The CGC Board has made the difficult decision to cancel the 2020 Summer Institute due to likely travel restrictions related to the outbreak of the novel coronavirus (“COVID-19”). We regret the need to cancel the event and will refund any registration fees already paid. 

2020 CGC Summer Institute

Duquesne University
Pittsburgh, PA

June 18 – 20, 2020

Meeting Graduate Communicators Where They Are

Call for Participation

The CGC Board has made the difficult decision to cancel the 2020 Summer Institute out due to likely travel restrictions related to the outbreak of the novel coronavirus (“COVID-19”). We regret the need to cancel the event and will refund any registration fees already paid in a timely manner. 

As higher education continues to evolve, our graduate students come from and are headed towards increasingly diverse settings. Embedded in the CGC mission statement is the recognition that many graduate students study in locations far removed from their home cultures and often in second and additional languages. Increased enrollments among students from historically unserved groups, such as students of color, first-generation graduate students, and students with disabilities, have enhanced diversity in the landscape of graduate education. 

Diversity is also emerging in terms of academic experience and pursuits. Graduate students may be enrolled in academic or professional certificates, or masters or doctoral degrees, and in programs that may be traditionally face-to-face, hybrid, or fully online. Furthermore, they may be full-time students supported by graduate assistantships or full-time professionals attending graduate school part time. And while some graduate students wish to pursue careers in the academy, many others choose entrepreneurship or careers in industry, government, and NGOs. Recognizing this trend, the Council of Graduate Schools and the National Academy of Sciences recommend that graduate programs focus attention on preparing students to enter a range of careers (National Academy of Sciences, 2018; Okahana, 2019). 

With this heterogeneity comes a complex set of communication needs. Graduate students bring with them a wealth of linguistic, communicative, cultural, and educational resources, yet university programming and institutional structures do not always (or often) support them in maximizing those assets to achieve their educational and professional goals. 

The 2020 CGC Summer Institute asks graduate communication professionals to consider the array of contexts in which graduate students must act as communicators, as well as the forms their communication may take. We invite participants to explore what it means to meet graduate students where they are.Such an inquiry might address questions like these:

• How do—and should—shifting demographics in graduate education shift our approaches to support? How do we work toward inclusion and equity for all students?
• What assets (from their languages, cultures, previous professions, past education, and home communities, etc.) do graduate students bring with them to their graduate programs, and how can we help them leverage those assets in service of their writing/communication and professional goals? 
• What do we know about where graduate students are, including when in their graduate careers they need and seek communication support, and how do we (institutionally, programmatically, as a research community) gather information about their communication needs and assets?
• What are the genres, modalities, and media of communication that graduate students use in their current and future educational and professional contexts, and how can we support their diverse communication needs? 
• What are the roles and potentials of technology for mediating, reshaping, enhancing, and scaling up graduate communication support?
• Who should decide what the priorities are for graduate student communication—and who should provide the resources to respond to those priorities?
• What partnerships among various spaces on campus do/could/should exist to enhance graduate communication support, no matter where graduate students are?

To explore these questions or other issues pertaining to meeting your graduate communicators where they are, the Institute will feature keynotes, works-in-progress sessions, workshops, and special-interest networking sessions. Participants are welcome to submit proposals for works-in-progress sessions, special-interest networking sessions, and workshops, or attend the Institute to “listen and learn.”

Registration is open as of Monday, January 13.

Proposals

Workshops
Proposals due Monday, March 2  by 11:59 PM EST
Submit a workshop proposal
Experienced practitioners will share nuts-and-bolts approaches to teaching- and administration- related topics in graduate communication support. Workshops will provide professional development opportunities for those who are new to the field or exploring new graduate communication initiatives or approaches. Workshops will take place on Thursday and Friday afternoons and will not incur a separate fee. Workshop leaders are invited to propose 90-minute sessions on an area of expertise in graduate communication support.

Please note that there will be limited slots for workshops, so it is possible that a number of qualified proposals will not be selected. For example, if we receive three proposals for oral communication workshops, we will likely only select one of them in the interest of providing a good range of workshop topics. All applicants whose workshops are not selected will be given the option to submit a Works-in-Progress proposal.

Workshop proposals will be reviewed and selected based on the following criteria:

• Proposal quality —Clarity of goals and deliverables, as well as emphasis on hands-on activities, will be considered in the selection process.
• Diversity of topics—We aim to offer workshops focused on topics that are relevant to participants from a wide range of backgrounds. For this reason, it is possible that a high quality proposal will not be chosen if the topic is too similar to one already in the lineup.
• Experience—Because the workshops are meant to give participants who are newer to graduate communication support the opportunity to learn from those with more experience, professional experience will be considered. We are not looking for “stars” in the field so much as perspective on the topic gained through trial and error.

Workshop proposals should provide the following information:

• Workshop title
• Workshop topic
• Names and institutional affiliations for all workshop speakers/ organizers
• A brief description of your qualifications for leading a workshop on this topic
• Intended audience
  • Is your workshop suitable for participants who work with students from a wide variety of backgrounds (L1, L2, international, domestic), or is it designed for participants who work with a specific student population? 
• Workshop description (limit: 500 words)
  • Describe each workshop organizer’s role.
  • What (if anything) should participants bring to the workshop?
  • What hands-on activities will participants engage in during the workshop?
  • What is the goal, outcome, or deliverable of the workshop?

Special Interest Networking Proposals 
Proposals due Friday, April 24, 2020 by 11:59 PM EST
Submit a proposal for a Special Interest Networking session
Many people attend the Summer Institute in order to interact with and learn from other practitioners who are engaged in similar projects. While the workshops and works-in-progress sessions offer the opportunity for interactions focused on a specific topic, there is also a need for less structured conversations, collaboration, and feedback. The purpose of these sessions is to fill this gap and allow for explicit time to network around issues and topics.

Participants who are interested in exploring a relevant topic in an informal setting are invited to propose a session of about 60 minutes and to serve as the facilitator of the discussion. 

Please note that these forums should not include formal presentations. Instead, they should provide an opportunity for open discussion. 

Special Interest Networking proposals should provide the following information: 

• Names of facilitators (limited to two)
• Session title 
• A brief description of the session that answers the following questions in no more than 250 words
  • What topic do you hope to discuss?
  • What is the exigency for this discussion, and what do you hope to accomplish?
  • Which other participants do you encourage to participate? (Information you might discuss here includes but is not limited to job descriptions, goals, and research, teaching, and or administrative interests.) In what ways might these participants benefit from the discussion? 
• A brief list of questions that you’ll invite participants to explore
• Strategies you might use to create an interactive discussion 

The number of Special Interest Networking sessions accepted will depend on space in the program. Session leaders will be notified of acceptance status shortly after registration closes. Those who are not selected to lead a session will be invited to give a works-in-progress presentation.

Works in Progress Presentations
Proposals due by Friday, April 24, 2020 by 11:59 PM EST
Submit a proposal for a works-in-progress presentation
Present a 10-minute synopsis of your work in graduate communication program administration, course design, pedagogy, tutoring, materials development, or research, and end with a problem or question for discussion. Presenters will be grouped in strands according to areas of interest in order to listen to each other’s presentations and engage in substantive discussion (approximately 20 minutes).  Enter a short abstract (limit: 250 words) of your presentation on the registration form. You will also be prompted to choose the strand that best fits your proposal:

1. Research—share work-in-progress reporting scholarly and/or institutional research
2. Pedagogy—share course designs, writing assignment designs, and pedagogical approaches,
3. Theory—what does theory look like in our context?
4. Tutoring Approaches/Communication support outside the classroom
5. Negotiating Campus Politics—working conditions, finding campus allies, arguing for budgets
6. Materials Development—textbooks, professional development materials, materials for courses and tutoring programs
7. Co-curricular support 
8. X Strand—none of the above but important to the work of graduate communication support

All works-in-progress proposals will be accepted, and presenters will be listed in the program.

Lightning Rounds
Proposals due by Friday, April 24, 2020 by 11:59 PM EST
Submit a proposal for a lightning round
Propose a lightning round talk to bring innovation, creativity, and maybe some humor to the Institute. A lightning round is a time-limited and slide-limited presentation format. Each presenter gives a 5-minute presentation accompanied by 15 slides that advance automatically every 20 seconds. Lightning rounds work well when you want to share a great idea, tell a story, or take a strong position on an issue. To propose a lightning round, submit a title and short abstract (limit: 250 words). 

Submitting Multiple Proposals 
Participants may submit once as a presenter or co-presenter in a workshop or works-in-progress session. That is, participants may submit as a presenter or co-presenter for one workshop or one works-in-progress session. In addition, participants can submit a separate proposal for a special interest networking session or for a lightning round.

Listen and Learn (Registration Only)
Registration open through Wednesday, June 3 by 11:59 PM EST 
Attend the institute, listen to the speakers, participate in workshops, attend works-in-progress strands, participate in the discussions, and take home ideas for your classes, programs, and research.

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Submit your proposal for a workshop, works-in-progress presentation, special-interest networking session, or lightning round.

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Register for the CGC Summer Institute at https://www.gradconsortium.org/events/#!event/2020/6/18/cgc-summer-institute-2020. 
Learn more about the CGC through our website: www.gradconsortium.org