Proposal submitters have been notified as to whether their proposals were accepted.
Regristration for the SI will open on this site on April 24th!
Please email summerinstitute@gradconsortium.org with any questions.
2026 Call for Proposals
Sustaining What Works, Imagining What’s Next: Building Graduate Communication for the Future
We invite graduate communication professionals to submit proposals for the 2026 Virtual Summer Institute (SI) of the Consortium on Graduate Communication (CGC). The SI’s theme—Sustaining What Works, Imagining What’s Next: Building Graduate Communication for the Future—invites us to reflect on the high-impact practices, partnerships, and pedagogical approaches that continue to serve graduate students well—while also envisioning and designing the next generation of graduate communication programs.
The 2026 CGC Summer Institute, hosted virtually by Colorado State University in Fort Collins, invites you to gather online to reflect on what is working well in our programs and to envision the landscape for the next decade of graduate communication. Join us online 12:00-5:00 p.m. EDT each day June 15th-18th for four days of collegial conversation, practical insights, and collaborative planning for a future where all graduate students can thrive as communicators.
Our theme acknowledges the evolving landscape of graduate education: shifting student needs, new modalities of communication, emerging technologies, uncertainties in higher education, and growing demands on our programs. It also underscores the Summer Institute as a space where our collective imagination, experience, and scholarship help shape what comes next for our field.
An engaging line-up of keynote and plenary speakers who will bring their expertise to the Summer Institute’s theme of Sustaining What Works, Imagining What’s Next: Building Graduate Communication for the Future:
- Dr. Chevelle Newsome, President of the Council of Graduate Schools
- Dr. Rowena Murray, Professor of Eduction and author of How to Write a Thesis and Writing in Social Spaces
- Dr. Natalia Ávila Reyes, Associate Professor of Education, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile
Join us virtually June 15-18, 2026, for an opportunity to reconnect with colleagues and consider how we might better sustain, scale, and innovate graduate communication in higher education.
Hosted by Colorado State University in Fort Collins, the 2026 CGC Virtual Summer Institute invites colleagues to gather online and explore research, program design, assessment strategies, and future directions for the field. Over the past decade, CGC Summer Institutes have supported rich cross-institutional conversations—work that remains essential as we build future-ready, resilient, and equitable graduate communication support structures.
The Consortium on Graduate Communication is an international association whose members provide professional development in written, oral, and multimodal communication to students before and during their (post-)graduate academic and professional programs. CGC members work with graduate students in their first and additional languages.
We offer the questions below as a starting point for proposals, but we also welcome participants to propose their own topics that extend our shared commitments to sustaining effective practices and imagining what’s next for graduate communication.
- Sustaining What Works: What practices, pedagogies, partnerships, or program models have proven especially effective in supporting graduate student communication? How do we maintain and scale successful initiatives in a time of shifting resources, technologies, and student demographics?
- Imagining What’s Next: What future-oriented approaches do we need to consider as graduate communication evolves? How might new theories, modalities, or collaborative structures help us design more resilient and inclusive programs?
- Innovation, Technology, and Change: How do emerging tools (from new learning platforms to generative AI) shape graduate communication? What innovations are enhancing (or challenging) writing, speaking, and multimodal communication pedagogies? What frameworks help us integrate technology in sustainable, ethical, and student-centered ways?
- Building for the Future: How can graduate communication professionals lead institutional change, influence policy, and advocate for long-term program sustainability? What research, assessment strategies, or models of professional leadership point toward effective and future-ready graduate communication support?
The Summer Institute will offer Research Presentations, Workshops, Works-in-Progress, Plenary and Keynote addresses (descriptions and proposal requirements follow), along with opportunities for informal conversation. Participants are welcome to submit proposals for any format except plenaries and keynotes, which are arranged by invitation.
All proposals are due March 13, 2026, by 11:59 PM EST
Research Presentations (Submit here: https://forms.gle/fjXdnuu8pmzR21oP8)
Research presentations designate a space to spotlight and cultivate research in the field of graduate communication. Research presentations recognize the ways that our field continues to grow and mature. Successful research proposals will share findings from completed research projects that are of substantial interest to the CGC community. Each research presentation will be 20 minutes with an additional 10 minutes for Q&A.
Please note that there will be limited slots for research presentations, so it may be that qualified proposals will not be selected as we prioritize presentations to speak across a wide range of topics. Research presentations that are not accepted will automatically be considered as works-in-progress presentations.
Research presentations will be reviewed and selected based on the following criteria:
- Quality of research: Successful proposals will feature a completed research project with clearly defined purpose, method, and implications.
- Relevance and significance of research: Priority will be given to research that has important implications for the work of CGC members.
- Diversity of research: We aim to showcase research on a wide range of issues in graduate communication support.
Research proposals should include the following information:
- Research title
- Names and institutional affiliations of all speakers
- Intended audience
- Are the findings likely to be useful for participants who work with students from a wide variety of backgrounds (L1, L2, international, domestic), or is the project designed for participants who work with a specific student population?
- A brief description of the presentation that answers the following questions in no more than 250 words (plus a shorter version of 50-70 words for the program):
- What was the impetus for the research?
- What research questions were investigated?
- Who were the participants?
- What method(s) was used?
- What are the findings and implications of the research, particularly for CGC members?
Workshops (Submit here: https://forms.gle/Ys4uBPKZQwHZSLMY8)
Workshops provide a space for experienced practitioners to share nuts-and-bolts approaches to various topics in graduate communication support. Workshops provide interactive, hands-on professional development opportunities for all participants, including those who are new to the field or are exploring new graduate communication initiatives or approaches. Workshop leaders are invited to propose 75-minute sessions on an area of graduate communication support.
Workshop proposals will be reviewed and selected based on the following criteria:
- Quality of proposal: 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 perspectives on the topic gained through trial and error.
Workshop proposals should include the following information:
- Workshop title
- Workshop topic
- Names and institutional affiliations of 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 (e.g., L1, L2, international, domestic), or is it designed for participants who work with a specific student population?
- A brief description of the workshop that answers the following questions in no more than 300 words (plus a 100-150 word version for the program):
- What questions or issues will the workshop raise and address?
- What (if anything) should participants bring to the workshop?
- What is the goal, outcome, or deliverable of the workshop?
- How will the workshop make effective use of the online environment?
Works-in-Progress Presentations (Submit here: https://forms.gle/RirvkTgHV5N2aqVr5)
Present a 10-minute synopsis of your work in graduate communication on program administration, course design, pedagogy, tutoring, workshops, group support, materials development, research, or another topic. Each presenter is allotted an additional 10 minutes for Q&A conversation. To facilitate post-presentation conversation, presenters should frame a problem or provide questions to engage the audience. 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. Provide an abstract of your presentation (limit 250 words, plus a shorter version for the program) on the proposal form. You will also be prompted to suggest four-six keywords that apply to your presentation and to choose the strand that best fits your proposal:
- Research-in-Progress: Share work-in-progress reporting scholarly and/or institutional research (Research-in-progress is for those who are conducting research but do not yet have data or a completed study. If you have already collected data and have results to share, submit your project under the Research Presentation category.)
- Pedagogy: Share course designs, writing assignment designs, and pedagogical approaches
- Theory: What does theory look like in our context?
- Tutoring Approaches/One-on-one Support outside the classroom
- Workshops/Group Support outside the classroom
- Program Administration: assessment, reporting, budgeting, and staffing
- Negotiating Campus Politics: Working conditions, finding campus allies, advocating for programs
- Materials Development: textbooks, professional development materials, materials for courses and tutoring programs
- Program Profile: innovative programs or pilots offered at your institution
- Other: None of the above but important to the work of graduate communication support
Submitting Multiple Proposals
Participants may submit a maximum of two proposals (and no more than one in any one category type) as a presenter or co-presenter in a research, workshop, or works in progress session. Those submitting multiple proposals will be asked to prioritize their proposals.
Listen-and-Learn Attendee Option: No Proposal, Registration Only
As always, you are welcome to register to 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. All listen-and-learn participants will be listed in the program and have access to networking opportunities.
All proposals are due March 13, 2026 by 11:59 PM EST.
For questions, email summerinstitute@gradconsortium.org.
Registration for the SI will open Monday, April 27, at www.gradconsortium.org.
Author: Eric Grunwald
Eric Grunwald is director of and lecturer in MIT’s English Language Studies (ELS) program. An instructor in ELS since 2012, he draws on a wide breadth of scholastic and vocational experiences to help students across the disciplines improve their academic and professional communication skills. As an undergraduate at Stanford University, studied math, physics, computer science, and astronomy before switching to the humanities and graduating with a degree in history. He began teaching English in Berlin, Germany, during the German Reunification, and then worked for several years in technology transfer at Stanford before obtaining his master’s in creative writing at Boston University. (See ericgrunwald.com.) After serving as managing editor at the literary journal Agni, he returned to teaching in 2007 and now teaches a variety of communication courses for bilingual MIT undergraduates and graduate students. He presents regularly at conferences in the U.S. and abroad and has received Institute grants to design an undergraduate creative writing course just for bilingual students and to design a website—writingprocess.mit.edu—to instruct students in a formal writing process. Grunwald became ELS director in July 2022 and serves on the CMS/W Writing Council. He is a member-at-large on the CGC Board and chairs the CGC Communications Committee.
