Call for Community Proposals: 

2024 Summer Institutes

 

Building the Future

Calling all conveners! We invite Evergreen faculty and staff to submit their proposals for Community-initiated Summer Institutes for the 2024 program. Summer Institutes provide an opportunity for faculty and staff professional development, community-building, and collaboration. We rely on our Summer Institute conveners to bring creative, innovative, and timely topics to our community. This is an exciting time in Evergreen’s evolution, and as we are at the cusp of an election year, we invite our conveners to consider how we can build the future – together. 

In accordance with article 17.2 of the Collective Bargaining Agreement with the United Faculty of Evergreen, the Learning and Teaching Commons and the Summer Institute Planning (SIP) Group invites proposals for community-initiated summer institutes. First-time conveners are especially encouraged to submit.

 

Summer Institute Themes

I. Teaching at Evergreen: Culturally Affirming and Inclusive Pedagogical Practices

Summer institutes in this category will explore teaching practices that engage and support Evergreen students equitably. 

As a learning organization that emphasizes collaborative, interdisciplinary learning across significant differences, Evergreen is uniquely positioned as a leader in culturally affirming and inclusive pedagogical practices.  In particular, students at Evergreen experience

• immersive, relationship-rich learning communities.
• transparent interdisciplinary pathways of study that are easy to navigate.
• flexible approaches to learning and evaluation that promote self-efficacy.
• engaging with complex, contested, and capricious issues and questions in the classroom
• learning that incorporates their cultural identities and histories as assets.
• innovative approaches to learning.

[Examples of previous institutes within this theme: Cultivating Community Belonging: Weaving Indigenous Pedagogy & Scholarship in Academia; Developing Evergreen’s Best Practices for Online/Hybrid Education; Knowledge, Strategies, and Tools for Supporting Students with Disabilities; Critical Response Process: Facilitating Student-centered and Equity-minded Classroom Feedback Sessions]

 

II. Our Greener Community: Strengthening Relationships and Navigating Change 

Summer Institutes in this category will explore the dynamics of  institutional vitality in and beyond the classroom; developing equity-minded student, faculty and staff leaders who engage in community care by building a warm, supportive, curious, and resilient Evergreen community.

Our community has embarked on an ambitious project to attract and graduate hundreds of new students, while continuing to maintain and innovate our existing curriculum and services. We must attend to developing strong partnerships around shared goals for the future of Evergreen, with optimism and inventiveness.

Note: As an election year approaches, institutes designed to prepare and support students and our broader community through political changes are encouraged.

[Examples of previous institutes within this theme: Learning From and Valuing Belonging on Evergreen’s 1000-Acre Campus; Write that Book! Invigorating Teaching and Learning through Scholarly Exploration; Evergreen’s Roots: Documenting our Oral History; What if We Worked Together? Advancing Educational Equity Across and Between Local K-16 Systems]

 

Equity Goals

The Summer Institutes center specific equity goals for the benefit of participating conveners, faculty, and staff. Proposed institutes with a significant emphasis on these goals will be designated in the program as an option to fulfill the Equity and Inclusion Training Requirement.

If you have questions about these goals or would like assistance or support with framing the equity goals in your proposal, please contact learningandteaching@evergreen.edu.

 

Submission Guidelines

Submit proposals using the online form no later than February 12. The form includes fields requesting the following information:

Convener Information

• Name and email address for each convener
• Convener Experience (first-time conveners are encouraged)

Summer Institute Program Information

• Institute theme (choose from above themes)
• Institute title (10 word limit)
• Institute description (150-word limit)

Activities & Goals

• Participant learning goals
• Plan for participant engagement
  Reflect on the institute you planned and describe how you will engage participants in their own learning.  What activities will you offer to guide participants towards the goals you articulated above?
• Equity goals
  How will the institute you have planned address the following equity goals?  What activities will you offer to support meeting these goals?
  1. Closing opportunity gaps for students historically underserved in higher education (BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, undocumented, immigrant, living with disabilities, first in family to attend college, housing insecure). 
  2. Promoting equitable learning communities through culturally-affirming/anti-racist pedagogies and/or inclusive teaching strategies. 
  3. Redressing systemic inequities at Evergreen such as institutional racism, gender-based discrimination and violence, and ableist structures.

Logistics

• Institute length (0.5-2 days)
• Scheduling preferences
• Preferred number of participants (10-40)
• Virtual option – If your Summer Institute would be best facilitated virtually, please select scheduling preferences and provide a written justification for a virtual session. Note: The Learning and Teaching Commons can only support a limited number of virtual summer institutes. Conveners are responsible for coordinating IT support as necessary.
• Additional requests

Upon submission of a proposal, the lead convener should receive an automatic message confirming receipt of the proposal. If you do not receive this message please contact us at learningandteaching@evergreen.edu. Conveners will be notified no later than March 11th.

Review Criteria

2024 Summer Institute titles and descriptions will be shared with Evergreen faculty via a survey in late February to collect broad feedback from our community. Proposals will be reviewed by faculty serving on the Summer Institute Planning (SIP) Group who will design the program based on faculty feedback and the criteria provided below, as well as budgetary and other logistical considerations. 

Criteria	Description
Curriculum Development	advances institutional capacities to build and sustain curricular coherence and stability.
Theme Alignment	aligns with themes articulated in the call for proposals.
Student Learning and Success	centers student success and has a high potential to yield improvements in student retention and graduation or increase enrollments.
Participant Engagement	contains a clear and convincing plan for engaging participants in their own learning through a variety of activities and assignments that support multimodal learning.
Equity-producing	Proposed institute aligns with one or more of the following equity-producing goals  Closing opportunity gaps for students historically underserved in higher education (BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, undocumented, immigrant, living with disabilities, first in family to attend college, housing insecure). Promoting equitable learning communities through culturally-affirming/anti-racist pedagogies and/or inclusive teaching strategies. Redressing systemic inequities at Evergreen such as institutional racism, gender-based discrimination and violence, and ableist structures.