World Communication Association-North America 2016 CONFERENCE
THEME: COMMUNICATION AND CULTURE IN A SUSTAINABLE WORLD
AUGUST 2-6, 2016
WINNIPEG, MANITOBA, CANADA, RBC Convention Centre
Submission deadline extended to March 30, 2016
Our world is increasingly fraught with failures to communicate and clashes between people and among cultures. The world as we know it changing due to our collective behaviors. We need many perspectives as we discuss how to address sustainability, communication and cultural issues. One way to do so is to provide an international, interdisciplinary conference where academics and people from all areas of the economic and cultural sector address specific concerns and solutions. This WCA-North America conference theme allows each participant to gain from the collective wisdom to find ways to negotiate the journey to find answers. This conference is distinctive in that we provide opportunities for students to consider applications in a variety of formats as well as aboriginal speakers and storytellers whose unique perspectives provide food for thought and action.
Categories
1. Student opportunities:
a. Student-Only: Students may submit their papers or panels to the student-only sessions where they will not be in competition with faculty or community submissions. (Be sure to note student status.) Students, may, of course, also submit in the general categories.
b. Poster sessions: Students with research in progress, teaching ideas, or completed research projects may submit their work in the poster session category. Those selected will share their work in specific sessions with a 10-minute rotating schedule. We encourage students at all levels to submit their ideas. We’d love to have High School, Undergraduate and Graduate students presenting side-by-side!
c. Mentoring sessions: Students should indicate their interest in these sessions and we will match content and methodology experts to help you discover ways to move forward, ways to provide a unique perspective, or, ways to flesh out ideas for your classroom or degree research.
2. Storytellers & storytelling:
a. Featured Storytellers: Give us your ideas based on a captivating story–include an abstract-should be up to a 60-minute presentation followed by interaction with audience and questions and answers
b. Stand-Alone Storytelling Sessions: Send us an abstract for a 15-20- minute story especially those on any aspect of the conference theme. Submit an abstract and the amount of time needed for your story. Stories will be combined so 2-4 storytellers with similar themes present together. [Followed by a question and answer session.]
3. General PAPER AND PANEL-60 minutes for presentation followed by audience interaction (15-minutes).
WORKS IN PROGRESS (nearly completed): Please submit an abstract and note when completed paper is expected. (Blind reviewed–use separate cover page with title, name and institutional affiliation.)
COMPLETE PAPERS: Please submit paper and include an abstract.
(Blind reviewed-send papers and abstracts without names. Use separate cover page with name(s), affiliations, and title.
PANELS: Include title of panel, identify chair and members on the panel and their institutions as well as titles of presentations, if relevant, and a brief description (75-100 words) of the session.
4. THEMATIC PANELS: Presenters may take the whole or any part of the conference theme and develop a panel of up to six participants who explore the theme. Please identify Names of chair and panelists, institutional affiliations, title of specific presentations, and a brief description. (75 min.)
5. Workshops: Provide a Title, names of presenters and their affiliations, description of the workshop, and time needed/required. (75 min.)
Important Dates:
Submission deadline–March 10-15, 2016
Notification–April 10-15, 2016
July 1, 2016–Full Papers due
Send submissions and any questions to conference co-chairs:
Melissa L. Beall OR Dwight R. Harfield
Center for Intercultural Dialogue 