The Renaissance and Renewal Pillar of the United Jewish Communities is pleased to announce a new initiative in adult Jewish education. We will for the first time be co-collaborating on the Alliance for Adult Jewish Learning Conference, June 9-11, 2002 in Chicago, IL. Renaissance and Renewal will be co-collaborating on the conference with the Alliance for Adult Jewish Learning, a professional group that each year brings together the top scholars in adult Jewish education for sessions on program development and professional development, and CFJE of Metropolitan Chicago. The chairs of the Alliance for Adult Jewish Learning Planning Committee include Jane Shapiro, Michael Bass and Jane West Walsh.

Over the last few years adult Jewish education has emerged as a central component of Renaissance and Renewal's national agenda. We are happy that we now have the occasion to provide an opportunity for local professionals and lay leaders in adult Jewish education to come together and learn from each other as well as from top scholars in the field. Our participation in this conference is just one element in what is planned to be a larger, ongoing initiative together with a number of national partners to assist communities in strengthening adult Jewish learning locally.

The theme for this year's conference is "Applying the Theory of Adult Education to the Art of Adult Jewish Learning". We will be joined by our scholar in residence Dr. Elizabeth (Libby) Tisdell, Associate Professor in the Department of Adult and Continuing Education at National-Louis University. At the conference we will be addressing issues such as challenges of community collaboration, the spiritual development of adults, adult learning development, beyond Judaism 101, distance learning for adult Jewish education, evaluation of adult Jewish learning programs and building effective adult Jewish learning programs in your community.

Ideally we hope that teams of professionals and lay leaders in each community will choose to participate together in the conference. We hope that communities will recruit participants from the federations, JCCs, synagogues and central agencies for Jewish education as well as any other agency that is dedicated to the growth of the field of adult Jewish learning.

Registration materials for the conference are attached. Please feel free download as many copies as you need. Please plan on joining us for this important opportunity to meet with leaders in the field of adult Jewish education and learn from our colleagues across the country.