Call for Proposals

WHAT: Festival of Scholarship: Celebrating Collaborative Inquiry

WHEN: Thursday, April 10 – Saturday, April 12, 2008

WHERE: Western Washington University, Bellingham, WA

The purpose of this Festival is to deepen our understanding of collaborative inquiry and to explore new possibilities that promote the virtues and values of engaging multiple partners, perspectives, techniques, and modes of inquiry in our research projects.

The Festival will celebrate collaborative inquiry that welcomes the inclusion of student voice, from developing research questions and project goals through collaborative authorship! Participants will explore and reflect upon the responsible conduct of research, appropriate mentoring relationships, and intentional reflection on the meaning and use of collaboration in research and projects.

PROPOSAL SELECTION CRITERIA

Each participating institution will be responsible for screening and selecting up to three presentations to represent their campus. (Rationale and Alternative Vetting Process (doc))

We encourage you to begin now to identify potential projects from your campus that encompass innovative scholarly collaborations. We are seeking presentations in multiple presentation formats from all disciplines and perspectives.

In order to nurture dialogue, the presentations, performances, posters and/or workshops will be grouped by conference planners. Short formal presentations (10-15 minutes long) will be followed by facilitated discussion in which the themes, commonalities, and continuing questions will be explored.

Screening criteria should include:

• Does the project represent collaborative inquiry? (Students and faculty, student and student, university staff and students, students and community members, or any combination of these)
• Is the student voice clearly represented in the presentation?  (The preference is to have students included on presentation teams, but if this is not possible, the student voice should be clearly represented.)

Abstract submissions are due by midnight on December 1, 2007 and must include:

• The names and affiliations of each of the participants.
• An abstract clearly describing each proposed presentation. This abstract should be approximately one paragraph long and will be published in the Festival of Scholarship Program.
• A brief note explaining how the project demonstrates (1) collaborative inquiry and (2) student voice.

Suitable collaborative inquiry projects involving students might include:

• Student-faculty research or creative collaboration within a course, discipline, interdisciplinary project or /inter-institutional program
• Student-student collaborative research on a specific topic
• Student collaboration via the Internet or virtual environments
• Collaborative inquiry or action research between the institution and other community agencies or programs
• Individual research and reflection about scholarly collaboration

• The desired format (panel/roundtable, research presentation, workshop, poster, performance) for each presentation.

Sample presentation formats and sample topics might include such things as:

• Creative Performance – Investigating the role of Image Theater in understanding and reflecting upon new concepts (Collaborators: Student and faculty member or several students interested in and experienced in applied image theater, with a possible interactive demonstration)
• Paper Presentation - Investigating the role of small group dialogue on the learning environment of a residence hall (Collaborators: Residential Advisors and supervisors - Resident Director, Residence Life staff members)
• Workshop - Inquiry about mentoring roles and responsibilities in scientific research (Collaborators: Student and faculty member workshop facilitators and conference participants)
• Research Presentation – Investigating the migration habits and populations of seabirds in the North Puget Sound. (Collaborators:  Faculty and students observers)
• Roundtable Sessions - Presenting questions and reflections on undergraduate collaborative research and its effect on involvement in one’s education in an interactive discussion/presentation (Collaborators: Multiple students in a group collaborating on a topic in which they are all interested, with possible mentorship from an adult advisor)
• Poster Presentation - Investigating the social meaning of graffiti as a performance art (Collaborators: University students, professor, local school children and one or more graffiti artists)

Abstracts must be submitted by December 1, 2007 at: www.festivalofscholarship.com.

Organizers will announce final formats and groupings in early January 2008, at which time Conference Registration will be open.

CONFERENCE REGISTRATION

All conference participants will need to register in advance.

* Advance registration will be available on-line in January 2008. 
* Participants will choose the Festival sessions they wish to attend at the time of registration.
* The conference registration form will be available on this website: http://www.festivalscholar/register.shtml

Click here for the pdf version of this Call.