Call for Proposals
Baltimore calls us to be movers and shakers, to locate ourselves amid diversity and forge new and vibrant ways to connect and to sustain life through science, literature, social science , business, education, art and culture.
Honors students, under the guidance of their faculty advisors, are encouraged to submit proposals for paper presentations, interactive workshops, poster presentations, or roundtable discussions at our annual conference. Faculty are encouraged to submit proposals for faculty-led creative workshops or with their students for the interactive workshops.
Submissions accepted until November 15, 2011
Notifications by December 15, 2011
Faculty-Led Creative Workshops NEW!!!!
In response to conference feedback, the 2012 conference is adding interactive workshops. Friday afternoon on April 13 faculty are invited to submit a one to two-hour creative workshop proposal. There are on and offsite multiple use space venues available. Your proposal should include details of logistics, a material budget (if any), and the amount of participants that you can accommodate.
Creative workshop themes that include the culture and creative community of the City of Baltimore are desired: Eubie Blake; A. Aubrey Bodine; Grace Hartigan; Barry Levinson; H. L. Menckin; Edgar Allen Poe; Anne Tyler; John Waters are a few suggestions. Our conference theme, Competing Claims: Divisions and Coalitions, is also a source of departure for these workshops.
Reviewed by Lori Rubeling, Professor of Art, Stevenson University
Interactive Workshops NEW!!!!
In response to conference feedback, the 2012 conference is adding a session of interactive workshops led by students on Saturday afternoon, April 14, following lunch, from 1:40-2:55. Faculty, as part of this Student-Led session, are welcome to participate. This new workshop is designed to overcome after lunch nap syndrome by engaging participants and their senses interactively.
Get your audience up and moving with a simulation game, a song and dance fest, a drumming exercise, any educational activity that speaks to our conference theme: Competing Claims: Divisions and Coalitions. Review the strands listed below to explore the various topics that can be explored interactively from a variety of disciplines.
Reviewed by Margaret Roman, Professor of English, College of Saint Elizabeth
Paper presentations should be short, formal presentations that touch on conference themes. Papers should be planned for 10-12 minute presentations to allow time for discussion.
Important Note: Papers should not be read. Presenters of papers should prepare formal presentations that summarize key issues the paper examines rather than reading the paper to the audience. The presenter may also choose to highlight critical aspects of the inquiry process, including but not limited to the following: What challenges were encountered? What unexpected or exciting discoveries were made? How has the presenter's understanding of the discipline changed as a result of the inquiry?
AV Equipment Policy and Process
Conference Theme Strands
We invite members to examine the concept of competing claims and the divisions and coalitions that have resulted from that dynamic interaction in the arts and humanities, social sciences, business and technology, natural and applied sciences, and education.
Paper Presentations - Conference Theme Strands
Arts and Humanities
Business
Education
Science and Technology
Social Sciences
Strand Descriptions:
Arts and Humanities
Baltimore is a “City of Firsts.” Many of these initiatives fall under the umbrella of the arts and humanities, including the first city magazine, first municipal orchestra, and first black newspaper chain. Baltimore lays claim to many celebrated artists and musicians whose work you may choose to explore, including abstract painters Elaine Hamilton O’Neal and Lee Gatch, sculptor Jeff Koons, publisher Henry Holt, composer Eubie Blake, musicians Tori Amos, Tupac Shakur, photographer Emily Spencer Hayden, filmmaker John Waters, actors Edward Norton, Kathleen Turner, Jada Pinkett Smith, and Oprah Winfrey. Many writers have called Baltimore home including Edgar Allan Poe, Adrienne Rich, Gertrude Stein, Frank O’Hara, Ogden Nash, Upton Sinclair, Anne Tyler, and National Book Award winner Jaimy Gordon. Historical figure Frederick Douglass’s autobiography continues to challenge the reality of racism in this country.
No celebrated figure appears on the scene without competing with or evolving from those who have gone before him or her. Those who forge new ways of thinking, writing, and creating; those who forge new ideas in philosophical thought or historical movements; those who contribute to the continuing evolution of language and ways to communicate, always do so by analyzing existing frameworks and departing or evolving from that point. The poet William Blake described creativity as an occurrence only within “contrarieties”—a clash between forces in order to produce something new.
This strand seeks proposals that examine those conflicting claims and the divisions and alliances that accompany them as they are explored in the arts and humanities. Proposers may want to consider the ways in which the fields of music, literature, history, languages, visual and performance arts, religion, philosophy and communication have evolved because of competing perspectives.
Reviewed by Dr. Kathy Cooke, Quinnipiac University
and Dr. Ross Wheeler, Queens College
Education
Baltimore County claims to be one of the most educated communities in the United States with twenty-five major colleges and universities in the metropolitan Baltimore area, including Johns Hopkins University, the first research university in the United States. With the national focus on outcomes-based decision making in education, educational research provides fertile ground for competing claims. This strand encourages proposals that explore the coalitions and divisions that have formed in the area of education. The following list serves as an invitation to consider competing claims in education:
1. Teacher unions
2. School vouchers
3. For-profit educational institutions
4. Distance learning
5. Technology in the classroom
6. National and state standards and testing
7. Department of Education, State Boards of Education, and Local School Boards
8. Charter schools
9. Assessment
Obviously, countless other educational issues provide avenues for exploring competing claims: coalitions and divisions; all proposals are welcome.
Reviewed by Julia Fennell, Community College of Allegheny County
Business
Baltimore’s Inner Harbor, the site of our 2012 NRHC Annual Conference, demonstrates the power of coalitions to create environments in which businesses can thrive. For example, the Waterfront Partnership, Inc. has as its mission promoting and maintaining the Inner Harbor Waterfront as a desirable destination for locals and tourists; however, this mission is not accomplished without controversy over fair and appropriate distribution of funding. Historically, Baltimore was not a tourist destination but rather a working port city with its share of labor disputes. The Great Railroad Strike of 1877 claimed ten lives in Baltimore with bloody clashes between railroad workers and supporters and the National Guard over wage cuts to railroad workers across the country.
This strand encourages proposals that explore competing claims in business. The following list of possible issues serves as an invitation to consider coalitions and divisions as they relate to business:
1. Labor unions
2. Trade agreements
3. Corporate tax rates
4. Environmental standards
5. Global markets and economies
6. Executive compensation
7. Regulation and deregulation
8. Foreign exchange and currency
9. Stock markets
10. Unemployment
Obviously, countless other business issues provide avenues for exploring competing claims: coalitions and divisions; all proposals are welcome.
Reviewed by Julia Fennell, Community College of Allegheny County
Science and Technology
Urban Environments are efficient networks and dynamic exchange centers. The ubiquitous daily delivery of cell phone service, commodities, energy, water, and sanitation services are examples of urban networks and exchange centers in action. Without these delivery systems communicating with one another, feeding our families, the efficiency of our daily commute, the heating and cooling of our home and work environments, and waste removal would become overwhelming daily tasks.
This strand seeks proposals that focus on science and technology knowledge and production as agents of progress; reports on how scientific and technological progress affects behavior and identity; and presentations of scientific and technological progress unintended consequences. Science fiction subjects that speculate on future science and technology progress are also desired.
Reviewed by Lori Rubeling, Professor of Art, Stevenson University
Social Sciences
This strand seeks proposals that explore competing perspectives, methodologies, and explanatory models within the social sciences. Of particular interest are presentations that challenge prevalent theories and/or the use innovative research technologies that yield new understandings.
Disciplines within the social sciences study many of the same human phenomena, but from different epistemologies. Consider how poverty, addiction, and power are investigated by the psychologist, the economist, the sociologist, or the geographer. To what extent can knowledge be gained and the human condition improved by discipline-specific inquiry versus inter-disciplinary approaches?
How is the behavior of individuals, groups or societies governed by the interaction of competing forces, agendas, and motivations? What have we learned from quantitative and qualitative studies of complex and multivariate human phenomena?
How do you as a scholar sort through competing claims published in journals, textbooks, and in the classroom? For any topic that we study within the realm of social science, must we embrace skepticism, ambiguity, and conditionality? And at what point do we act as informed, but uncertain citizens?
Reviewed by Dr. Joanna Gonsalves, Salem State College
Roundtables and Posters
Roundtables: Roundtables are designed to provide students working at different schools and in different disciplines an opportunity to discuss shared topics and concerns. Students submitting round table presentations should be aware of the following guidelines:
1. Students should expect to present a short (5 minute) summary of their own work and then spend most of the time at the table in discussion.
2. No more than two students should submit the same proposal. (If students have worked in larger groups and all wish to submit, they should submit separate proposals emphasizing different aspects of their joint work. These smaller groups will then be placed at different tables.)
3. Moderators will run discussion at each table. Students should be prepared to respond flexibly to the moderator’s questions and to share discussion time with other students at the table.
Posters: This is a great place to showcase student research in all disciplines. Posters should be prepared on a tri-fold board, or a similar self-supporting framework that can rest on the tables that will be provided by the hotel.
Reviewed by Dr. Ross Wheeler, Queens College
LINK TO SUBMIT PROPOSALS:
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/nrhc2012