¹úÃñ²ÊƱ

Call for Proposals 

The 27th annual ¹úÃñ²ÊƱ Conference on University Teaching and Learning (DCUTL) celebrates university teaching and learning among faculty, staff, and graduate students. It is a showcase for current research and practice and provides opportunities to foster new ideas and projects.  We invite our friends, colleagues and communities to share solutions, to seed ideas and to celebrate successes, contributing to a vibrant 2-day conference on the theme of connection.

The 2025 conference will take place April 29 and 30 and the theme is: 

Creating Connections: Building Communities within, Between and Beyond our Institutions

Our Theme

We live and work in a complex global ecosystem in which creating partnerships, nurturing relationships, and building communities has never been more important.  How can we help our students make the connections, between each other, their instructors, their disciplines and their futures, that create a vibrant, creative, academic culture?  How can we enhance collaboration with colleagues so that students thrive, and our interdisciplinary endeavours rise to meet the ‘wicked problems’ of our time?

How are we providing the kinds of interactions, partnerships, and relationships that weave our collective humanity and empathy through all that we do?   How are we providing opportunities for students to build supportive and trusting communities between each other and with us? And, as we mark ten years since the publication of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Report, how are we disrupting western notions of what knowledge might be and the forms it can take?  How are we dismantling the colonial legacy of the academy, re-thinking education within frames of reference that underscore connection and community?  

Join us to explore the place of connection and community in the future of higher education, and to investigate the role they might play in embedding a culture of learning and teaching within our institutions, and a just society beyond them.

Proposals might incorporate, but are not limited to, the following areas of interest:

Connections within the learning experience

• Developing peer-to-peer learning 
• Envisioning students-as-partners
• Relational pedagogies (building authenticity, vulnerability and trust)
• Experiential and work-integrated learning
• Learning in and with community
• Technology-enabled interaction 
• Generative AI applications
• Global learning frameworks
• Decolonizing and indigenization our disciplines and our pedagogies
• Ensuring voice for diverse students
• Student supports as/for relationship building
• Fostering an interdisciplinary mindset
• Assessments that build connection to community
• How communities and partnerships enhance learning

Connections between and beyond those who teach

• Collaborative course and program design
• Team teaching
• Peer learning and collaborations for innovation
• Supports for well-being, mindfulness, and contemplative practice 
• Appreciative inquiry
• Communities of practice
• Facilitating significant interdisciplinary collaboration
• Building teaching and learning partnerships between faculty and staff 
• Community and partnership enhancing learning

Connections with communities beyond our institutions

• Working with Indigenous communities and elders towards decolonization and Indigenization
• Practitioners in the classroom
• Co-designing courses and credentials with employers and industry
• Alumnae and industry mentoring schemes
• The impact of work-integrated and experiential learning
• Forging links with organizations and communities
• Opportunities for learning in the field
• Communicating knowledge value beyond the academy

Our Conference

Tuesday 29th April will be offered in a dual delivery format.  All presentations including our keynote will take place online, but with dedicated collaborative spaces available on the ¹úÃñ²ÊƱ campus for those who want to attend in person.  The day will be punctuated by time and space for reflection and conversation, with attendees connecting online or in-person to share thoughts and expand on themes.  

 Wednesday 30th April will be a day of connection on campus, opening with a blend of a panel discussion and roundtable session which will address the challenges and trends which emerge from our discussions.  This will lead into a day of workshops through which we will create time and space for conversation and connection, culminating in a celebratory summative session. 

 At the end of both days, participants will be invited to continue their conversations at The Social, ¹úÃñ²ÊƱ’s dedicated space for informal collegial connection, and afterwards in downtown Halifax.