Proposal for Presenters

The Women of Color Leadership Conference Planning Committee welcomes submissions for presentations relevant to women and Black, Indigenous, Multiracial, People of Color (BIMPOC) women within the four content areas: ¹Health (psychological, physical, or spiritual); ²Financial wellness (investment, money management, entrepreneurship, etc.); ³Career advancement (e.g., education, mentorship, etc.) ; and ⁴Community engagement.

Recent health, economic, and educational challenges have offered stark reminders of numerous persistent social inequities (related to sexism, racism, poverty, and other factors) and has exacerbated already challenging social conditions. It has also offered some momentum in tackling and solving entrenched social problems. Increased awareness, new conceptual frameworks, and creative policy solutions offer opportunities for building and sustaining more effective approaches.

Higher education, community engagement/advocacy can be major drivers of solution-oriented policy and practice and can provide guidance for developing new interventions for problems as well as new challenges in our contemporary globalized society. Inequity remains at the heart of social problems and must be addressed as we build toward solutions.

We encourage submissions that describe how research, education, and community engagement/advocacy have contributed to changes in individuals, organizations, communities, and policies. The challenge is to describe what has changed because of the research, education, and advocacy not just the research, education and advocacy per se. Community partners, research participants, policymakers, and other research partners are welcome as presenters.

We also invite critical reflections on how research can better achieve social change. How might we better define issues and engage research participants? What designs, methods, analysis, and means of dissemination maximize public impact? How can scholars, researchers, social justice advocates lead the way in engaging community and influencing social policy?

We also continue our focus at this conference on women’s equality. Of particular interest are submissions that address and describe processes and research that advance racial and social justice for all marginalized populations (e.g., BIMPOC women).

Proposals are encouraged in all substantive areas, using scientifically sound qualitative and/or quantitative methodology or best practices at the individual, community, organizational, or policy level. Topics that are cross-cutting by population (e.g., LGBTQ, religion, veteran status, etc.), problem, and substantive areas, as well as methodological expertise are welcomed. As a result, we encourage submissions across all areas as they pertain explicitly to women.

Tips for Writing a Strong Proposal
The WOCLC strives to offer a balanced, informative, and thought-provoking conference focused on frameworks  that advance inclusion and equity as the foundations for BIMPOC women excellence. The selection committee will include experienced academic professionals from a diverse range of backgrounds and areas of expertise. Successful proposals will represent practice models that interrogate the effectiveness of existing structures in the context of today’s BIMPOC demographics; local, national, and global communities; and our nation’s reliance on an educated and engaged citizenry. It invites innovative strategies and work in progress to transform cultures that are not keeping pace with these realities. The following elements serve as proposal selection criteria:
o    Potential for the proposed session/presentation to advance expansive and inclusive strategies for teaching and learning and community advocacy; to address the current educational climate, including challenges and opportunities; to foster and sustain collaborations across units/programs and local communities.
o    Inclusion of evidence-based, theory-to-practice models that connect research and scholarship with effective approaches to develop courses, curricula, pedagogies, assessment practices, and campus/community cultures that engage all participants in high-quality learning experiences and that ensure all members of the community feel valued and respected.
o    Extent to which the session or presentation offers creative, novel, and transformative mechanisms for designing and facilitating critical dialogues to advance understanding across differences and promote and idea for sharing institutional transformation.
o    Extent to which the proposed session or presentation provides evidence of effectiveness, lessons learned, challenges overcome, and applicability across a range of agency, organizational, or institutional types.
o    Explicit plans for involving participants in reflection, discussion, exercises, and other activities that will help them understand and apply the material.
o    Extent to which proposals reflect diverse perspectives, innovations, disciplines, and strategies for change (student, staff, faculty and or community voices and perspectives are encouraged).

Roundtable Discussion (45-minutes; 1-2 facilitators)
Roundtable discussion sessions involve the audience and is a great opportunity for conference attendees to share challenges and solutions through conversational exchange. By actively engaging participants in dialogue about hot topics or broad issues, presenters of these sessions will rely on the collective community experience among session attendees. Proposed sessions that are designed to promote engagement, such as small-group collaboration and experiential learning will be given priority for presentation. This type of session works best for presenters wanting to share opinions/thoughts on current, significant issues impacting women.

Workshop (45-minutes; 1-2 presenters)
The workshops provide an interactive environment for conference attendees to bridge theory, practice, and lived experiences and to deeply examine, explore, and or experience implementation strategies that can contribute to transformation in their lives and community that can be achieved and sustained. Workshops are expected to engaged conference attendees in reflection and discussion about work related to, but not limited to strategic reform to address diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging (DEIB) efforts and inequities as well as the privilege, the biases, and the false belief in hierarchy of human value embedded in our systems. Proposals for workshops must provide details about the theoretical/empirical literature and or experiential knowledge that will inform the workshop topic and its approach to conference attendee engagement.