The Proposal and Review Process - Transcript

Slide 1

Hello everyone, and thank you for joining us for today’s webinar. My name is Tom Murray, I use he/him/his pronouns, and I am the Vice Chair for General Programs for the 2018 convention in Houston, Texas. I am joined by Sattik Deb who is the Coordinator for Program Review and Development for ACPA18. Sattik will be monitoring the chat and questions functions of the webinar, answering your questions throughout the session.

Slide 2

In today’s webinar, we hope to provide an overview of the proposal process to help you better understand the life cycle of a convention proposal. We will start with the guiding principles that have shaped the convention planning team’s and the program team’s work for this convention. We will review the proposal and program timeline to make sure you are aware of specific dates. This year, we will be using a new proposal system and so we will discuss that system – called eShow – and the Call for Proposals so you know what you can expect when submitting a proposal. We will cover the resources available to you when working on your proposal. After discussing the proposal process, we will cover a few items to describe what happens after you have submitted a proposal. We will briefly discuss the ACPA Strategic Imperative for Racial Justice and Decolonization as it relates to proposals and will offer a second webinar focused solely on that topic. Finally, we will have time for questions at the end; however, please feel free to ask questions using the chat or questions feature of the webinar system throughout the session.

Slide 3

As a Convention Planning Team, we worked in the beginning phases of our planning to create some guiding principles to help the convention have focus and intention. There are five overarching principles that guide the work that we are doing. First, we want convention attendees to be able to reflect on their own positionality and role in social justice work within student affairs. So how do my identities affect the way in which I show up to do this work? Secondly, we want attendees to be able to educate and role model the value of racial justice. The convention planning team has worked to integrate ACPA’s strategic imperative for racial justice and decolonization into the convention experience. We want attendees to be able to engage the issues impacting higher education by applying our identified competencies. The program team works to ensure that all 10 of the ACPA/NASPA professional competencies are represented in the convention curriculum so that attendees have the opportunity to develop in all of these domains. Our hope is that convention attendees will experience critical opportunities for learning and engagement through the creation and dissemination of knowledge and that educational sessions do both of these things: provide opportunities for learning but also for engagement. Finally, we want attendees to be able to collaborate with local communities in our host location.

Slide 4

The proposal and program timeline is available on the convention website, but we wanted to take a few moments to talk about each of these dates. The Call for Proposals is currently open and is due Friday, September 8. That is also the

date that applications to be a program reviewer are due. We highly encourage you to apply to be a program reviewer. If you have never done this before, being a reviewer is a great way to contribute to the convention planning while also getting some great professional development. Reviewers are asked to review approximately 8 proposals and are provided training materials as well as a rubric to use while scoring. With sometimes over 1,000 proposals to review and the need to provide multiple reviews for each, ACPA really relies on the volunteer efforts of reviewers!

We do ask for those reviews to be complete by September 29. By the time sessions are assigned to reviewers, this leaves about two weeks of review time, meaning that reviewers would only need to review one proposal a day in that time frame. There are a few other things that must happen after reviews are complete, which I will discuss a little bit later, so notifications to presenters do not go out until October 23. Once presenters are notified if their session was selected, we do ask that they commit by November 3 to attend the convention and present their session. Finally, once we have presenter commitments, we will send out time and space notifications on December 4. If you do not plan to stay for the entire length of convention, we recommend that you not make travel arrangements until time and space notifications have been made as we cannot take requests for session times.

Sattik: Tom let me just cut in for just a moment. Sorry, I’m not sure if you’re aware but the slides are not changing.

Tom: They’re not. Okay. Hmmm. Can you my PowerPoint – the slide sorter?

Sattik: Uh, yes.

Tom: Okay. So you couldn’t see them changing. Can you see them changing in the slide sorter?

Sattik: Yeah, now…there we go. Now we see them.

Tom: So I will just use the slide sorter instead.

Sattik: That works!

Tom: Thank you

Slide 5

Alright, so…if you are submitting a proposal for the first time, everything this year will be new, so everything is new for you; however, if you have submitted proposals in the past few years, you will experience a new proposal system this year. Instead of CDMS, the convention this year will utilize a platform called eShow to collect all of our proposals as well as applications to be reviewers. Also, all of our educational sessions, including PechaKucha powered by ACPA, Genius Labs, Career Spotlights, and pre-convention workshops, will be collected using the same system.

Also new this year is a focus on the Equity and Inclusion priorities of the convention planning team. Rather than simply checking a box indicating compliance, presenters will be asked to provide a brief description of how their proposal meets the equity and inclusion standards of the association.

Previously, I mentioned that all proposals across all program types will use the same proposal form. However, the kinds of information we need for a research paper is quite different

than the information we need for a genius lab. The eShow system allows us to utilize form logic so that prospective presenters will only be asked for the information relevant to the program type they are proposing. As such, once you select your program type on the Call for Proposals form, some questions may disappear and others may appear based on that form logic.

Finally, you will notice several reminders about inclusive language. If you have not yet done so, we encourage you to read the blog post by Dr. Dian Squire about inclusive language and consider that throughout the proposal process. While it is important throughout the proposal, please pay special attention to the title and abstract as these are publically available to all convention attendees.

Slide 6

At this point I would like to review all of the elements of the proposal so you know what you can expect when starting a new proposal. For your reference, there is a PDF and a Microsoft Word version of the proposal on the convention website under curriculum and then presenter resources.

This and the following two slides have all of the elements that you could be asked; however, please note that some session types may not include all of these questions or prompts. Also, you are able to save your work and return to your proposal; as a general best practice, however, I always save my work locally in a Word document which then also makes it easy to retrieve for future proposals.

As I mentioned earlier, you will be asked to describe the ways in which your proposal meets the expectations of the

association’s equity and inclusion statement. Rather than just a checkbox, this text field requires that we consciously and intentionally consider the ways in which our work supports equity and inclusion.

You will then be asked to select the type of session you would like to propose. There are over a dozen types of programs you can propose. These include 30- or 60-minute Career Snapshot sessions, 75-minute competency based sessions, 2-hour extended sessions, 1 hour general sessions, 20 minute genius labs, 1-hour host-site programs, 3 hour institutes, 4- or 8-hour pre-convention workshops, 30 minute spotlight sessions (which are paired with another spotlight), 20 minute research paper sessions (which are grouped with two other papers), research or practice posters, or 6 minute and 40-second PechaKucha powered by ACPA sessions. You can also submit proposals for 50-minute general sessions or PechaKucha powered by ACPA for the Next Gen conference. All in all, you have many options to make sure that the session type and length are most appropriate for your topic.

For many session types, you will then be asked if you would like to be considered for sponsorship or co-sponsorship by one of ACPA’s Coalitions, Commissions, or Networks. Sponsorship by one of these entity groups allows convention attendees who are interested in focusing on a particular functional area or identity to see what sessions have been considered high importance by that respective entity group. It does bring with it some extra exposure in convention materials as entity groups will often advertise their sessions to their membership; however, there is no advantage or disadvantage in terms of getting accepted to present at convention. Also, if the entity group or groups you select do not sponsor your session, your session will still be considered for inclusion in convention. If

you do select that you would like to be considered for sponsorship, you will be asked to provide a brief description of the relevance of your session to that entity group.

You will then be asked to include your title and your abstract. These are the only two text fields that the general convention goer will have access to. Please be sure that titles and abstracts are free from any marginalizing language and that you have proofread them as the convention planning team will not make any content or grammatical changes to your proposal. Also, make sure that your abstract is reflective of what you will present at convention as this description is what many attendees base their participation on.

In the Session Purpose or Rationale section, you will be asked to describe three things: the purpose of the session, the rationale for inclusion at convention, and its relevance to student affairs or higher education.

Slide 7

Following this, you will be asked to provide a relevant conceptual or theoretical framework, explaining how the literature included is relevant to your session. Please be clear about making that connection in this part as your reviewers may or may not be familiar with your particular literature. You do not need to include your actual citations in this field, which has a maximum of 300 words. Rather, include your citations in the next field where it will not count towards your word max.

In the Method section, you will be asked to provide an outline that describes how you will utilize your time in the session. Be specific about how much time you will allot for each section, how much engagement the audience can expect, and how they

will be able to apply what they are learning either immediately or upon return to their work. For competency-based sessions, you will also need to discuss the specific ways in which your session focuses on the identified competency. Extended sessions, institutes, and pre-convention workshop proposals should include rationale for the extended time of the session and how all of that time will be used. Similarly, Spotlight Session proposals should include details on how the information will be provided concisely in the shorter time frame. Research papers and research and practice poster proposals should include in this field the methods of their study.

Next you will be asked to provide up to three learning outcomes. Please be sure that your learning outcomes are clear, relevant, and measureable. Those proposing research papers or posters should use these fields to outline their findings or implications.

For most convention program types, you will be asked to select a skill level – foundational, intermediate, or advanced – relative to the competencies your session targets. Please remember that the skill level should be related to the competencies, not to the experience in years of the audience. However, for Next Gen sessions, you will instead be asked to select whether your session is best for undergraduate students, graduate students, or both.

Slide 8

You will be asked to select one or two of the ten professional competencies identified by ACPA and NASPA and then a brief rationale as to why you selected those competencies and corresponding skill level.

There is also a long list of possible topics that your session may relate to and you can select up to three. These run the gamut from administrative leadership and senior student affairs officers to entry-level professionals and fraternity/sorority life.

Please keep in mind that while your title and abstract are the only pieces of content visible to the membership, convention attendees will also be able to see topics, competencies, and skill levels.

If your session is psychological in nature, you can select whether you would like it to be considered for continuing education units or CEUs. CEUs are requirements for licenses for mental health professionals and others that are used to maintain their credentials in their field.

You will be asked for your room set up preferences and your AV needs.

Finally, you will be asked to provide an overview of the experience of the presenter or presenters. Please be as thorough as you can in the 300-word maximum, but please do not include names.

Slide 9

So that was a lot of information and we want to kind of highlight a few things that are important for you to keep in mind. First, you want to be sure that you are proposing a session that is the best type for your content. As I mentioned there are 13 different session types that you can propose. These range in purpose, scope, and length – from 20-minute genius lab sessions to full day pre-convention workshops.

These session types are all described on the convention website and are also featured in one of the microsessions I will discuss later in the webinar. In the proposal process for most session types, you will be asked to provide an outline for how you plan to use the time allotted for your session so you will need to be able to articulate how and why your session should be, for example, a two hour extended session versus a one hour general session.

Next, be sure to write an abstract that is something you will be able to deliver at convention. While many people design the specific elements of their session after their proposal is accepted, it is critical that you deliver a session that matches the content of your abstract as that is how many folks select their workshops. This is also a topic of one of our microsessions.

In the proposal process, you will be asked to indicate a skill level – either foundational, intermediate, or advanced. Please be sure that you have given careful thought about the intended audience and that you design your session around that intended audience. It is frustrating for convention goers to attend a session they thought to be advanced to find that it is foundational material or vice-versa. Also, remember that skill level should relate to the competencies you are hoping to develop in your session, not necessarily to the audience members’ length of time in the field. For example, as someone who has been in the field for 15 years, I may still need to attend foundational sessions in areas that have not been my focus before.

It is very important that you proofread your work, particularly the title and abstract sections of the proposal. The convention planning team’s equity and inclusion committee will review

titles and abstracts for potentially problematic language in terms of inclusion; other than changes made for equity and inclusion, however, the convention planning team will publish titles and abstracts as they are submitted in the printed convention book, on the room signs, and in the convention mobile app.

Part of the proposal process is to indicate your and your co-presenter’s (if applicable) expertise and experience. Please provide an overview of your experience, but be sure that you do not include names in this field. Rather, refer to yourselves as “presenters.” This allows us to be sure that review is done anonymously.

Finally, it is helpful to remember your audience in terms of the review process. The reviewers for convention are our peers from across this field. They are graduate students and seasoned faculty; they are new professionals in Residence Life and folks who work in judicial affairs with 20 years of experience. So while sticking to the maximum word counts, be sure that you provide enough detail that reviewers from across the breadth of higher education and with a range of experience will be able to evaluate your work.

Slide 10

To further help you in the proposal process, we want to be sure that you have other resources. The Program Team has developed a series of Microsessions, we also have an Equity and Inclusion team, and you have the entire planning team. We’re going to touch on each of those a little bit.

Slide 11

This year, the Program Team has taken some of the content previously offered in a webinar format and recorded a series of microsessions that will be available on the convention website. These sessions are short videos on a single topic so that you can access information you need easily. To find these microsessions, visit the convention website – the url is at the bottom of each slide and is convention.myacpa.org – hover over Curriculum to find a drop down menu and then select presenter resources. Topics will include the various program types in the Call for Proposals, reasons to present at ACPA, matching abstracts to your content, and submitting successful proposals. These microsessions will be available shortly on the website. We will also have a series of microsessions on presenter development once notifications are made.

Slide 12

The ACPA Convention Planning Team consists of several smaller teams. One of those teams is the Equity and Inclusion Team. We recognize that the pursuit of equity and inclusion is everyone’s job, but we also recognize that while we are in the midst of all of the other parts of our job we can sometimes lose sight of this priority, especially as it relates to our own positionality and how that affects the work we do on convention planning. The Equity and Inclusion Team has one or more liaisons on each of the other teams. The Program Team, for example, has three liaisons: one for general programs, one for curricular support, and one for the NextGen conference. The Marketing & Member Engagement and the Convention Experiences Teams also have their own representatives. Their role is to help make sure that in the busy-ness of convention planning that issues of equity and inclusion are always in the foreground. This team is also instrumental in conceptualizing how the Strategic Imperative

for Racial Justice and Decolonization is interwoven into the convention experience. The Equity and Inclusion Team also includes our Accessibility Coordinator, who works to ensure that the convention experience – from the website to the physical space in Houston – is as accessible as possible.

One of the specific functions of the equity and inclusion team as it relates to the proposal process is that they are the group of folks who will provide feedback on session titles and abstracts of accepted proposals if there are concerns regarding marginalizing language. For an idea of how easy it is to include marginalizing language, please consider reviewing Dr. Dian Squire’s blog post I mentioned previously on inclusive language which is located on the convention website.

The Equity and Inclusion team also develops and updates our guidelines for creating an accessible or universally designed session at convention. This resource is available on the website and is a great tool for considering how you can make your session more universally designed for attendees.

Slide 13

Finally, please remember that you have many people that can be resources for you in the proposal process, but also in terms of your entire convention experience.

The Convention Steering Team is a smaller group of people that provides leadership for the entire convention planning process. This includes Stephen Quaye, our current president, and Ray Plaza, the 2018 Convention Chair, in addition to those who have chair roles for all of the convention teams like the Program Team. This group also includes the chair of the Equity

and Inclusion Team and the Indigenous Special Advisor to the Steering Team.

The Convention Planning Team is a much larger group of individuals who work on various aspects of the convention under the leadership of the Steering Team. From logo design to proposal review, the convention is planned by a team of volunteers who are your peers from student affairs and higher education roles across the association.

The Program Team is the group of folks who are responsible for planning the curricular aspects of convention – from pre-convention workshops and the NextGen conference to the hundreds of general sessions. For each session type for which there is an open Call for Proposals, there are specific coordinators in place. For example, our Research and Practice Posters are coordinated by Tonya Driver and she can answer any specific questions that you have about those sessions.

If you have questions about any of the specific program types, please go to convention.myacpa.org, click on Curriculum and then on Program categories. This will get you contact information for any of the Program Team that is assigned to a specific program type. To contact someone on the Convention Steering Team, visit the convention website and click on ACPA18 Team. This will get you to a list of the convention steering team members and their email addresses. There is also a link to a PDF version of the entire convention planning team with links to their email.

Slide 14

Once you have submitted a proposal, several things will happen. First, your proposal will be reviewed by a minimum of

three reviewers. These reviewers will be using a common rubric to assess your responses to the various questions or prompts in the Call for Proposals. These reviewers’ scores are then averaged; however, there is more to program selection than just the score that a proposal receives.

Sessions are selected for convention based on a number of factors. First, the scores that the proposal received from the reviewers is considered along with the comments the reviewers supplied to determine whether a proposal is strong enough to be accepted for convention. The Program Team also has to consider the various session types in order to provide a balanced convention experience. We want to be sure that the schedule is not overrepresented with one session type and underrepresented with another. We also consider the competencies targeted by the session. Our goal is to provide a convention experience that allows for development in all ten of the competencies identified by ACPA and NASPA. Finally, we take into consideration the skill level – foundational, intermediate, or advanced – that the session is targeting in terms of competency development. As a Program Team, we want to be sure that all convention attendees have an opportunity to develop. With all of these things to consider for proposal decisions, please keep in mind that it is possible for highly rated sessions to not be accepted.

Once the review and selection process is over, reviewer scores and comments will be sent to the coordinating presenter. These comments can be used to strengthen future proposals but may also have feedback that will be useful in developing sessions that have been accepted for convention.

Slide 15

If your session is accepted, there are a few things that you will need to do in order to present your session at convention. First, confirm that you will register for convention and plan to present your session, including any co-presenters if you have them. Again, please do not make travel plans until December when day and time assignments are made.

As convention approaches, you will be asked to submit any materials that you have – PowerPoint slides, handouts, etc. – to the convention planning team to be uploaded and available to convention goers. This practice helps us to make the convention as universally designed as possible.

Finally, please remember that ACPA and the Convention Planning Team will only communicate with the Coordinating Presenter. If you have co-presenters, it is your responsibility to forward any relevant information to them once you receive it from ACPA.

Slide 16

One thing that we also wanted to touch briefly on in this webinar is how the Strategic Imperative for Racial Justice and Decolonization impacts the convention experience.

First, we ask that you consider how race and colonization affect your work and your topic. This is very connected to the idea of positionality as we consider how our identities affect our understanding of race and colonization. For example, when I was first considering this, I was initially confused about how I might weave the Strategic Imperative into a topic on which I often present at convention: providing critical feedback to underperforming staff. My initial thought was that the strategic imperative did not relate at all, but that was from my own

positionality as a White individual in this field. However, upon further reflection, I realized that race and colonization are deeply connected to ideas like professionalism, which is often the topic of critical feedback, and so I have had to think about new content for my session.

We also ask that you consider the knowledge and literature upon which you base your content. Does it represent multiple perspectives? Is it rooted primarily in the work of White scholars or does it reflect a more diverse group of authors? Does it reinforce current power structures or is there literature that disrupts dominant paradigms?

These questions are all just the tip of the iceberg, so we have scheduled a second webinar that will focus on Equity, Inclusion, and the Strategic Imperative as they relate to the proposal process. That webinar is in two weeks on August 22 at 2pm Eastern.

Slide 17

That brings us to the end of this webinar content, and so we want to be sure to provide an opportunity to ask questions that have not yet been answered.

One follow up comment I want to make as we got a comment from our convention chair Ray Plaza in regards to titles and abstracts. We will not make changes to those without first contacting the presenter, but the equity and inclusion team will contact presenters to discuss ways to improve the language if necessary.

Another question that may have been answered privately but I want to answer it. For those of you who are new I have been

using a word called PechaKucha. It is a word, it means chit-chat and PechaKucha powered by ACPA is a format of presentation typically done in one of our larger venues where the presenters have 6 minutes and 40 seconds, they have 20 slides, those slides auto-advance every 20 seconds and the purpose of those types of sessions is to have short but very high impact messages that are delivered in a larger venue.

Another question that we received, again just to make sure that everyone gets the question and then the answer is “could you clarify on equity and inclusion statements? Should this be the statement from our university or how the topic is related to the equity and inclusion statement of ACPA/NASPA?”

The equity and inclusion statement in the proposal is specifically how your proposal supports the equity and inclusion statement of ACPA. The equity and inclusion statement will be included in the proposal for your reference and it’s a way for us to be very thoughtful and intentional about ensuring that our sessions are meeting those standards rather than simply checking a check box that we’re complying which does not really require as much thoughtfulness or intention behind it. As I mentioned earlier, there is a PDF and a Microsoft Word version of the proposal and all the contents of that proposal. Those documents which are on the convention website also have the equity and inclusion statement.

So a question is “Where can I get information about skill levels since I am not myself a student affairs professional?”

On the ACPA website – not the convention website but the ACPA website – you would want to look for the ACPA and NASPA professional competencies. There is a document that lists what all those competencies are and it describes what

foundational, intermediate, and advanced means relative to each of those ten competencies. And also Lauretta I should be able to get a list of all of our attendees for today and I can send you that document because I have a copy as well.

Slide 18

All right. Well, if there are no other questions I want to thank you for attending today’s webinar. I do have my email address and Sattik’s email address up here. If you have any questions that were not answered today or that emerge after we end, feel free to contact either one of us or any member of the convention planning team using the resources online. Thank you so much and have a great day!