Call for Proposals

Made famous by Leiber and Stoller's song, "Kansas City," the district now known as 18th and Vine remains one of Kansas City's most recognized crossroads. Long before Kansas City became known for its jazz, blues, and barbeque, however, a variety of people stood at literal and figurative crossroads in and around the Greater Kansas City area—some by choice, some not.

While the California, Oregon, and Santa Fe trails represented crossroads of opportunity to immigrant settlers and entrepreneurs, they meant something quite different to the American Indians who were indigenous to the area or migrated to Missouri and Kansas. Later, during the early years of the Civil War, Kansas City became a crossroads for African-American slaves from southern states traveling on the Underground Railroad. Now a part of Kansas City, Kansas, Quindaro was a settling or resting point for those traveling north and later functioned as an escape from the continued oppression of sharecropping and Jim Crow.

Today, highways and byways crisscross and circle Kansas City, whose core is dense and whose suburban peripheries sprawl across the regional landscape. These visible, tangible crossroads both hide and create Kansas City’s other, less visible social crossroads. Just one block east and west of where our conference will be held, the Country Club Plaza and Troost Avenue represent iconic signifiers of the city's class and race divisions. The Plaza makes good on Kansas City’s nickname, "The City of Fountains," and celebrates economic prosperity and consumerism while Troost serves as a racial and social dividing line.

Driven by contrary impulses of community, social justice, and economic pressures, Kansas City’s cultural centers and events illustrate identities and inequalities within the area. Kansas Citians come together at 18th and Vine to celebrate its Jazz and Negro League Baseball legacies, gather at the American Royal to watch rodeos and eat barbeque, and meet at the Crossroads Art District to appreciate local art. However, the neighborhoods surrounding these gathering places seldom reap long-term benefits, remaining segregated and economically stressed. As it often has, Kansas City finds itself at a crossroads. Will development projects and cultural events substantially change the political and cultural landscape of Kansas City?

Similar crossroads exist within writing centers. Do our “development projects” represent inroads to social justice and equality?  In negotiating crossroads, are new spaces opened for learning, dialogue, and change? Keynote speakers at recent writing center conferences have challenged us to be agents of change at the crossroads.  Both Victor Villanueva and Harry Denny have asked us to consider our roles in supporting or dismantling institutional discrimination in our schools and communities. Have we stopped at the crossroads and reflected on these things? Do our crossroads represent a place where people meet and linger? Or are they busy intersections where people are pulled in the direction of least resistance? Do our crossroads have a current? An undertow? Or a calmness that facilitates reflection and collaboration? Who crosses the threshold of our writing center? Who doesn’t visit our writing center? Who visits once but never returns? Who do we employ to meet writers at the crossroads?  Please join us to consider these and other questions that arise from self-study, action research, and inquiry at the crossroads of our writing centers, theories, and practices.

Submitting Proposals:

We invite anyone involved in writing center work to submit a proposal that explores community, conflict, creativity, and change within writing centers.  Proposals will undergo blind review and should include the following: name(s) of presenter(s) and institutional affiliation, title of presentation, presentation format, a 50-word abstract, and a 500-word description of the presentation.  Conference presentation formats include but are not limited to the following: individual papers, multi-media presentations, panel discussions, roundtable discussions, performance pieces, poster presentations, special interest groups, and full- or half-day pre-conference institutes.  Proposals for writing and research activities that conference participants could interact with throughout the conference are welcome as well.  Proposals may also be submitted to reserve workspace for groups to work on collaborative projects during the pre-conference institute day(s).  

Proposals may be submitted via surface mail to:

Greg Dyer
University of Sioux Falls
1101 W. 22nd St.
Sioux Falls, SD 57105

Questions about the call for papers may be directed to Thomas Ferrel at ferrelt@umkc.edu.  

Deadline for submissions is March 30, 2007.