Call for Papers

 

Program Chairs: Gerald Savage and Kirk St. Amant

 

Deadline Extended: June 16, 2008

 

Thirty-five years ago, a group of educators came together in Minneapolis, MN to examine how the context in which technical and scientific communication programs existed affected the nature of those programs.  That group called itself the Council for Programs in Technical and Scientific Communication (CPTSC), and since its founding, a central objective of CPTSC has been to examine the contexts in which programs in technical and scientific communication are developed and delivered. 

 

Over time, a variety of forces have changed the contexts in which professional practices, research foci, and educational approaches in technical and scientific communication occur. The nature of technical and scientific communication has, in turn, evolved in response to changing technical, organizational, social, and cultural contexts.  Academic programs in technical and scientific communication have similarly changed and adapted to address such factors.  For these reasons, the 35th anniversary of CPTSC’s founding marks an important time for members to consider how constant contextual changes have affected, are affecting, and are likely in the future to affect our programs.  The 35th annual conference, in turn, brings CPTSC back to Minneapolis, MN, the site, or geographic context, of CPTSC’s first annual meeting in order to examine this theme.

 

As program administrators, we need to understand not only simple causes and effects but also the complex contexts out of which changes affecting programs arise. The 2008 Annual Conference of the CPTSC wishes to address these ideas by inviting proposals for presentations that examine how contextual factors from local to global, may influence and be influenced by technical communication programs, directly or indirectly. Such contextual factors might include academic resources, geography, demographics, natural environment and climate, economic climate and budgets, social and cultural situations, politics, and of course, developments in technology and science. We welcome a variety of perspectives and approaches—historical, pragmatic, empirical, or theoretical.

 

As we consider the past, present, and future contexts of our programs, we would also like to celebrate the life of Victoria Mikelonis, who invited us to Minneapolis for our 35th anniversary, and who passed away on August 14, 2007. She was present at the founding of CPTSC and was vital in many ways to the continuing development of our field.

 

Possible Topic Areas

Suggested topic areas for CPTSC conference proposals include but are not limited to examinations of the following (some of these topics could be addressed from historical perspectives or from perspectives that look to the future):

 

  • How might technical communication programs reach beyond the contingencies of their localities to have a more far-reaching impact?
  • How do service-area populations shape program design and delivery?
  • What role should service learning play in the current and future development of programs?
  • What strategies have programs developed for sustaining and extending their mission in times of budget troubles and economic downturns?
  • In what ways are programs affected by and responding to emerging socio-cultural changes such as changing literacies, socio-cultural diversity awareness, linguistic diversity, changes in practices and attitudes toward health care, or social networking practices and technologies?
  • How should programs address local-to-global changes in climate and other aspects of the natural environment?
  • In what ways do programs respond to the political contexts in which technical communication is implicated (e.g., electoral processes, international diplomacy, immigration politics, national security, and education reform politics)?
  • How might the context affecting technical and scientific community change in the future, what forces might cause such changes, and what can technical communication programs do to address such forces effectively?
  • How have the changing contexts affecting graduate education led to new and different generations of educators who have different objectives for programs?
  • How are online media changing the contexts in which technical communication programs provide education to a changing student base?

 

The CPTSC conference emphasizes discussion. The audience includes people from new, as well as established, programs and anyone with programmatic interests in technical and scientific communication. We welcome participants – administrators, faculty, and graduate students – from secondary, community college, or university levels, as well as representatives of industry.

 

Two kinds of presentation options are available at the CPTSC Annual Conference:

 

Position Paper

Position paper presentations must adhere to the following guidelines:

 

  • Participants present five-minute position papers on programmatic issues (rather than reports of specialized research or presentations of particular teaching strategies) in order to generate discussion.
  • Format does not allow for slide show presentations.
  • Proceedings, published after the conference, often include expanded versions of position papers.
  • Proceedings will include only those papers presented at the meeting.

 

Poster Presentation

Poster presentations must adhere to the following guidelines:

 

  • Participants make five-minute poster presentations on programmatic issues.

Details on submitting proposals through the conference website will be noted in an updated version of this call that will be circulated later this spring.

 

Sample proposals for last year’s CPTSC conference are available at www.cptsc.org/conferences/2008UofM/ so interested individuals might review them in preparation for crafting their own proposals for the 2008 CPTSC Conference.

 

Proposals for both Position Papers and Poster Presentations must explicitly note how the presenters will address both programmatic issues and the conference theme in the related paper or poster presentation.

 

Deadline

Proposals are due by 5:00pm Eastern Standard Time on June 6, 2008
For program questions, please contact Program Chairs: CPTSC2008@gmail.com