Center for Professional Development and Inclusive Excellence <->(C-Hub)

Call for Proposals

C-Hub’s Annual Symposium brings together bold ideas and innovative thinkers to explore themes that enhance our ability to engender excellence through inclusion. Each year, we focus on a specific topic (2021: Inclusive Mentoring; 2022: Inclusive Leadership) to invite the broader community to share their work, insights, and practices. Our 2024 theme, Inclusive Communication, creates a forum for considering the ways in which organizations and individuals can center equity and inclusion to enable maximally effective communication structures and practices to ultimately foster engagement, creativity, and wellbeing. Communication is a two-way process of understanding and being understood. Inclusive communication holds us accountable to our assumptions or biases that may exclude full participation and contribution.

We will hear from keynote speakers who have been instrumental in breaking down barriers to fully participatory engagement. They will raise our awareness of what critical voices, data, and representations are erased when information is biased or access to participation is limited. Their work will inspire us to take action in our own roles and environments.

We welcome attendees across Japan and internationally from the university, non-profit, and private sector, including but not limited to faculty, students, administrative staff, researchers, postdocs, and executives.

Dates: March 7-8, 2024

Venue: Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST) in Okinawa, Japan

For invited speakers/panelists please check HERE.

We invite proposals for sessions that will comprise the final program. All symposium participants are eligible to submit a proposal. The deadline for submissions is December 8, 2023 (JST). Proposals will be reviewed by the organizing committee with decisions announced December 22, 2023. More details are described in the following sections.

DEADLINE: [December 8th, 23:59, JST]

Session types

Participants can propose to organize and host the following categories of sessions. In addition to, or in lieu of the proposal categories below, participants can submit a poster presentation to the scheduled symposium poster session on a topic related to the symposium theme.

The person that submits will be our main point of contact for the presentation and will be responsible for notifying other members of their proposal (if the proposal has multiple authors). All sessions will be conducted in English. Our goal is to have significant diversity among our presenters and in our session topics.

For all sessions, we ask that presenters and facilitators promote a respectful environment for the discussion of ideas and perspectives.

Panel discussions (45min)

Panel discussion themes should be related to inclusive communication. A panel should comprise no more than 5 panelists and last up to 45 minutes in total. Panel discussions can include case studies to present the success of a project/team, achievements, and how barriers were overcome.

Professional development sessions (45min)

These sessions should be organized in a workshop-like manner to teach strategies and/or skills related to inclusive leadership. Professional development sessions should be designed to last 45 minutes.

Birds-of-a-Feather/Shared Interests Sessions (45min)

These sessions are informal gatherings of people interested in a particular topic. They can feature a presentation, roundtable, or a demonstration followed by discussion, announcements, sharing of strategies, and the opportunity to network and meet new colleagues.

Poster Submission

Participants are welcome to submit a poster for the symposium poster session. Please scroll down to the Proposal Submissions instructions below to submit a poster.

Components of the proposal

Contact information for main presenter and all co-presenters (all presenters and co-presenters should be registered as participants in the event)

Session title (no more than 10 words)
Session abstract (no more than 100 words)
Session format (not to exceed 45 minutes)
Designation of intended audience
Session description (no more than 300 words):
- Brief description of the session topic.
- State expected outcomes for session participants.
- Outline the session activities and plan for interaction.
- Meaningfully connect your proposal to the symposium theme.
Audiovisual and infrastructure requests (checkboxes).

Please note that you are responsible for bringing your own laptop.

We strive to host inclusive, accessible events that enable all participants, including individuals with disabilities, to engage fully. To request an accommodation or for inquiries about accessibility, please share your needs or accommodations to C-Hub@oist.jp

Review process

If you need any help organizing a session or developing ideas, please reach out to us at C-Hub@oist.jp. All submitted proposals will be reviewed by members of the ICS organizing committee for their format adequacy, clarity of purpose, pertinence, and efforts to promote diversity.

Proposal Submissions

Please read and adhere to the code of conduct that is applicable to the symposium:

Symposium Code of Conduct

Questions?

We are always happy to support the development of proposals and provide feedback. Please contact C-Hub@oist.jp with questions.