Deadline Extended! CFP for Reimagining Our University IAMCR Preconference

Reimagining Our University Preconference at the 2019 IAMCR Conference in
Madrid



*Date and time*: Sunday July 7, 2019, 9:00am-4:30pm

*Location: *Madrid, Spain

*(Extended) Proposal deadline: *May 10, 2019 (11:59pm MST)



*The Program:*

*Reimagining Our University *aims to cultivate solidarity and collaboration
by bringing emerging scholars together to discuss our concerns with the
contemporary university and brainstorm solutions to some of these
questions. We are the future of the university, and we can either choose to
accept the university as it stands, prioritizing our personal success
within market-driven structures, or we can choose to develop transnational
networks of emerging scholars committed to supporting one another as we
develop and cultivate visions of what the university might become.



The preconference will be divided into two parts: (1) three
conference-style roundtables in which individuals share ten-minute
provocations, followed by open discussion; and (2) carefully designed
workshops aimed at targeted brainstorming and goal-setting in response to
previously identified key areas of concern.



*The Vision:*

At the upcoming 2019 IAMCR Conference, we will be gathering to engage the
role of communication in fulfilling the Preamble of the Paris Declaration
(UN, 1948), which states that *"recognition of the inherent dignity and of
the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the
foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world"*.

This commitment must begin within our own institutions. However,
contemporary universities are undergoing a process of the so-called
“neoliberalization”, in which students are called “customers” or “users”,
and faculty and graduate students are reduced to labor force or “service
providers”. In this context, the contemporary University’s commitments to
financial viability often undermine and prevail upon the collective
attempts of faculty, staff, and students to cultivate a community of
knowledge.



It can be tempting to call for a return towards the origins of the
university, for a restoration of its initial commitment to the Humanities
and the development of thoughtful citizens. However, even if the university
was not always as commercially driven, the university has never been
committed fully to the dignity and rights of *all *members of the human
family. It has always been exclusionary in some form, and the university
participated actively in the European colonial project.



Instead it is necessary to begin with a blank slate and imagine the modern
university from the ground up, *as we need it to be*. What purpose should
the university have in today’s society? For whom should the university be
designed? How should coursework be structured? How should the tenure
process function? Can we design financially stable institutions without
structuring such institutions around financial viability and market
interests? These are massive questions with which we must wrestle, and we
must wrestle with them

*together. *

*Call for Proposals:*

Faculty and graduate students at all levels are encouraged to apply. Though
this preconference is sponsored by the Emerging Scholars Network and
emphasizes the collaboration and contributions of emerging scholars, we
value the insights and perspectives of experienced academics who also wish
to reimagine the university as it exists today.



For the first session, we request interested participants to submit an
author bio and a 300-word abstract outlining their brief ten-minute
provocations that offer insights, challenges, calls to action, or other
reflections in response to the central question of this preconference: how
must we rethink and reimagine the university today?



For the second session, we request interested workshop organizers to submit
a CV and one-page proposal outlining their idea for a workshop related to
the theme of this preconference.



Potential topics for provocations or workshops could include:

·      Decolonizing the university

·      Rethinking the publishing model

·      Public scholarship and the university

·      The future of finances within the Academy

·      The tenure-track process

·      University infrastructures

·      The university’s responsibility to the environment



As this pre-conference will function as a workshop, involving the active
participation of all conference attendees, all in attendance may request a
letter to their home institution, in which we advocate for their merit to
receive travel funding, regardless of whether they are one of the speakers
presenting a provocation.



*Please send all proposals and queries to Rachel Lara van der Merwe
(University of Colorado Boulder) at [email protected]
<[email protected]> no later than May 10, 2019 (midnight
MST).*




*Organisers:*The Emerging Scholars Network is the key organizer and sponsor
of this event. ESN (
http://iamcr.org/s-wg/section/emerging-scholars-network-section/home
<https://iamcr.org/s-wg/section/emerging-scholars-network-section/home>) is
a section dedicated to the work and careers of emerging scholars in the
field of media studies and communication.

The ESN organizes emerging scholar panels and joint panels with other
sections. Emerging Scholars panels provide a comfortable environment for
the presentation of theses and works in progress, where emerging scholars
can receive feedback from colleagues also at the beginning of their careers
and from senior scholars who act as respondents to individual papers.

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