Arts & Humanities: Toward a Flourishing State?

Network for Academic Renewal Conference
November 3-5, 2011
Providence, Rhode Island

Call for Proposals

The deadline for submission of proposals has passed . If you submitted a proposal, you will receive notification about the status of your proposal by mid-May 2011. Questions may be directed to Siah Annand at annand@aacu.org.

Conference Themes
Writing a Strong Proposal
Session Formats
Become a LEAP Featured Session
How to Submit a Proposal
Dates to Remember

Conference Themes

The arts and humanities are the lifeblood of purposeful living and knowing. As liberal education in the twenty-first century demands dexterity and willingness to change, the arts and humanities must likewise evolve and reflect on their own evolution—alongside and within the traditional work of creation, interpretation, preservation. The world is being transformed in ways that underscore the need for interdisciplinary, transdisciplinary, and multidisciplinary thought, performance, practice, and pedagogy—an interweaving of knowledge, expression, and application essential to our collective future. For the sake of our students, the arts and humanities must address applied and integrative learning and personal and social responsibility—how and to what ends students are using their knowledge and skills, how students are able to work within real-world contexts, integrating and applying their learning as this global century demands. We invite faculty from all disciplines and fields, student affairs educators, community partners, academic administrators, and students themselves to engage in an exploration of the arts and humanities as they address the profound challenges of our time. We urge participants to incorporate performance into their proposals and to emphasize pedagogy.

The AAC&U Network for Academic Renewal Conference Toward a Flourishing State? Arts & Humanities, the Cultural Fabric of Society invites proposals addressing four themes:

Theme 1: The arts and humanities engaged by big questions, both contemporary and enduring

Is it possible for students to be globally prepared without the arts and humanities?
How to work with organizational tensions, forces of fragmentation, specialization, and integration? What is the academic culture of the arts and humanities? How can it be more collaborative and open to other disciplines?
How are changes in higher education affecting forms of scholarship and faculty professional identity as artists and humanists?
What tensions emerge when the imperatives of workforce development meet the arts and humanities?
How to define value in the arts and humanities in our moment and for the future?
How to address religion and the making of meaning?
How to survive and thrive in an economy of constraints and move toward bold initiatives and leadership?

Theme 2: The arts and humanities practiced extensively across the curriculum, engaging creativity, critical thinking, inquiry and analysis, and an array of literacies

How to re-conceptualize or re-vision the arts and humanities in a utilitarian world?
How to develop visual literacy within the landscape of information?
How to integrate the arts and humanities with social sciences and sciences for work in emerging fields? How to integrate the humanities and the performing arts?
How can the arts and humanities intervene to change and challenge cultural decline?
How to address reading and other literacies across all media: texts, arts, experiences, film, internet, social media, talk radio, and TV?

Theme 3: The arts and humanities as human expression, anchored through active involvement in civic life, in local and global communities, addressing real-world challenges across people’s lives

How do the arts and humanities address the nation’s evolving demographics and drive for equity in college access and success?
What is the role of arts and humanities in civic life and a democratic society?
How to make the case that connecting the arts and humanities to public history and the common good is an important mission of higher education? What is happening to the public intellectual?
Might we revitalize the arts and humanities within colleges and universities by situating them more closely and collaborating more intentionally with the communities within which these institutions exist? In P-20 context?
What is the role of the campus as a center of culture in a community? In enhancing the public sphere?

Theme 4: The arts and humanities in synthesis and advanced accomplishment, demonstrated through application and performance, using new pedagogies and forms of assessment

Can the arts and humanities lead in restructuring the university?
What are strategies and models that connect learning outcomes and assessment with pedagogies and effective educational practices?
How to use assessment to show the difference that learning in the arts and humanities makes?
How to address scholarship and pedagogies of engagement, integration, and creativity?
What works for millennial students?
How to create a culture of support for interdisciplinary, transdisciplinary, and multidisciplinary connections to and from arts and humanities, integrated across the curriculum?
What is the role of the arts and humanities in the creation of an ecosystem for innovation?
How to address the digital arts and humanities—resources, new scholarship, new teaching opportunities?
What can we know about the impact of multiculturalism on pedagogy and enhancement of cultural literacy and intercultural dialogue/learning?

Writing A Strong Proposal

Your proposal should consist of a session title, a brief abstract, and a longer session description accompanied by presenter names, titles, and institutional/organizational affiliations. The proposal should be clear and concise and your session title should accurately reflect the session content and theme which you have selected from one of the tracks above.

Experts in the field and AAC&U staff will review all proposals and make final selections by mid May. Reviewers will look favorably upon proposals that:

highlight practical models and/or innovative strategies along with processes for applying the work to a range of institution types or campus roles;
reflect sound theory or research and their potential contributions to student learning and success;
include findings from evaluation and assessment and ways to use the information to improve teaching and learning; and
model engaged and active learning and provide concrete take-aways that participants should expect from the session.

Tips

Include facilitators who bring diverse perspectives and life experiences to the topic your proposal addresses. AAC&U is committed to presenting conferences where sessions and the communities of participants reflect the diversity of our campuses.
Show how your session will be interactive. AAC&U Network conferences strive to engage participants in reflection, question and answer discussion, and strategic planning activities during sessions. Please do not plan to read a paper.
Provide a clear sense of how your session will unfold and be prepared to discuss lessons learned and effective approaches for overcoming challenges along the way. “Show and tell” submissions with little or no applicability to other institutions will not be considered.
Present work that has proven effective and is well beyond the planning stages.

Session Formats

There are four session formats from which to choose: (1) Workshop, (2) Seminar Session, (3) Poster Session, and (4) Facilitated Discussion.

Please select the format from the list below that will most effectively advance participants’ understanding and potential use of your work.

Format 1: Workshop (90 min.; 2-3 facilitators; room set in round tables)
Workshops provide an opportunity for the facilitators to significantly engage participants in active learning about the session topic. Workshop facilitators should frame the topic, provide an overview of goals, describe the topic (model, strategy, practical examples that enhance participants’ learning), and discuss how they will guide participants through exercises or activities (including in small groups) that will help them advance their own efforts on campus.

Format 2: Seminar Session (75 min.; 2-3 facilitators; room set in round tables)
Seminar sessions present promising practices, theories or research findings applicable to a wide range of institution types. Seminar facilitators should describe the promising practice, study, tool or other innovation; describe how facilitators will engage participants in working through practical implications and applications of the practice; and allow time for participant questions and comments. Performance-based activities are invited.

Format 3: Poster Session (60 min.; 1-2 facilitators; 6’x3’ skirted table; 3’X4’ poster boards, electrical outlet and other supports provided as available and upon request)
Poster sessions combine visual displays of key information with written materials and small group interaction to create a more individualized learning experience. These sessions can include 3’x 4’ boards to display text, diagrams, pictures, and/or graphs that depict program components, findings, samples of student work, and participant testimony. Posters should describe the visual text, data, display, etc. and indicate how the data or information will be useful to a particular or multiple sectors of higher education.

Format 4: Facilitated Discussion (60 min.; 1-2 facilitators; room set in round tables; no audio-visual)
Facilitated discussions provide time for colleagues to share expertise and experiences on a topic of similar interest. They provide a valuable opportunity to network and reflect upon complex ideas, challenges, and possible solutions in a collaborative and supportive setting. Facilitators should describe the topic for discussion; indicate the facilitators’ experience with the issue and how they will prompt and sustain conversation among all participants.

Become a LEAP Featured Session

Conference sessions designated as “LEAP Featured Sessions” are intended to highlight the innovative work of colleges and universities that are members of AAC&U’s LEAP Campus Action Network (CAN). Featured Sessions make explicit links between campus-based educational reform and the essential learning outcomes, principles of excellence, and high-impact practices described in AAC&U’s Liberal Education and America’s Promise (LEAP) initiative.

For more information on applying to have your conference session designated as a LEAP Featured Session, visit www.aacu.org/leap/can/FeaturedSessions.cfm.

Submitting A Proposal

The deadline for proposal submission has passed. Please direct any questions to Siah Annand at annand@aacu.org.

Notification

Upon submission of your proposal, you should receive an automatic message indicating that we have received your proposal. If you do not receive this message, please e-mail Siah Annand at annand@aacu.org to confirm that we have received your proposal.

Acceptance

You will receive notification about the status of your proposal by mid May, 2011.

Registration Fees

All session facilitators at the conference are responsible for the appropriate conference registration fees, travel, and hotel expenses. Please be sure all individuals in your proposal have this information and can be available to present at any time throughout the event. Presentation times range from Thursday, November 3, 2011 beginning at 8:30 p.m. through Saturday, November 5 at 12:00 noon.

Resources for Attendees of Your Session

Conference participants appreciate receiving materials that help them prepare in advance for sessions and implement new ideas when they return to campus. To encourage active participation in sessions, we strongly encourage facilitators to provide links to online resources and advanced readings in their proposal or as soon as they become available before the conference. We will include these links in the preliminary program when it is posted online. After the conference, all presenters will be asked to provide additional electronic resources that will be posted on the conference Web site.

Final Reminders

Please complete all fields in the submission form including title and contact information for all additional facilitators.

Include links to supplemental materials, if available.

lease remember that by submitting a proposal, you agree to:

Register and pay conference fees if the proposal is accepted; and
Inform your co-facilitators about the proposal’s status and the need for all facilitators to pay the conference registration fees and be available throughout the event to present your work as scheduled.

Dates to Remember

March 31, 2011 Proposals due to AAC&U
Mid-May, 2011 Proposal acceptance notification