New York City Consortium for Adult Basic Education

In 1979, a group of educators met to address the special needs of the adult education community in New York City. Some of our founding members were: Alice Osman and Bonne August (CUNY), Myra Baum, Joan Miller and Fiona Armstrong (NYC DOE).The first conference was held at Fordham University at Lincoln Center in 1980.

Over the years, the Consortium's Planning Committee has included members from the NYS Education Department (Lois Matheson, Garrett Murphy), the Bank Street School of Education (Virginia Kwarta), the Brooklyn, Queens, and New York Library Systems, the Community Development Community (Fatiha Makloufi, Mae Dick, Hannah Letterman), CUNY Office of Academic Affairs (George Bock, Hazel King, Linda Brown) the IGLWU. District 65 UAWI the Consortium for Worker Education (Toby Emmer), the YMCA Literacy Partners (Mary Lee Raymond Diamond, Sally Ashley), NYC DOE/OACE (Hannah Letterman, Robin Asserson, Betty Gottfried, Jean Pilger, Judy Moses), Office of Educational Services/NJ Dept. of Corrections, Riverside Adult Language Center, Union Settlement Association (Maria Quiroga), and Project Renewal. From its inception, the Literacy Assistance Center has been closely associated with the ABE Conference. Jacqueline Cook, Dan Rabideau, Karen Griswald, Fran Richetti-Joyce, Beth Godley, Ira Yankwitt, Alecia D'Angelo, Mariann Fedele, Elyse Rudolph and Lisa Van Brackle have all played an integral role in the conference.