QUWAC Fall 2012 Conference – New Vistas (Deadline Extended to 6/29!)

Fourth Biennial  International Critical Thinking and  Writing Conference: New Vistas: WAC/WID Intersections in the 21st Century

Conference Date: Nov. 16-17, 2012
Quinnipiac University (Mount Carmel Campus)
Hosted by the College of Arts and Sciences, QUWAC, and the Research and Writing Institute

Keynote Speaker: Barbara Walvoord, professor emerita (Notre Dame University)
Walvoord has consulted or led workshops at more than 350 institutions of higher education throughout the U.S. on WAC, WID, assessment, teaching, and learning.

Deadline for Proposals: June 29, 2012

Send your 250-300 word abstract to Paul Pasquaretta, Director the Research and Writing Institute: paul.pasquaretta@quinnipiac.edu. We welcome both individual proposals and panel proposals. Individual papers/presentations will be held to 20 minutes in length; panels will be held to 90 minutes total, with time left at the end of every session for questions.

Quinnipiac University’s fourth biennial international conference on critical thinking and writing will be framed around the effects WAC and WID programs have upon the teaching of critical thinking and writing in major programs of study, general education cores, and first-year composition. To advance a collaborative dialogue about writing across and within the disciplines, we invite disciplinary faculty and writing specialists to share their experience engaging WAC and WID programs and strategies. In addition to investigating theoretical concerns, presenters are encouraged to provide practical, research-based techniques and strategies that promote critical thinking and writing in a variety of contexts across the spectrum of liberal arts and sciences, business, health sciences, communications, and education. In focusing on these effects, organizers hope to create a forum to consider several related questions:

• How are WAC and WID programs implicated in critical thinking and writing pedagogies in the disciplines?
• If the responsibility for critical thinking and writing is being shifted over to the departments, where does the work of writing specialists and disciplinary faculty meet?
• Where and how might we work together in ways that support the global aims of undergraduate education and stronger learning outcomes in the majors?
• What is critical thinking within a given disciplinary context? What does the writing look like that captures that thinking?
• What specific writing strategies and techniques have been found to foster critical thinking and disciplinary expertise in the majors?

Presenters will be invited to submit their papers for review for publication in the inaugural edition of Double Helix: A Journal of Critical Thinking and Writing (http://qudoublehelixjournal.org/index.php/dh/index)

The registration fee for the full conference (Friday and Saturday) is $300 and includes receptions, dinner, and all meals; keynote address, and all presentations. The cost for Saturday only is $150.

Rooms are available at the Clarion Hotel and Suites on Whitney Avenue in Hamden for a conference rate of $109/night. Frequent shuttle service will be provided from the hotel to the conference site at no extra charge. For reservations, call the Clarion directly at 203-288-3831; or email Falisha Smith at fsmith@Clarion-Hamden.com.
For more information about New Vistas, contact Paul Pasquaretta, director of the Quinnipiac University Research and Writing Institute, at 203-582-8509, or paul.pasquaretta@quinnipiac.edu.