnings in 1944 when Hollis Caswell of Teachers College, Columbia University, invited a group of colleagues to meet informally to discuss their work. They began their meetings close to the time that the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD) was formed and began meeting formally at the annual ASCD Conferences in 1945. These individuals were seriously committed to informality (with no president or secretary). They did, however, decide to select a “factotum” each year to call the group together, and to be in charge of handling any issues or problems the group might have in coming together each year, such as hotel meeting space and refreshments. Attendance was extremely important, and failure to come to at least one meeting every three years would result in that member being dropped from POC. Initially, membership in POC was around 35, but grew to 75 by the 1970s and was more than 100 by the late 1990s. This somewhat informal group has as its basic criteria for membership that each individual actually teach a curriculum course at a college or university. In more recent years, a number of international members have been asked to join POC based on their teaching and scholarly work. As members leave the organization, a membership committee yearly recommends potential new members and invites them to the yearly meeting. At the close of each annual meeting, current members hold a business meeting to elect a new factotum for the next year, vote on potential new members, and discuss any financial issues.

The group continued meeting in conjunction with ASCD until the late 1970s when the annual American Educational Research Association (AERA) conference began attracting college professors of curriculum and supervision. The POC decided to hold a second formal meeting at AERA in 1977, with the ASCD meeting still identified as the main meeting and where the formal business meeting took place. By the late 1990s, a third organizationthe American Association for Teaching and Curriculum (AATC)began attracting curriculum and supervision professors, so a third meeting place was identified in 2000. By 2000, the POC members could meet at any of three conferencesASCD, AERA, or AATCto keep their membership active in POC. Informal business meetings were being held at both the AERA and AATC conferences, with the formal business meeting remaining at ASCD until 2006. In 2006, the membership of POC voted to sanction only one meeting per year, and that meeting would be held in conjunction with the annual AERA Conference.

Membership for 2008 was limited to 125 regular members with emeritus status upon request. At the 2008 meeting, there were 111 regular members with an additional 54 identified as holding emeritus status. Membership continues to be by invitation only with a panel of POC members reviewing teaching responsibilities and supporting scholarly documentation.