Development Opportunities

AAC&U Annual Meeting - Global Positioning: Essential Learning, Student Success, and the Currency of U.S. Degrees

Sponsored by: AAC&U
Date: Wednesday, January 26, 2011 - 8:00am - Saturday, January 29, 2011 - 5:00pm
Registration Deadline: January 7, 2011
Location: San Francisco, CA, Hyatt Regency Hotel

About the Meeting

Pressed by competitive notions of “world class” education, by the imperatives of changing international economic and political power, and by student demands that their education include opportunities to creatively tackle real-world challenges, colleges and universities are striving to become more global. Their efforts are made both more difficult and more urgent because they are taking place in the context of unsettling economic instability, in the midst of profound demographic change, and in the face of wavering political commitment to broad learning. What characterizes a global college or university?

Student expectations are driven by similar concerns. Students seek an education that will help them thrive in the future and perhaps even change the world. They equate a high quality college education with an education that helps them find their place in the world.

These two closely related demands for global positioning come together where essential learning meets the urgent issues of today and the future. How do we design educational strategies for the dynamism of essential global learning? What areas of knowledge and types of skills are critical for the challenges and opportunities of the 21st century? How can students learn to change and adapt to new contexts and new demands? How do ideas about civic engagement and social responsibility translate to a global framework?

In sum, what is the global position of liberal education?

Such questions broaden current conversations about student success—defined not by the minimal level of completion but by the highest level of expectation. Educational success must be measured by our most ambitious striving for essential learning. College degrees will increasingly be judged by their global position (in a comparative and competitive sense) as well as their global positioning (how well they correlate to graduates who can compete in a global economy and act on their civic and ethical commitments in an interdependent and diverse world).

A global liberal education cannot afford to be neutral about democratic and global knowledge and engagement.

The 2011 Annual Meeting will showcase examples from institutions that are staking claim to new global positions and creating opportunities for students to find their own global identities by focusing with renewed intensity on aims, learning outcomes and assessments, curriculum designs, and progressively more challenging learning to develop students’ global capabilities.

• View Additional Information on the AAC&U Annual Meeting - Global Positioning: Essential Learning, Student Success, and the Currency of U.S. Degrees Development Opportunity

Call for Proposals

AAC&U invites proposals of substantive, engaging sessions that will raise provocative questions, engage participants in discussion, and create and encourage dialogue ⎯ before, during, and after the conference itself.

Below are suggested questions we invite you to address in your proposals. We welcome compelling session proposals on other issues as well.

Global Positioning for Institutional Success

• What does a global institution look like? What existing structures need to be changed? What are the implications of these changes for faculty members, administrators, staff, and students?
• How is the current economic and political landscape promoting or thwarting efforts to develop globally prepared students?
• Does global positioning require new kinds of partnerships? What are the characteristics of those partnerships?
• How is technology being put to use to make institutions more global?
• Where do the global and the local intersect?
• How will global institutions develop neglected talent from underserved communities in the US and abroad?

Global Positioning for Student Success

• What does a global institution look like from the student’s perspective? Are we successfully making the case that liberal education is essential learning for a Global Century?
• How are institutions capitalizing on global positioning to link outcomes frameworks to student support efforts?
• Are curricular designs up to date? Do they deliver the most valuable elements of global learning? Do they take advantage of high impact pedagogies?
• Are institutions rethinking and renewing general education to meet the needs of global positioning?
• What does a globally focused undergraduate education mean for the disciplines and for interdisciplinary study? Can we afford to pursue both paths to global learning?
• How can institutions frame global questions that put the sciences back in the liberal arts?

Global Positioning for Degrees of Success

• What is the currency of the US degree? What levels of essential learning does the degree signify?
• How are institutions and students assessing and demonstrating that learning?
• What are the roles of not-for-profits as well as for-profits in developing US capabilities?
• What are the lessons of the Bologna Process? And how might they be translated into strategies to tune disciplines in the United States?
• Are institutions fully developing the creativity and civility that graduates will need to imagine healthy global futures?

WRITING A STRONG PROPOSAL

We encourage proposals that raise provocative questions, engage participants in discussion, and create and encourage dialogue ⎯ before, during, and after the conference itself.

ALL PROPOSALS SHOULD REFLECT CURRENT WORK, RECENT FINDINGS, AND/ OR NEW PERSPECTIVES.

• Please identify the intended audience and active learning goals for the session (including what attendees will gain from going to the session – and how).
• Priority will be given to proposals that link the work of multiple institutions and reflect diverse perspectives, innovations, disciplines, and programmatic areas. Joint submissions from across campuses and campus-community partners are encouraged, and we particularly welcome student perspectives.
• The AAC&U audience particularly appreciates sessions that illustrate the perspectives of different organizational roles (e.g., faculty members, department chairs, deans, provosts).
• AAC&U is committed to presenting an annual meeting at which sessions and participants reflect the pluralism of our campus communities. Please include presenters who bring diverse perspectives and life experiences to the topic or issue your proposal addresses.
• We encourage proposals that address the challenges encountered – not just the successes. As noted in a meeting evaluation: “I appreciated hearing about how well a new program was working, but I found it more valuable to hear about some of the challenges that were eventually overcome.”
• Sessions should engage participants in thinking about how they might translate and adapt this research or project/model/innovation to their own institutions or professional settings. “Show and tell” submissions that have little or no applicability to other institutions will not be considered.
• We ask that you present work that has proven effective and is well beyond the planning stages.
• Do not read your paper at the Annual Meeting. This is the top complaint from audience members each year. Proposals that refer to the presentation as “this paper” will be not be considered.
• Finally, we pass along this comment from a participant at our 2010 meeting:

Presenters should be mindful of all that we know about good teaching practices. … Lecture-style presentations are as boring for us as they are for students.

LENGTH OF PRESENTATIONS
NOTE: Most sessions will be 60 or 75 minutes long, with a very limited number of 90-minute sessions. All sessions must include ample opportunities for dialogue with participants.

HOW TO SUBMIT A PROPOSAL
Electronic Submission: Please submit your proposal electronically as directed on the form. If
you need assistance, please contact Suzanne Hyers at hyers@aacu.org or call 202-387-3760.

Notification: You should receive an automatic message indicating receipt of your proposal when it is submitted. If you do not receive this message, please send an e-mail to Suzanne Hyers at hyers@aacu.org.

Final Confirmation re: Receipt of Proposal: AAC&U will send an e-mail on or before August 9, 2010, to every Contact Person as a final confirmation of receipt of your proposal. Please make a note of this. If you do not receive this e-mail, it is possible that your proposal was lost in the data transfer.

Acceptance: You will be notified via email by September 30, 2010, regarding the status of your proposal.

For more information, please visit the website at: http://www.aacu.org/meetings/annualmeeting/index.cfm

Submission Deadline Monday, July 19, 2010

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