Call for Proposals
PDF :: Submit Online
For its 25th annual conference, the Midwest Writing Centers Association is heading west. The Black Hills of South Dakota—held sacred by the Lakota peoples and treasured by others for its natural resources and beauty—clings to the westernmost edge of the MWCA region. A curious blend of the Midwest and West, where irrigated river-bottom farms give way abruptly to high plains, forested hills, and scarified badlands, western South Dakota defies easy categorization and simple definition. From the natural wonders of Spearfish Canyon and Devil's Tower to the granite carvings of Mt. Rushmore and Crazy Horse, the Black Hills is a place both simple and complicated, a place of eternal constants and constant surprises.
Having chosen in Rapid City a new location for this historic meeting, we designed the 2009 MWCA Annual Conference to both honor and challenge some of our best traditions. This conference is modeled in some ways on the “unconference,” a format that traces its roots to internet technology conferences of the late 1990s. In its purest form, the unconference program is loosely structured and designed collaboratively during the conference's opening session. Participants propose session topics that interest them, lead those sessions in which they are experienced, and participate in other ways when they have something to learn or share. The unconference privileges participation over presentation, dialogue over monologue, and spontaneity over structure. However, the objectives of the unconference—active engagement of all participants; dialogue with professionals across geographic, institutional, and cultural lines; and socially-constructed knowledge—are much the same as any of MWCA's past conferences.
Possible Session Formats:
Facilitated Group Discussions
- Panel Presentation: 2-3 speakers followed by Q&A
- Roundtable: discussion between 3-5 featured participants, including time for audience participation
- Knowledge Café: discussions of finished papers/articles. (Texts to be distributed two weeks in advance to interested participants.)
- Fishbowl: Session leaders begin discussion but rotate off panel, replaced by audience participants
- Lightning Talks: 5-minute presentations by 3-5 presenters, followed by break-out sessions
- Workshop: one or more specific activities for participants facilitated by presenters
- Pre-conference workshops: collaborative half-day workshops held Wednesday
- Special Interest Groups: narrowly focused discussions hosted by participants on-location
- Dinner discussions: focused sessions hosted by participants at a local restaurant
One-to-one
- Undergraduate/graduate student research posters
- Speed geeking: poster fair format mirroring speed dating
Works-in-Progress and Professional Development
- Research workshop: Presentations of work-in-progress to a group prepared to give substantive feedback. (Drafts to be distributed to the group two weeks prior to the conference.)
- Conference Writing Center
- Mock interviews, mentoring, and feedback on letters, CVs, personal statements, and statements of teaching philosophy for graduate school applicants and those going on the job market for the first time
We also invite and strongly encourage performances and multi-media presentations: video, musical, and dramatic interpretations of writing center work
Submitting Proposals:
Proposals will undergo blind review and should be submitted using the online proposal form at the MWCA Profile website. The form provides great latitude in session format, duration, and content, but proposals should be as specific as possible about the role of the presenters, the participation of others in attendance, and the contribution the session makes to writing center studies. For annotated samples of successful proposals from previous conferences, see the Model Proposal page on the MWCA website.
Questions about the call for proposals may be directed to Christopher Ervin (christopher.ervin@wku.edu; 605-659-3271) or Greg Dyer (greg.dyer@usiouxfalls.edu; 605-331-6599).
Deadline for submissions was Friday, April 3, 2009.
