Annual conference

The Call for Presentations Is Open!

NISOD’s International Conference on Teaching and Leadership Excellence, May 24-27, 2025, in Austin, Texas, offers an engaging and inspiring platform for community and technical college faculty, staff, and administrators of all experience levels to exchange practical insights and effective practices that enhance college teaching and learning. Whether you’re a first-time presenter or a seasoned contributor, we encourage you to seize this opportunity to share your expertise with a community of peers dedicated to advancing educational excellence.

Presenting at NISOD’s International Conference on Teaching and Leadership Excellence offers a range of benefits for educators:

  • Professional Recognition: Showcase your expertise and innovative practices in front of an international audience of educators and leaders in community and technical colleges.
  • Networking Opportunities: Connect with colleagues from across the globe, opening doors to potential collaborations, partnerships, and career growth.
  • Contribute to the Field: Share your research, teaching strategies, and leadership practices, helping to shape the future of higher education by providing valuable insights and solutions to common challenges.
  • Professional Development: Gain valuable feedback, learn from other presentations, and expand your knowledge on the latest trends and best practices in teaching, learning, and leadership.
  • Enhance Your Institution’s Visibility: Represent your institution at a prestigious conference, highlighting its commitment to innovation and excellence in education.
  • Presenter Perk: Presenters receive $100 registration discount off of the early-bird registration rate.

Presenting at NISOD’s conference is an excellent way to make a lasting impact on the educational community while growing both personally and professionally.

Breakout Sessions represent the core of the conference offerings and feature a successful practice, program, or key issue. These sessions can be delivered via a single speaker or a small panel of speakers. PowerPoint slides are encouraged, and each session should include 10-15 minutes for Q & A interaction with the audience.

  • Breakout sessions may be set classroom-style or theatre-style and can accommodate 40-100 participants.
  • Breakout Session rooms are equipped with a laptop, data projector, speakers, and screen.

Make-and-Take Workshops bring faculty together to learn a successful pedagogical technique. Examples might include group activities that help students apply their learning, innovative assessment ideas, or innovative ways to incorporate technology in teaching. Demonstrated tools should be generic enough that they can be applicable to a wide range of subjects.

  • Workshop leader(s) present their technique to participants as though they were students in a classroom.
  • Workshop leader(s) then help participants workshop the technique to adapt for their own use.
  • Workshop rooms are equipped with a laptop, data projector, speakers, and screen.
  • Sessions will be set classroom-style and can accommodate 40 participants.

Campfire Sessions are small, informal, and conversational sessions designed to encourage peer-to-peer learning and group discussion. Some characteristics of a campfire session are:

  • A facilitator or group leader (limit 2) presents a topic for 15-30 minutes, then guides the group in discussion.
  • Campfire Session rooms will be set in a U-shape to facilitate discussion, with seating for no more than 30 individuals.
  • No technology is provided. Facilitators may bring their battery-powered laptop, if needed.

All session formats are one hour.

Teaching and Learning: This track focuses on innovative pedagogical strategies and student-centered practices, offering educators the tools and insights needed to enhance teaching effectiveness, foster student engagement, and improve learning outcomes in community college classrooms. 

Community and Workforce Partnerships: This track focuses on successful partnerships between educational institutions and industry, government, or non-profits.

Equitable Opportunity and Outcomes: This track focuses on initiatives, best practices, and research that foster equitable and inclusive environments for diverse student populations.

Student Success and Retention: This track focuses on strategies, programs, or research focused on improving student retention, persistence, and completion rates.

Student Services, Support, and Well-Being: This track focuses on empowering student services professionals with strategies to enhance student engagement, support student well-being, and promote inclusive, equitable services that contribute to overall student success.

SPECIAL FOCUS TRACKS

Leadership and Governance. Submissions in this track will be considered for the Administrator Series, held on Monday, May 26, as well as for the general conference program. This track focuses on strategic, operational, and student-centered topics critical to institutional success.

Leading From the Middle. Submissions in this track will be considered for the Department Chair Series, held on Monday, May 26, as well as for the general conference program. This track focuses on preparing new and aspiring department chairs for the multifaceted responsibilities of academic leadership at a community college.

All submissions go through a blind, peer-review process by a proposal review committee. Members use this rubric to evaluate proposals. Because this is a blind review process, anonymity must be maintained in the proposal or it will be automatically excluded.

To present at the NISOD’s annual conference, you must:

  1. Be employed by a community college, technical college, or not-for-profit organization or university, or
  2. Represent a conference sponsor.
  3. Be available to present any day of the conference: Sunday, May 25; Monday, May 26; or Tuesday, May 27.

Before submitting your proposal, we recommend downloading and completing a Word version of the proposal form so that you can do a spell/grammar check. Then copy/paste the information into the online form. We have also created a proposal writing guide with suggestions on how to make your proposal shine.

The deadline for submitting a proposal is February 21, 2025.

Confirmation of accepted proposals will be sent by March 5, 2025.

Presenters are responsible for their own conference registration, lodging, travel arrangements, and duplication of session handouts.

Presenters receive $100 discount off the early-bird rate.