Universities of Wisconsin Sustainability Summit: The Confluence of Research, Teaching, and Community Partnerships

The University of Wisconsin Stevens Point (UWSP)—host of the Universities of Wisconsin Sustainability Summit: The Confluence of Research, Teaching, and Community Partnerships —welcomes you to join us on September 19-20, 2024. The University’s beautiful campus surrounded by the great Wisconsin River and Schmeeckle Reserve, coupled with our rich history as a leader in sustainability studies and practice serves as an ideal location for sharing scholarly approaches to research, pedagogy, curriculum, and strategies for building community partnerships in sustainability throughout Wisconsin. 

Embodying the Wisconsin Idea, The Summit creates the opportunity for us to seek perspectives from multiple disciplines as we examine important questions such as: 

• how our research, teaching and community practices in sustainability have emerged, 
• how they are helping us address current challenges in sustainability within higher education, 
• how they might evolve to meet future challenges. 

We invite you to participate in the Summit as we consider these questions and engage in the celebration of reflective inquiry and practice. 

CALL FOR PROPOSALS 

We invite proposals of theoretical and applied scholarship from all disciplines, evidence-based teaching, learning and curriculum, and strategies for building community partnerships to advance our knowledge and live into our commitments as stewards of place. 

Reflecting the diversity of our work and our scholarly strengths, we encourage contributions from individuals at all stages of their careers, including emerging scholars and students. We also encourage presenters to draw on Pat Hutching taxonomy on the scholarship of teaching and learning “Every scholarly and professional field is defined in part by the questions it asks” (2000, p. 4). 

Participants in the Sustainability Summit may contribute to the conference in a variety of ways. We invite presentations in the following formats: 

• Paper presentations 
• Panel discussions on focus topics and/or with community partners 
• Presentations of creative and practice-based works 
• Student posters 

Within all presentation types listed above, presenters will integrate active engagement of participants and inclusive and accessible approaches. In addition to these presentational roles, the conference will also have opportunities for participant engagement in other ways, such as proposal reviewers, session moderators, interest groups, and prearranged outdoor activities. 

Presentation Types 

Presentations provide an opportunity to share results of research, scholarship, creative activity, and projects on teaching, scholarly inquiry, and or community partnerships. These sessions allow presenters to share knowledge and facilitate dialogue with session participants. Each individual presentation will be a maximum of 15 minutes, followed by 10 minutes of questions/discussion. Three to four presentations will be combined into each thematic session. Note that a formal paper is not required. 

Panels are ideal for topics benefiting from multiple perspectives and an active exchange of ideas. Proposers are encouraged to seek out diverse participants for panels, with relevant combinations of disciplinary, institutional, national, and career level perspectives. Panels should include a minimum of three panelists. Of the 55-minute session, at least 20 minutes should be dedicated to robust interaction among panelists and with the audience. 

Student Poster Sessions are highly engaging opportunities to share both finished and preliminary work, with the goals of sharing insights and fostering critical engagement through discussion with conference participants. At least one author must be present during the poster sessions, students accompanied by their faculty mentors are preferred. Presenters are encouraged to make relevant resources available in print and/or online. 

Multidisciplinary Table Discussions on topics such as curriculum, pedagogy, research ideas, creative scholarship, grant development, community partnerships, collaborations, and centers. 

Proposal Review Criteria 

Proposals are assessed on how well they meet the following criteria related to the content and presentation plans: 

• Identify and explain how the content relates to important question(s) related to sustainability [how our research, teaching and community practices have emerged, how they are helping us address current challenges in sustainability within higher education, and how they might evolve to meet future challenges]. 
• Demonstrate an understanding of sustainability issues and/or existing scholarship in the field (a brief bibliography may be provided at the end of the proposal) 
• Describe how the work contributes to the understanding or practice of sustainability. Advance sustainability through new or novel knowledge or practice, and/or extend and build upon current knowledge or practice 
• Explain how presenter(s) will engage conference participants 

Submission Requirements 

Submissions are accepted online using the following form: htps://uwsp.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_5nmFdlcXKlLCmRo 

All submissions must include: 

• Name of submitter and fellow presenters only (i.e., those who will attend the Summit) 
• Your Universities of Wisconsin institution 
• Anonymized proposal – Includes two parts: a) an anonymized version of your abstract for reviewing purposes (300 words, maximum) and b) an explanation of *how* the work is being presented (100 words, maximum). You may also include up to 10 references. Please consult the review criteria above as you prepare your proposal. 
• Title 
• 300-word abstract for the conference program, if accepted. 

Submission deadline: May 31, 2024 
Anticipated notification of acceptance: July 12, 2024 

Please direct questions about the conference via email to the conference management team at UW-Stevens Point: uwspce-cps@ce.uwsp.edu