College & University Faculty Assembly
of the National Council for the Social Studies 
2023 Annual Conference

Cultivating Cacophony: World-Building Within the Intersections of Resistance, Hope, and Healing

November 29-December 1, 2023 • Nashville, TN

Deadline extended to March 27, 2023

This year’s program will include individual papers, roundtables, symposia, research-into-practice (RIP) sessions, contemporary issues dialogues (CIDs), and following last year’s conference, story circles. We are also introducing a new format: beyond-conference engagements (BCEs). We also plan to have featured speakers, pre-conference workshops, and unconference spaces throughout the conference. 

As the number of submissions to CUFA has increased in recent years, we are continuing two changes that were implemented for the past three years. First, in order to ensure a range of presenters and diverse voices across the CUFA program, we are limiting individuals to three accepted presentations (not including serving as discussant and/or chair). Individuals may submit multiple papers, symposia, and other proposals; however, those who have more than three accepted proposals will be notified and asked to determine which three proposals they wish to present by June 9th. Second, similar to the submission process for NCSS, proposals must indicate one of the CUFA conference subthemes with which the submission most closely aligns: More-Than-Conference Worlds, World-Building Together, and Intersectional World-Building. Thus, priority will be given to those proposals that thoughtfully engage with the 2023 CUFA CFP.

Proposal Format and Instructions

Please read the full 2023 Call for Proposals before submitting.

All proposals are due March 27, 2023, by 11:59 pm Hawaiian Standard Time (HST). Please fill out the electronic submission form. To preserve the integrity of the peer review process, please do not include the names or affiliations of authors and presenters in the proposal document. To erase metadata in Word, go to File > Properties > Summary and erase authorship metadata. The Program Chairs reserve the right to disqualify submissions in which authors' identifying information is revealed. The Program Chairs also receive the right to disqualify published or previously presented work. In addition to completing the online proposal submission form, presenters must provide a PDF or Microsoft Word-compatible document that adheres to the guidelines described below. File upload limit through this form is 30MB. If accepted, final papers should be limited to 8,000 words, including references, and are due to discussants by October 31, 2023.

Conference Norms

Presenters in this year’s conference will be asked to abide by norms such as those developed at the 2020 CUFA conference.

• Enter as a listener, learner, and inquirer
• Share the microphone, limit interruptions, and move up/move back when needed
• Speak from your own experience and do not dismiss the experience of others
• Don’t assume identity and don’t ask individuals to speak for their (perceived) social group
• Recognize and acknowledge the difference between intent and impact
• Be accountable for how your words and actions impact others
• Disagreement and discomfort are important; stay in the conversation, even when it is uncomfortable
• Provide feedback that stretches thinking instead of diminishing experiences and perspectives
• Be mentally and physically present in public and private sessions
• Practice self-care
• Take care of each other (e.g., humans and more-than humans)
   

Reviewers, Chairs, & Discussants

Ensuring an engaging, diverse, and quality CUFA annual conference requires your participation as a reviewer, chair, or discussant. Please sign up to serve as a reviewer, chair, and/or discussant by March 27, 2023. This year, we are encouraging chairs and discussants to consider how they plan to welcome presenters and participants into each space. That is, is there a song, poem, physical arrangement of the room, and/or work of art that could be used to invite people to world-build together? We welcome all interpretations of this request that works to foster collegiality and relationality.

More information regarding these roles will be forthcoming. Visit the signup page to enter your personal information, select topics for review, and sign-up to be a chair and/or discussant. Reviewers will refer to the forthcoming guide in their feedback on proposals.

Awards

Individual paper proposals may be self-nominated for two awards: the Kipchoge Neftali Kirkland Social Justice Award and the National Technology Leadership Initiative (NTLI) Fellowship Award. The winners of these awards will be announced at the CUFA business meeting in Nashville (subject to change).

Kipchoge Neftali Kirkland Social Justice Award

This annual award honors the legacy and memory of Kipchoge Neftali Kirkland. The award recognizes social justice related papers presented at the CUFA annual meeting that make a distinguished and significant contribution to promoting social justice in social education research and teaching. Eligible papers should demonstrate an important theoretical, methodological, or empirical contribution in the field of social studies. This award intentionally defines social justice in social studies education broadly as work that contributes to the pursuit of a more equitable and just society.

The National Technology Leadership Initiative (NTLI) Fellowship Award

This award recognizes an exemplary paper related to technology in social studies education. The award grew out of a collaboration between the Society for Information Technology and Teacher Education (SITE), the National Technology Leadership Coalition Initiative and CUFA. This annual SITE/NTLI award recognizes an exemplary technology paper presented at the CUFA conferences. The award recipient(s) are asked to present their paper at the SITE annual conference. The award winning paper is also eligible for publication (following editorial review) in the AACE/CUFA sponsored Journal Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education (www.citejournal.org).

Travel Grants

Support for conference travel and attendance is typically offered by the Scholars of Color Faculty Forum (SoCF), the Small Colleges and Universities Faculty Forum (SCUFF), the Motherscholar Forum, and the Graduate Forum. Calls for travel grant applications are contingent upon available funding and are issued by each forum several months prior to the conference. These calls will be posted on the unofficial conference website and on social media once they are available.

Social Media

Please use the official conference hashtag #CUFA23 and follow @CUFANCSS on Twitter. The unofficial conference website, https://sites.google.com/view/cufa2023/home, has information about the call for proposals, awards, travel grants, and a special section for graduate students. This unofficial conference website will be updated regularly as the conference approaches, and updates will also be posted on the CUFA Facebook page. For general information about CUFA, visit the official website at https://cufa.socialstudies.org/home.

Questions & Inquiries

Conference subthemes are designed to create (cacophonous) cohesion among disparate, and oftentimes siloed, participants, and presentations. We urge potential presenters to consider how their work might align with one of the conference subthemes, so that presentations and presenters might be organized in more powerful conversation with each other, within and across disciplines and areas of study. The subtheme questions and provocations are not required topics, but are intended to guide authors to consider common threads that may push the field of social studies education and research forward. Not all proposals will fit neatly within a single subtheme and we hope that you may consider new areas and audiences that might benefit from your scholarship. Please direct any questions about the call for proposals, proposal submission process, and reviewer sign-up process to the CUFA Program Chairs (Drs. Van Anh Bui-Tran, Denisha Jones, Rebecca Christ, and Bretton Varga) at cufa2023conference@gmail.com.

Presenters and attendees may register for the conference at www.socialstudies.org/conference.