The LOEX 2023 Fall Focus Conference Planning Committee invites you to submit session proposals for consideration to the conference. The conference will be held, in an online format, on two or three days over November 8-15, 2023 (exact dates will be finalized by September 8: update -- it is Nov 13-15).
Format
- For this online conference, there is only one type of full-length breakout session:
- Presentation: A 50-minute session that includes time for a 40-45 minute presentation and 5-10 minutes of question and answer. Most feature a successful program, practice or key issue related to instruction or information literacy. The exact number of attendees won't be known until the session takes place. Presenter(s) should include in the proposal a description of the topic and an outline of the presentation.
Proposal Focus
- Proposals should be written to address one of the two focuses of the conference:
- Focus 1: Welcoming and Engaging Students New to Your Institution
- It has always been vital for colleges & universities to introduce & acclimate students to the academic, cultural and social aspects of the institution. This has become even more important in the past few years, as students arrive with a wide-variety of societal stressors that have affected both their personal and academic lives.
- But new students are not a monolith—they join our institutions at different ages with different experiences, have different needs, and might be seeking different academic goals for different reasons. The library plays an important part in welcoming this diverse set of students during their time of transition and this needs to be done not as an information dump, but in an engaging, inclusive manner.
- How have you adjusted your orientation programs to make it more pedagogically sound while also a better fit for the needs of today’s students? How have you increased students' belonging and persistence at their new institution, particularly those in underrepresented groups? What tools & techniques have you continued to use from the shift to off-campus/online learning? Who have you collaborated with (e.g., First Year Writing Program, Office of Student Success; faculty members) to create new or revise existing programming? What concepts & theories have you focused on to increase the chances new students will feel included? How have you assessed the success of your initiatives and identified areas for improvement? We want to know how you have addressed these elements, and more, with students new to your institution such as:
- - First-Year Students
- - Transfer Students
- - Graduate Students
- - Dual Enrollment/High School Students
- Be sure to consider subgroups that can be found within new students such as:
- - International Students
- - Students with Disabilities
- - Nontraditional Students (e.g., Adult Learners)
- - Underrepresented Students
- - Student-Athletes
- Focus 2: Building and Sustaining a Supportive Professional Community at Your Library
- It is not just students who have faced a challenging past few years; librarians & their co-workers have as well. Professional development budgets have been cut; headcount has been reduced, librarians are required to "do more with less"; political actors increasingly involve themselves in personnel and curriculum decisions; personal schedules require delicate balancing to manage increasingly complex demands. It is thus critical that a supportive community be developed in order to reduce the chances for burnout & overwork and also increase the opportunities for personal & professional growth. We would like to hear about how you have built, and ideally sustained, a professional community to allow growth to continue.
- Have you developed new and inclusive approaches to onboarding new colleagues? Have you provided professional development opportunities focused on support and collaboration, such as Communities of Practice or Reflective Practice? How have you worked with student workers and/or staff to enable them to grow and become a more valued & valuable part of the library? Does your library contribute to larger campus initiatives for retaining and supporting faculty and staff? How do you get feedback from departing colleagues to get a fuller picture of the organization? These communities might be made up and be in support of:
- - Library Colleagues
- - Student Workers
- - Units/Departments Outside the Library (e.g., FDC; Student Success Center; English Department)
- - Organizations External to the College/University
Submission Information
- ***The deadline for proposal submissions was August 31, 2023; proposals are no longer being accepted.***
- ***Thanks to everyone who submitted a proposal!***
- Proposals can be submitted only through the ***online submission form*** and must be received by Thursday, August 31, 2023. The primary contact for the proposal will receive an automated email indicating receipt of the proposal when it is submitted and will be notified if the proposal has been accepted for presentation by Thursday, September 21, 2023.
- If your proposal is accepted, then up to three presenters will be automatically registered for the conference and required to pay registration in full by the due date in early November.
- All proposals must include the following:
- - Session title (limit 20 words)
- - Short description of the session (limit 100 words)
- - Long description of the session (limit 500 words)
- - List of 1-3 learning outcomes (visit Tips on Writing Learning Outcomes from the University Library at UIUC for guidance)
- - Type of audience(s) for which the session is intended
- You do not need to be a LOEX member to submit a conference proposal. We accept the best proposals, regardless of institution or membership. LOEX membership only matters for general registration, which begins Friday, October 13, 2023.
Proposal Timeline
- Thursday, August 31, 2023: Deadline to submit proposals
- Thursday, September 21, 2023: Notification of acceptance of proposal
Proposal Selection Criteria
- Successful proposals will showcase effective and innovative library instruction & information literacy practices, provide valuable information that participants can utilize at their libraries, support collaboration, and be applicable to the broad variety of academic institutions. The committee will be using a rubric to score the proposals. Along with the criteria listed under the session format descriptions, the rubric scores each proposal on: - Content and objectives of presentation
- - Relevance to the selected focus and to the field of library instruction
- - Originality and creativity
- - Demonstrated expertise of the presenter(s) on the topic
- - Methods used to inform and also engage the audience
- All committee members participate in the review process. Each proposal will undergo double-blind peer review by two committee members and be scored based on our rubric. Upon receiving the recommendations of the reviewers, the LOEX Director and conference co-chairs will conduct an equity check to ensure diversity in presenters, institution types, and topics.