Dear Colleagues and Friends,

Welcome to RSA 2022, RSA's 20th Biennial Conference!

This year's theme, "The Charge for Change," invites us to engage with rhetoric's purposes, demands, and energies in a "post-pandemic" world--a term we previously used hopefully but now do so advisedly, as if it were ever wise or even possible to suggest an ending point to what we have experienced, alone and together. Nevertheless, this theme gives us an opportunity to examine what the study of rhetoric can reveal about the tensions between the lure of returning to "normal" and the imperative to change. This tension is not new, and it is not unique to COVID-19. The pandemic's many impacts on how different people share different spaces has added another layer of awareness of the needs for reparative transformations and our shared responsibilities for the same. Over the conference weekend, in both the virtual and in-person platforms, we will engage with this idea, and many others, while we also share presence, friendship, and kinship.

Have a good conference, enjoy each other's company however you join, and take some time to restore and recharge.

With our best,

The RSA 2022 Conference Committee Co-Chairs:

Vanessa Beasley, Vanderbilt University

Martin Camper, Loyola University Maryland

Eric Detweiler, Middle Tennessee State University

Casey Ryan Kelly, University of Nebraska-Lincoln

Jennifer LeMesurier, Colgate University