Fall Conference Update and Upcoming Summer Webinars

The SUNY Council on Writing regrets that due to the coronavirus pandemic, the 2020 fall conference will be postponed. This year’s conference would have been held at SUNY Oswego in late October in celebration of the 40th anniversary of the Council’s inception.  We look forward to meeting again in person in 2021, when we can safely wish the Council a belated happy birthday, and will share details as they emerge!

In the meantime, we’ve arranged a few electronic gatherings this fall. The first of these gatherings will take place on Thursday, August 6th at 1pm, when Shyam Sharma (SUNY Stony Brook), Michael O’Connor (Onondaga CC), Laura Davies (SUNY Cortland), Kristina Lucenko (SUNY Stony Brook), and Joelle Mann (University at Binghamton) will host a webinar on “Reflexive and Reflective Pedagogy and Practice.” With an aim towards discussing inclusive and creative instruction, the panel will present some theoretical and pedagogical frameworks while also sharing practical methods and strategies. Some of the topics to be discussed include:

• online student agency
• contract grading
• reflexive discussions
• student presentations
• course policies and procedures
• process-based learning

It is our aim to share and troubleshoot past experiences while also listening to audience members in our community.

You can participate in these and any future webinars. Please feel most welcome to invite colleagues from within your department, as well as other SUNY colleagues. For the Zoom link to the webinar, please email amy-b.wright@purchase.edu.

We hope these webinars will provide a forum for productive exchange and collegial support across the SUNY system.  After an uncertain and difficult spring, we wish to offer a space to share ideas and thoughts while we also reflect upon the best practices and pedagogies of online teaching. It is crucial that we are more fully aware of the challenges that COVID-19 and these uncertain times have on our classroom structure. And while many of us are trying to plan for a variety of classroom configurations–online, hybrid, and face-to-face—we also recognize that our main goal is to create new experiences of active student learning and agency.

Lastly, all are welcome to submit a blog post to SUNY Writes! Please email Web Editor amy-b.wright@purchase.edu with your proposed post, or a short summary of a post in progress.